The face of doubt

EPA complies with FOIA, but gags employees

By Paul Peters

For a short time, it seemed certain the federal government had crossed into a new period of openness and transparency.
Early in his term, President Barack Obama reversed a Bush-era policy that discouraged federal agencies from releasing documents under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).
“The Freedom of Information Act should be administered with a clear presumption,” Obama said. “In the face of doubt, openness prevails.”
On April 23, the Environmental Protection Agency’s new administrator, Lisa Jackson, released a memo calling for greater openness in her agency. This memo included a section that seemed to call for greater access to EPA employees for the media.
Encouraging results from these actions were seen on April 28, when the EPA Office of the Inspector General released a memo that had become known as the “Rumple Report.”
This report revealed that science was being ignored in the EPA’s cleanup of the nation’s worst Superfund site, in Libby, Mont., where more than 250 people have died from exposure to amphibole asbestos, and thousands have been sickened.
The Rumple Report was written by OIG agent Cory Rumple in April of 2006, but the OIG refused to release the document for three years. When it finally did so, it cited Obama’s new policy on FOIA
At that moment, it seemed Obama’s calls for openness in government had been heeded. But it doesn’t appear there has been a sea-change within the EPA, or its Office of the Inspector General, just yet.
In the course of reporting on the report’s release, Asbestos Watch attempted to interview Rumple, perhaps the most obvious source for any story about this important document.
It is clearly in the public’s interest, dealing with pollution that has killed hundreds of people, to hear more from an investigator like Rumple.
In particular, Asbestos Watch would like to learn more about his reasons for writing the report in the first place, his treatment within the OIG after it was written, and whether the issues he has addressed have truly been answered.
But the response from the OIG’s head spokesman, John Manibusan, was that Rumple would not be made available for an interview.
“The report was released last week, and at this point that’s everything we have to say on the issue,” Manibusan said.
Asked why, especially in light of Jackson’s memo, Manibusan responded that, “I can’t give anymore than what I’ve said-that it was a decision internally not to make Cory available.”
Asbestos Watch then appealed directly to the EPA, hoping they would push for Jackson’s memo to be upheld. But on May 14, EPA spokesman Dale Kemery responded via email, writing that the OIG is independent of the EPA, and that his agency could not force the OIG to comply with the memo.
Asbestos Watch has since requested that Montana Sen. Max Baucus, who has prompted inquires into the state of the Libby cleanup in the past, look into the matter. As of now, there is no other apparent recourse for interviewing Rumple.
Part of the reason openness is not prevailing may be that the OIG is still headed by Bill A. Roderick, a holdover from the previous administration, who may still cling to closed government ides of the past. Of course, it’s hard to know for sure, as the Rumple Report is, for now, the agency’s last word on the subject.