It is well noted the industrial legacy media is not covering this story.  Imagine if one of George Bush’s Cabinet Members had created fictitious e-mail accounts to skirt transparency laws and hide their communication.    EPA Head Lisa Jackson, aka Richard Windsor, ain’t just quitting because she wants to pursue another career choice;  She’s quitting because her secret communication was found out and may indeed damage the Obama administration……   

Barack Obama, Lisa JacksonWASHINGTON DC – Republican lawmakers on the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee warned the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Thursday they may take “formal action” to pry information from the department regarding outgoing EPA administrator Lisa Jackson’s use of secret email addresses.

Committee Republicans in a letter said the agency failed to properly respond to requests for records about the use of non-public email accounts by EPA officials, including Jackson.

The GOP-led committee implied a subpoena could be issued if the EPA does not meet its requests, warning “failure to respond may result in formal action requiring EPA’s compliance.”

“The American public deserves to know whether administrator Jackson’s secret email accounts were appropriately maintained by the agency according to requirements by federal law,” Committee Chairman Lamar Smith (R., Tx.) said in a statement.

The chairman said Jackson’s use of a secret account may have been “intended to evade transparency and circumvent congressional oversight.”

The Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) first revealed that Jackson used a secondary email address under the name “Richard Windsor” to conduct official business, a potential violation of Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) disclosure laws.

Lisa Jackson EPA administrator“Richard Windsor” is reportedly the name of Jackson’s family dog.

The EPA is releasing more than 12,000 emails from Jackson’s alias account, “Richard Windsor,” in response to a court order.

The agency released the first of three batches on Jan. 14, but CEI senior fellow Chris Horner said the results were “deeply troubling and seem to have gravely compounded the unlawful activity we have exposed involving a false identity assumed for federal record-keeping purposes.”

Sen. David Vitter (R., La.) also questioned the EPA’s disclosure.

The EPA redacted names in the email. However, Vitter says the FOIA exemption used by EPA does not apply to the released documents.

“This strikes me as incredibly fishy and begs a number of important questions,” Vitter said in a statement. “The EPA needs to honor the president’s pledge of transparency and release these documents without redaction of the administrator’s email address a big first step toward removing the blanket of secrecy in this agency.”

“EPA’s supposed reliance on ‘precedent’ is especially misleading because they’re clearly using a separate and distinct practice than previous administrations,” Vitter said. “And if ‘Richard Windsor’ is no more than a standard work email account, why not share the unredacted versions and prove it to the American public?”  (read more)

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