UPDATE: Dec. 19, 2017, 3:03 p.m. EST The EPA and Definers have parted ways.
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Original piece:
No organization has embraced Donald Trump's war on the press like the Environmental Protection Agency. Now, the EPA has gone beyond even the president's tough talk and into the dark world of political opposition research.
The Environmental Protection Agency has reportedly been using taxpayer money to pay a well-known research firm popular with Republicans in order to monitor — and possibly manipulate — press coverage, according to a report from Mother Jones.
SEE ALSO: Shocking no one, the EPA's Scott Pruitt denies findings of new climate science reportThe revelation adds to growing concern that the EPA, tasked with protecting public health and the environment, is now primarily operating primarily as an anti-regulation, climate change-denying campaign.
The firm, Definers Public Affairs, is known for "oppo," using aggressive tactics to dig up dirt on opposition.
"As political trends seep further into the broader economy, the new company, Definers, is arming clients with the arsenal available to the most well-funded political candidates, including dossiers on their opponents’ strengths and weaknesses, tracking tools to monitor what people are saying in traditional and social media, and a rapid-response operation to shape public fights," wrote the Wall Street Journalin May 2015.
Another report, from the New York Times, found that Allan Blutstein, an executive at Definers, "spent the past year investigating agency employees who have been critical of the Trump administration."
The EPA's relationship with the press has already been incredibly contentious. Aside from being generally unresponsive and combative with journalists, the regulator went to the insane lengths to publicly call out a reporter at the Associated Press who reported on toxic sites in Houston that were flooded by Hurricane Harvey.
This has been compounded by the bizarre moves by EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt. He increased his personal protective detail from a small, daily group of bodyguards to escort him to official events into a large, 24-hour detail that is unprecedented in this history of the agency. He spent $25,000 to create a soundproof booth, perhaps because the organization under his tenure has leaked like a sieve.
Hiring an organization like Definers, however, is the most extreme move yet.
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Government and regulatory agencies including the EPA have used social media for years, including under the Barack Obama administration. The public affairs offices of most agencies will monitor the media and the internet for press coverage.
Those actions, however, are the subject of plenty of scrutiny — especially when they veer into promotion. In one instance, the Government Accountability Office found that the EPA under Obama had violated federal law in using a social media service to push its messaging around a clean water rule with the help of other organizations including the Natural Resources Defense Council.
That finding helped establish a relatively clear bright line about what agencies can and can't do in promoting their message. The EPA can't use public money to engage outside organizations to help push their messages.
The EPA said in a statement that the Definers contract was only for monitoring coverage.
"The Definers contract is for media monitoring/news clip compilation. The contract award was handled through the EPA Office of Acquisition Management and was $87,000 cheaper than our previous media monitoring vendor while offering 24-7 news alerts once a story goes public," said EPA spokesperson Nancy Grantham in an email.
The EPA's claim would seem to indicate that they have contracted one of the most well-known opposition research firms to essentially watch Twitter and see what is said about them. Meanwhile, the regulator has been the subject of so much critical coverage that it has resorted to using clips from Breitbart and something called "Need To Know Network" for positive coverage that it can promote.
This is the kind of thing that just doesn't pass the smell test. There's any number of services that monitor social media and news, almost all of which aren't also connected to firms that are best known for opposition research or issue advocacy. Definer's president, Joe Pounder, was named by GQas one of Washington, D.C.'s most powerful people for his ability to push anti-Obama stories into the media.
"It's like an orchestra. You've got to have all the different instruments playing at the right time. And Pounder's the conductor," a GOP strategist told GQ.
That conductor is now working on behalf of the EPA, though the public is supposed to believe he'll just be watching Twitter.
What's far more believable is that the EPA and Pruitt are going on the offensive after months of brutal coverage about what they're doing to roll back regulations that keep Americans safe. In Definers, the EPA now has the weapon to fight back.
