EPA silences Employee that don't agree with Cap and Trade

First of all, I'm responding from my e-mail notification so excuse me if I repeat something someone else has said! Basically, I don't think any employer has a right to tell employees what they can say or what they can talk about. That having been said, while trying to find more information on this issue I found that this isn't the first time this has happened. It had happened during the Bush Administration but then it was those who were on the opposite "side" of the climate change issue. It's wrong no matter which side is doing it. Why can't there be a civil debate on ANYTHING these days? Annie

Employees should be allowed to speak publicly

Since this administration is supposed to be "open" the there shouldn't be any problem with the EPAs employees speaking out/ In fact as far as I'm concerned they should after all they really are supposed o be working for us. In my o;pinion they have every right to speak out just as any one else does. apparently they are not the only ones that the EPA is trying to silence. They are trying silence Alan Carlin a scientist. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aL9FkkDhOwg

This administration is pushing for a Card Check for Unions - no secret ballots for Union elections. They also want to prevent employers from presenting the other side of a Union election. Insurance Companies have been told play ball with us on Health Care or shut up.

From the page: ”If the Obama administration believes in transparency it is precisely in these cases they need to prove it.” See, that's just the thing, Obama DOESN'T believe in transparency. All those promises he made were just to trick the gullible into voting for him. You could track bills before him. You still don't know what the hell is going on up on capitol hill. That said, we'll have to wait and see how this unfolds. I don't think there would be any rule the EPA would have that says you can't criticize a plan. We'll have to see.

its only a barbaric and bacward employer who will try and inytimdate his workers for nothing. why does they find it appropriate to silence them or face consequenses? i think the employees have a right and should not be intimidated.

As usual, the official government response to dissenting opinions is "shut up". I wonder how many instances like this it takes to wake people up. When people have differing opinions on important issues, it leads to better solutions, or perhaps no solution if the problem is not as perceived by some. When will people wake up and protest the censorship?

Dang. I left a looooong comment and then lost Internet when posting. Here's the lite version. No. The EPA is supposed to work in the interest of the environment and not simply the interest of liberal policy. If there's dissent in the ranks, that's actually a good thing. If every Dell employee thought that Pentium was the best processor, we'd all be browsing myLot on inferior machines today. You want people with a ranging view of opinions working for you in agencies like this. What does groupthink ever get anyone but in trouble? I'm overly cynical of all the so-called "environmentalists" and others that claim to want to help, because the cause seems more like religious fanaticism than religious fanaticism. You go to the social equivalent of Hell for daring to disagree with ANYTHING said about climate change and the measures that we all (not all, though; just US citizens lmao) HAVE to take in order to save our planet from destruction and yada yada. At this point, I'm confident that all this crap is just a Trojan horse for wealth redistribution and social justice and an out-and-out 180 of America into something unrecognizable, so I'm glad that some are speaking up and saying they disagree. It's hard for people to have their voices heard. Even on myLot, most anti-administration opinions are met by a group of folks who love chiming in with their "Yeah, but what about BUSH, the right-wing, etc!!" BS to pretend that THIS CURRENT government is actually a good thing. Dissenters deserve to be heard, especially in spooky cases like these where, if left alone, literal life-changing policies will be passed without so much as a question to "why" they were passed. There seems to be only two types of people I can find on these issues: blind supporters and the skeptical. I've yet to run across anyone who's torn on it. And I believe that has to do solely with the lack of information any of us can receive on the matters! We're completely in the dark, so it's either you ride the wagon with the populous or you attempt to stand in its way. Arguments for either are made up as the situation unfolds and tidbits of relative info are squeezed out by force. That's not right. Let these people speak their minds freely. We deserve truth. It's our country and our planet and our lives. I'm not comfortable with a few likeminded, power-grabbing elitists standing in judgment of mankind as a whole. Who the ___ gave them the right?

Apparently, at the local level their co workers and bosses were supportive. It was at the national level that exception was taken. This excerpt from the article you link to says it all: [i]Their bosses in San Francisco approved the effort by Williams and Zabel to release the tape, but after an editorial they wrote appeared in the Washington Post, EPA Director Lisa Jackson ordered the pair to remove the video or face disciplinary action. Specifically, the administration’s chief environmental official did not want Williams or Zabel mentioning their four decades with the EPA — time spent studying cap and trade. ”The people who understand the problems with the cap and trade with offsets bill are not being heard,” Williams told Fox News. The EPA issued a statement saying it welcomes free expression provided employees adhere to ethics rules. The agency reportedly doesn’t object to the content of the video but requires Williams and Zabel to make it clearer that they are speaking for themselves and not the EPA. But some Republicans on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee want an investigation into what – if any — regulations Zabel and Williams violated. Critics argue the action contradicts the president’s support for open government. ”It’s censorship,” Jeff Ruch, Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, told Fox News. ”If the Obama administration believes in transparency it is precisely in these cases they need to prove it.”[/i]