EPA Seeks to Protect Its Own Image

"The Office of Research and Development at the Environmental Protection Agency is seeking outside public relations consultants, to be paid up to $5 million over five years, to polish its Web site, organize focus groups on how to buff the office's image and ghostwrite articles 'for publication in scholarly journals and magazines,'" the New York Times reports. But the non-profit Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility has asked the agency's Inspector General to investigate the request for proposals. PEER questions the "appropriateness of using funds for image enhancement that would otherwise be available for public health and environmental research," citing current laws that prohibit the use of tax dollars "for publicity or propaganda purposes." The EPA has recently awarded two PR contracts totaling $150,000 for the writing and placement of "good stories" about EPA's research office in consumer and trade publications, the Times reports.