FOIA Documents From EPA Pt 2

With today's Fruit Grower Report, I'm Bob Larson. Save Family Farming is a group established specifically to counter the What's Upstream campaign that is looking to put more regulations on Washington farmers. The group's director, Gerald Baron says What's Upstream used over a half million-dollars in taxpayer money from the EPA to fund activities they say are clearly defined as lobbying ...

GERALD BARON ... "Well yes, we've been saying all along this is lobbying. Now, what we have, not only from what we'll call the circumstantial evidence, we have people from within the EPA saying, both the office of the Inspector General and people involved in the situation, saying yes, this is lobbying. So, how the state Attorney General can say, no this is not lobbying is really beyond our ability to understand."

Baron says these documents confirm the suspicions they've had all along ...

GERALD BARON ... "So, yes there is new information in there that fully supports the claim that we've been making all along and we believe there is justification for them to take another look at it. We also are concerned, based upon the Attorney General's stance on this, and the flimsy basis in which they rejected enforcement, that it may be necessary for us to request an independent review of this. So, we may also be looking at requesting that."

Baron says it's disheartening to see the degree to which political influence has played a role in how this matter's been handled, but they are ready to pursue answers and make the public aware of what's going on.