On July 21, 2013, Politico ran an article by Erica Martinson, “The Case Against EPA Bias.“ Following is a response by ATI Senior Fellow Chris Horner:

1) “Horner also used a broader definition of he considers a “denial.” Translated, “Horner used the legal definition of what constitutes a denial”.

Yes, CEI and ATI used FOIA’s and the courts’ definition of denial, while Politico used one giving credit to EPA for losing on appeal, or dropping illegitimate opposition, as having never really denied the request at all. That’s going down the legal rabbit hole. We plead guilty to applying the law and its terms in our analysis of how a law and its terms are being applied, and understand how EPA or those defending it might not wish to.

2) “Horner’s breakdown largely contrasted EPA’s treatment of major, national environmental groups such as the Sierra Club versus a smaller sampling of conservative groups such as CEI and the American Tradition Institute. POLITICO’s breakdown included lesser-known groups such as the Alliance for the Great Lakes, the Center for Food Safety, Parents for Nontoxic Alternatives and the Taxpayer Association of Kane County, Colo.”

Yes, ATI and CEI compared apples to apples — as we noted at the time, “comps” — given the law (there it is again!) conditioning fee waiver on a group’s ability to broadly disseminate to a wide universe of the public. So, it does tend to skew an analysis by adding to the liberal side of the ledger a host of groups who have little to no chance of demonstrating that. We chose a meaningful analysis, instead, of how EPA treats the major national green groups it works closely with on a shared agenda, and the more active parties challenging that shared agenda.

All of which points we had made a couple of months ago to this reporter, and would have again if contacted for this piece.

So, for those with familiarity with FOIA, the situation is clear and as we demonstrated. For those without familiarity, or hoping to as the piece’s actual headline states, make EPA’s case against what the records show, we understand that redefining what the law says as needed, and changing what’s being measured and how, would muddy things.