Providing "safe ways for employees to voice their concerns without having to ... take a flaming arrow in the chest," a group known as Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility helps environmental officials voice concerns over "mismanagement and lax enforcement of regulations," says a report in today's Washington Post.
Founded six years ago by a former Forest Service employee, PEER's 10,000 members include environmental scientists, land managers, law enforcement officials and other current or former federal, state and local government employees. The group uses its $750,000 annual budget to pay for research into claims that an employer's environmental practices are questionable, including questionnaires to other employees. It provides free legal counsel, files Freedom of Information Act requests, files complaints with agencies and publishes anonymous white papers "railing against federal and state agencies."
Workers are encouraged to tell their own stories which have included charges of obstructing enforcement of politically connected polluters in Connecticut and charges that the Bureau of Land Management has facilitated illegal trafficking of wild horses. One of the projects the group is currently working on includes assistant US attorneys concerned that the Dept. of Justice is dissuading them from prosecuting hazardous waste and clean water cases.
PEER claims successes in getting officials to resign, helping whistleblowers get their jobs back and generally prodding agencies to "clean up their acts." But the group has been attacked for it methods and critics have downplayed PEER's role. Connecticut Environmental Protection Commissioner Arthur Rocque criticized its use of "unsubstantiated allegations by anonymous sources" (Linda Perlstein, Washington Post, 8/31).
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