A misquoted remark from Lisa Jackson, administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, during her visit to the UC Berkeley School of Law Thursday has incited outcry.
An original report from Greenwire published Friday stated that Jackson referred to Republicans as “jack-booted thugs” when in fact she did not. Rather, as can be heard in The Daily Californian’s podcast of the event posted above, Jackson used the term to jokingly refer to her own employees during a portion of her speech in which she attempted to dispel reports that the agency planned to triple its budget and add 230,000 new regulators.
Jackson said the agency put forward a “tailoring rule” to exempt small sources of emissions and “focus the country’s regulatory attention on the largest sources of greenouse gases.”
“A massive expansion was never a possibility, and the people who cited the 230,000 new EPA jack-booted thugs knew that,” Jackson said in her speech.
Greenwire has since updated the erroneous report and run a correction, and Politico has also put up a post clarifying the comment. But the story had already been picked up by media outlets such as Fox News and the conservative site RedState.
J.D. Morris is the lead environment reporter.
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