After investigating EPA's use of social media in association with the Waters of the U.S. rule, the Government Accountability Office determined that the organization used covert propaganda and grassroots lobbying to promote the rule, and as such, broke a law that states an organization cannot use these techniques to promote a law that they proposed.

At the request of Senator James Inhofe (R-Okla.), the Government Accountability Office, or GAO, investigated the Environmental Protection Agency's use of social media in association with the Waters of the U.S. rule in 2014 and 2015. The results of this investigation were released in mid-December. The GAO concluded that the EPA illegally used covert propaganda and grassroots lobbying to promote their rule.

GAO concluded that of what was investigated, two actions constituted violations. First was the use of the social media tool Thunderclap. EPA asked supporters to sign up for their Thunderclap campaign; after a preset number of supporters were reached, at a predetermined date and time, Thunderclap automatically sent out a pre-written message on the supporters' social media accounts. Because this message was not attributed to the EPA, but instead appeared to be a message written by the individual and posted to the individual's account(s), GAO deemed this to be covert propaganda.

Second, the EPA wrote a blog post (which has since been deleted) that contained links to pages on the Natural Resources Defense Council and the Surfrider Foundation websites. These two pages encouraged readers to contact their members of Congress to oppose legislation blocking the WOTUS rule. GAO concluded that the inclusion of these hyperlinks constituted grassroots lobbying, which is prohibited for the EPA under the Financial Services and General Government Appropriations Act, 2014.

The office also determined that EPA violated the Antideficiency Act because their appropriations were not available for the above-mentioned prohibited purposes. According to GAO, "The agency should determine the cost associated with the prohibited conduct and include the amount in its report of its Antideficiency Act violation."

The 26-page report prepared by the Government Accountability Office is available online here.