EPA Rule Loosened After Oil Chief’s Letter to Rove

The White House says the executive’s appeal had no role in changing a measure to protect groundwater. Critics call it a political payoff.

WASHINGTON

In 2002, a Texas oilman and longtime Republican activist, Ernest Angelo, wrote a letter to Rove complaining that an early version of the rule was causing many in the oil industry to “openly express doubt as to the merit of electing Republicans when we wind up with this type of stupidity.”

Rove responded by forwarding the letter to top White House environmental advisors and scrawling a handwritten note directing an aide to talk to those advisors and “get a response ASAP.”

LA Times