[Blake]

U.S. District Judge Royce C. Lamberth this week held the Environmental Protection Agency in contempt for destroying electronic documents in violation of a court order issued as a result of a Freedom of Information Act request.

The contempt charge appeared to have little practical impact, but Lamberth did rule yesterday that the agency must pay legal expenses of the Landmark Legal Foundation of Herndon, Va., the plaintiff in the FOIA and contempt proceedings.

Lamberth exonerated former EPA director Carol Browner, former general counsel Gary Guzy and former deputy director W. Michael McCabe of the contempt charges sought by Landmark.

The court found that EPA officials had reformatted PC hard drives, erased and reused e-mail backup tapes, and deleted e-mails that potentially could have held information deemed relevant to Landmark�s FOIA request. The legal foundation had sought records about environmental regulations that EPA officials reportedly sought to rush into effect before the Bush administration took office in 2001.
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