House Science, Space and Technology Committee Chairman Lamar Smith holds up a copy of Time Magazine. | Getty House committee protests too soon Science committee complains about the Obama administration's response -- before sending the questions.

Republican staffers sent a letter to the Obama administration chiding them for failing to answer a series of questions from the House Science and Technology Committee. The only problem? They hadn't sent the questions in the first place.

According to the copy of the letter dated Sept. 14 and addressed to OMB Director Shaun Donovan, the committee’s majority writes, “We are writing to acknowledge receipt of a September XX, 2015, letter from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in response to a letter we wrote to you on Aug. 31, 2015.”


It continues, “Unfortunately, the responses we received were deficient and do not substantively address the specific requests contained in our original letter.”

That’s the first page. The rest of the six-page letter is dated Aug. 31. It contains detailed concerns about the science behind the administration’s new ozone regulations and requests “all documents and communications” among various executive branch agencies about them. It lists a Sept. 14 deadline for responding.

To be sure, communcations between the Obama adminstration and the Republican-led Congress -- which exercises oversight of the executive branch -- are often adversarial. But the White House has long complained that congressional Republicans are more interested in scoring political points than serving as a constitutional watchdog.

Republican committee aides said it was all a big mistake – the result of good planning and good intentions gone awry – but that the conclusion was probably nonetheless foregone.

“This gaffe provided OMB the opportunity to see a letter they most likely would’ve received in a couple weeks anyway,” said Zachary Kurz, the committee’s communications director.

The policy staffer in charge of the issue was planning to be out of the country for a few weeks – he’s currently in Japan – and so he prepared letters for different eventualities in advance.

A clerical aide noticed a typo on the first page of the Aug. 31 letter, and in the process of fixing it and putting it on letterhead, ended up attaching the head of the follow-up letter to the body of the original letter.

The Democratic staff’s office said it received a version of the letter via email on Aug. 31 and alerted the Republican side. But by then, it was already on its way to the OMB, and a corrected version had to be sent.

Republican aides acknowledged the letter could make it look like they were pre-judging the administration’s response, refusing to be satisfied no matter what. And while they rejected that suggestion, they contended it was reasonable to predict they'd be unsatisfied with the response, based on past experience.

And as both versions of the letter note, there is some urgency: the ozone rule is set to be finalized on Oct. 1.

Kurz added, “Perhaps the White House can prove a second letter was not necessary by providing all the documents requested.”

An OMB spokesperson’s reaction to the letters offered no details about how the administration will respond: “OMB takes its role in the regulatory process seriously and remains committed to protecting the health, welfare, and safety of Americans. That is why we take great care in engaging legitimate oversight requests from Congress.”

