"NEW ORLEANS -- U.S. EPA's policy staffers, not its scientific experts, are the ones who should be answering reporters' policy questions, a longtime EPA spokesman told environmental journalists gathered here this week.

'Clearly, our goal is to have scientific experts talk about their work. ... I think that we all think that is important,' David Gray, director of public affairs in EPA's Dallas-based Region 6 office, said yesterday at the Society of Environmental Journalists' annual conference.

But policy issues are another story, said Gray, a longtime career staffer who has been working in EPA public affairs since 1995.

'When it gets into where the agency is going to have a policy perspective ... that's clearly not what we do in the regions. That audience of folks and decisionmakers sit in the Beltway for us -- in Washington, D.C.' "

Robin Bravender reports for Greenwire September 4, 2014. [2]