The White House improperly forced the Environmental Protection Agency to put aquatic wildlife at risk at the behest of corporate special interests, OMB Watch told a federal court today. The White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) substantially weakened an EPA proposal to protect the trillions of fish and aquatic organisms that are sucked up and killed each year by power plants that use rivers, estuaries, and oceans to cool their systems. OMB Watch filed a friend-of-the-court brief with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit today, calling on the court to reject OMB’s interference in the EPA rule. “For some time now, OIRA has been interfering with agency rule-making,” explains Robert Shull, director of regulatory policy with OMB Watch. “We hope the court will finally do something about these political intrusions and allow agencies to do the job they were told to do by Congress.” Read the press release Download the brief