Creating Thought Leaders and Sought-After Experts Case Study

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Executive Order to Review Clean Water Act

The morning President Trump signed an Executive Order to review the Clean Water Act we contacted an attorney who specializes in environmental issues involving water. He agreed to compose brief comments about the order and the impact it could have on regulations.

The client was able to get those comments to us within a half hour of the Executive Order being issued. We sent those comments to media covering the White House, environment, and other industry reporters across the United States. Below are the comments that reporters and editors received:

COMMENTS TO MEDIA

“The Executive Order itself acknowledges that the Administration cannot, by mere action of the President, roll back the WOTUS rule. Rather, the only procedural method for rescinding or revising the rule is through notice and comment rulemaking under the federal Administrative Procedure Act, which could take years. In addition, unless a court invalidates the WOTUS rule first, an attempt by the Trump Administration to rescind or revise the rule will require EPA and Corps to justify its decisions. And if the Trump Administration rescinds the existing WOTUS and promulgates a replacement, that action will be subject to a challenge in the courts,” he said.

“To act more quickly, the Trump Administration could use the budget process to block the WOTUS rule’s implementation. For example, if the courts lift the WOTUS rule stay or uphold the rule, the Administration’s budget for EPA and the Corps could propose to withhold funds for implementation. If Congress agrees, the budget could effectively prevent federal agencies from implementing the WOTUS rule while the Administration undertakes the lengthy effort to rescind or revise the rule,” he said.

Shortly after sending the pitch, we received calls from reporters looking to set up interviews with our client immediately because they were on tight deadlines. Additionally, we received a request from The Hill for our client to write an op-ed on the issue that would be published later that week. We spent the day setting up and scheduling interviews between our client and reporters as well as answering follow-up questions. We also worked with our client on the op-ed request helping him format the article correctly for the publication. In addition, other media outlets simply picked up his comments and ran them because they were on tight deadlines. The following day, we continued to receive interview requests from reporters working on stories that would explore the issue in more detail.

The earned media from this pitch resulted in more than 167 media placements.

MEDIA PLACEMENTS

  • The Associated Press
  • The Washington Post
  • The Hill (requested an op-ed)
  • Seattle Post Intelligencer
  • Pittburgh Post Gazette
  • Atlanta Journal-Constitution
  • St. Louis Post Dispatch
  • Salt Lake Tribune
  • Colorado Springs Gazette
  • Ottawa Citizen
  • Boston Herald
  • Yahoo Finance
  • New Zealand Herald
  • Bismarck Tribune
  • AP Financial News
  • Law360
  • Lincoln Journal Star
  • Yahoo! Voices
  • Storm Water Solutions
  • Water and Waste Digest
  • Water Quality Products