U.S. EPA's internal watchdog has launched an investigation into Administrator Lisa Jackson's use of an alternative email account that allowed her to conduct official agency business under the alias Richard Windsor.

In a letter informing EPA brass of the probe late last week, agency Assistant Inspector General Melissa Heist said the investigation stemmed from congressional requests and is aimed at determining whether EPA's use of alias email accounts follows applicable laws and regulations.

Among the areas of inquiry the IG office laid out in its communication last week is whether EPA "established and implemented oversight processes to ensure employees comply with federal records management requirements pertaining to electronic records from private or alias email accounts."

It will also probe whether EPA "reprimanded, counseled or took administrative actions against any employees using private or alias email accounts" or "promoted or encouraged the use of private or alias email accounts to conduct official government business."

An EPA spokeswoman said today the agency would fully cooperate with the IG probe as it does with any other IG inquiry or investigation.

In recent months, House Republicans and independent watchdog groups -- including the Competitive Enterprise Institute and Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington -- have questioned whether the use of alternative and private email accounts to conduct official business has allowed Obama administration officials to avoid having documents relating to official business captured by federally mandated government record-keeping systems (E&ENews PM, Nov. 20).

Last week, House Energy and Commerce Chairman Fred Upton (R-Mich.) and his Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee Chairman Cliff Stearns (R-Fla.) sent Jackson a letter asking for information about whether her use of the Richard Windsor email address allowed her to avoid providing more information to committee inquiries during the past two years (E&ENews PM, Dec. 13).

Charlotte Baker, a Republican spokeswoman for the Energy and Commerce Committee, said this morning that the panel welcomes the separate IG probe but that the committee still wants direct answers from EPA "in response to our concerns with transparency at the agency."

EPA has acknowledged Jackson that was assigned two official government email addresses and that the practice has been going on for more than a decade for agency administrators. The address for the so-called public account is posted on EPA's website. Jackson uses the second, internal account to communicate with staff and government officials.

Jackson's internal account used the name Richard Windsor, a combination of the name of a family pet and East Windsor, N.J., a town where she lived.

EPA has said that given the large volume of emails sent to Jackson's public account -- more than 1.5 million communications in fiscal 2012 -- the internal email account is necessary for effective management and communication between the administrator and agency colleagues.

EPA has said both accounts are subject to the Freedom of Information Act.

The watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington called on the IG to launch a probe of the alias email account in mid-November.

The group's executive director, Melanie Sloan, today said that she welcomed the investigation but that she hopes other executive branch inspectors general will also look into the practice at their own agencies.

"The EPA has been doing this for a very long time, apparently," Sloan said. "It seems like it has been a matter of course and no one really questioned it. ... If it's standard operating procedures at one agency, it makes you wonder if it's happening in others."

Sloan said her group has sent letters to nine other executive branch agencies, including the departments of the Treasury, Justice, and Health and Human Services, to inquire about the practice.