Dissenting opinion filed by Circuit Judge SENTELLE with whom SILBERMAN, WILLIAMS and HENDERSON, Circuit Judges, join.
WALD, Circuit Judge:
William Sanjour and Hugh Kaufman — two employees of the Environmental Protection Agency (“EPA”) — and the environmental coalition North Carolina Waste Awareness and Reduction Network (“NC WARN”) appeal the district court’s dismissal of their First Amendment challenge to regulations prohibiting EPA employees from receiving travel expense reimbursement from private sources for unofficial speaking or writing engagements concerning the subject matter of the employees’ work, while permitting such compensation for officially authorized speech on the same issues. See Sanjour v. EPA, 786 F.Supp. 1033, 1036 (D.D.C.1992). A panel of this court affirmed the district court’s ruling, see Sanjour v. EPA, 984 F.2d 434 (D.C.Cir.1993), but the full court subsequently vacated that decision and set the case for rehearing in banc. See Sanjour v. EPA, 997 F.2d 1584 (D.C.Cir.1993). On rehearing, we find that the government has failed to demonstrate that the interests of the employees and their potential audiences in the speech suppressed “are outweighed by that expression’s necessary impact on the actual operation of the government.” United States v. National Treasury Employees Union, — U.S. -, -, 115 S.Ct. 1003, 1014, 130 L.Ed.2d 964 [88]*88(1995) {“NTEU”) (internal quotations and citation omitted). We therefore reverse the district court and hold the no-expenses regulations invalid.
I.BACKGROUND
A. Regulatory Background
Prior to 1991, when the first of the regulations at issue here was promulgated, employees of the federal executive could accept travel expense reimbursement except from a prohibited source, ie., a person or group that had or sought business with, or was regulated by, the employee’s agency. Exec. Order No. 11,222 (1965); see also Office of Gov’t Ethics Mem. 84 x 5 at 3-4 (May 1, 1984), reprinted in Joint Appendix (“J.A.”) at 41, 43-44. All payments other than for actual and necessary travel expenses were prohibited by the honoraria ban in § 501(b) of the Ethics in Government Act of 1978 (codified at 5 U.S.C. app. § 501 (1988 & Supp. V)).1
In January 1991, the Office of Government Ethics (“OGE”) — charged with establishing the “overall direction” of executive branch policy relating to conflicts of interest, id. at § 402 — promulgated a regulation containing an important additional restriction on travel expense reimbursement:
An employee is prohibited by the standards of conduct from receiving compensation, including travel expenses, for speaking or writing on subject matter that focuses specifically on his official duties or on the responsibilities, policies and programs of his employing agency.
56 Fed.Reg. 1721, 1724-25 (1991) (codified at 5 C.F.R. § 2636.202(b) (1994)). Several months later, EPA distributed to its employees an advisory letter in which it interpreted the OGE regulation narrowly to prohibit expense reimbursement only for travel involving “non-official” appearances; employees could still receive expenses from private sources for speaking about their “official duties or [] EPA’s responsibilities, policies and programs” so long as “the required prior approvals ... for official travel” were first obtained. EPA Ethics Advisory 91-1 at 3 (Apr. 2, 1991), reprinted in J.A. at 80, 82.
In August 1992, after the district court’s decision in this case but prior to argument before the appellate panel, the OGE elaborated its travel reimbursement policy in new, more comprehensive “standards of conduct” governing federal employee compensation. The new regulations on their face prohibit federal employees from “receiv[ing] compensation 2 from any source other than the Government for teaching, speaking or writing that relates to the employee’s official duties.” 57 Fed.Reg. 35,006, 35,063 (1992) (codified at 5 C.F.R. § 2635.807(a) (1994)).3
The OGE ethics provisions must, however, be read together with regulations of the General Services Administration (“GSA”), promulgated under the authority of § 302 of the Ethics Reform Act of 1989, Pub.L. No. 101-194, 103 Stat. 1716, 1745-47 (codified as amended at 31 U.S.C. § 1353).4 These latter [89]*89regulations permit an agency to “accept payment from a non-Federal source (or authorize an employee to receive such payment on its behalf) with respect to attendance of an employee at a meeting or similar function which the employee has been authorized to attend in an official capacity on behalf of the employing agency.” 41 C.F.R. § 304-1.3(a) (1994). They vest broad authority in agency officials to determine when an employee should be “authorized” to participate in a particular meeting, subject to the limitation that the authorizing agency official determine that granting approval “under the circumstances would [not] cause a person with knowledge of all the facts ... to question the integrity of agency programs or operations.” Id. at §§ 306-1.3, 1.5. Absent such a taint, an “authorized” employee may accept travel and accommodation reimbursement in excess of otherwise applicable per diem rates for government-funded travel. Id. at §§ 304-1.3(d), 1.6, 1.7.5 The current OGE and GSA regulations thus harmonize with the EPA’s interpretation of the OGE regulation originally challenged by appellants; the regulatory scheme as a whole allows employees to receive travel and accommodation reimbursement for “official” — or “authorized” — engagements, but not for activities the agency does not approve.
B. Factual Background
William Sanjour and Hugh Kaufman are EPA employees who, since the late 1970s, have traveled throughout the United States in an unofficial capacity giving speeches that are often critical of EPA policies. They conduct these activities on their own time and depend on travel expense reimbursement from private sources to defray the costs of their speaking engagements.
In late 1991, Sanjour and Kaufman received an invitation from NC WARN to speak in their unofficial capacities at a public hearing concerning a plan to build a commercial hazardous waste incinerator in North-hampton County, North Carolina. Since the ethics regulations in effect at the time prevented the two from receiving compensation for their necessary travel expenses, they were forced to turn down the speaking engagement. NC WARN subsequently can-celled the event.
C. Procedural Background
In October 1991, Sanjour filed a seven-count complaint in district court against the EPA, its Administrator, and other individual defendants, which was later amended to add Kaufman and NC WARN as plaintiffs and the OGE and its director as defendants. Counts I, III, IV, and V of the amended complaint alleged violations of the First Amendment. Counts II and VII advanced statutory causes of action. Finally, Count VI pled a claim of “selective enforcement and selective prosecution of the plaintiffs in violation of the laws and constitution of the United States.”
On defendants’ motion for summary judgment, the district court dismissed Counts IV and VII. The court did not consider plaintiffs’ First Amendment challenges count-by-count, but rather construed their pleading to mount a single attack under the balancing test “originally enunciated in Pickering v. Board of Educ., 391 U.S. 663, 88 S.Ct. 1731, 20 L.Ed.2d 811 (1968).” Sanjour v. EPA, 786 F.Supp. 1033, 1036 (D.D.C.1992). The court did not say whether plaintiffs’ challenge, so construed, was “facial” or “as applied,” but concluded that “the challenged regulation withstands constitutional attack” because “it is narrowly tailored to meet a legitimate government objective and is not designed to limit First Amendment freedoms.” Id. at 1037.
The court denied summary judgment on plaintiffs’ selective prosecution claim — Count VI — on the ground that it “raise[d] disputed questions of material fact.” Id. at 1041 n. 15. The court did not specify the precise facts at [90]*90issue, but since a claim for selective enforcement depends on the government either “sing[ling] out [a party] from others similarly situated” or pursuing an individual out of “improper[ ] motivation],” see Juluke v. Hodel, 811 F.2d 1553, 1561 (D.C.Cir.1987), further inquiry into the government’s actual motivation and its treatment of similarly situated individuals was presumably required.
On plaintiffs’ appeal of the district court’s disposition of their First Amendment challenge, a panel of this court affirmed. Sanjour v. EPA 984 F.2d 434 (D.C.Cir.1993). The full court vacated that decision and granted rehearing in banc. Sanjour v. EPA 997 F.2d 1584 (D.C.Cir.1993).6
II. Disoussion
A. The Regulations at Issue
As a threshold question, we must decide precisely which regulations are under review. The new OGE regulations, including 5 C.F.R. § 2635.807(a), were not promulgated until after appellants initiated this suit, and indeed not until after the district court’s entry of summary judgment. Therefore, the district court’s review of appellants’ constitutional challenge focused on the earlier OGE regulation — 5 C.F.R. § 2636.202(b) — and the EPA Ethics Advisory.
When reviewing a denial of prospective relief in the form of an injunction or declaratory judgment, however, “[w]e must review the judgment of the [district [c]ourt in light of [the] law as it now stands, not as it stood when judgment below was entered.” Diffenderfer v. Central Baptist Church, 404 U.S. 412, 414, 92 S.Ct. 574, 575, 30 L.Ed.2d 567 (1972). Of course, in the present ease, any such distinction is not consequential since — as we explain supra at 3-6 — OGE’s promulgation of § 2635.807(a) only elaborated the travel reimbursement policy enunciated in the earlier regulations; it was not intended to effect substantive change.7 Today, both §§ 2636.202(b) and 2635.807(b) remain in effect and together with the GSA regulations perpetuate the exact same distinction originally challenged by appellants under § 2636.202(b) and the EPA Ethics Advisory — employees may receive travel and accommodation reimbursement for “official” or “authorized” speaking, writing, or teaching engagements, but not for activities the agency does not pre-approve. We therefore consider the constitutionality of this scheme as implemented by both §§ 2635.202(b) and 2635.807(a) (collectively “the regulations”).
B. The Applicable Standard: Pickering/NTEU
Individuals do not automatically relinquish their rights under the First Amendment by accepting government employment. See, e.g., Keyishian v. Board of Regents, 385 U.S. 589, 605-06, 87 S.Ct. 675, 684-85, 17 L.Ed.2d 629 (1967). At the same time, however, the Supreme Court has recognized that “Congress may impose restraints on the job-related speech of public employees that would be plainly unconstitutional if applied to the public at large.” NTEU, — U.S. at -, 115 S.Ct. at 1012. Therefore, to determine the validity of a restraint on the speech of government employees, a court must “arrive at a balance between the interests of the [employee], as a citizen, in commenting upon matters of public concern and the interest of the State, as an employer, in promoting the efficiency of the public services it performs through its employees.” Pickering v. Board of Education, 391 U.S. 563, 568, 88 S.Ct. 1731, 1734-35, 20 L.Ed.2d 811 (1968).
Embedded in the Pickering test is the condition that to qualify for its protection, government employee speech must involve “matters of public concern.” See Con-[91]*91nick v. Myers, 461 U.S. 138, 146, 103 S.Ct. 1684, 1689-90, 75 L.Ed.2d 708 (1983). The government concedes that the speech at issue here satisfies this prerequisite. We think this concession a necessary one. The challenged regulations clearly prevent Sanj-our, Kaufman and other executive branch employees from addressing current government policies, perhaps the paradigmatic “matter[] of public concern.”
That the Pickering balancing test applies in this case is thus eminently clear; the manner of its application, however, is somewhat less so. Pickering and most of its Supreme Court progeny involved disciplinary actions taken against individual employees; the Court weighed the impact of the speech giving rise to the action on that employee’s performance of her public responsibilities. Cf. Rankin v. McPherson, 483 U.S. 378, 107 S.Ct. 2891, 97 L.Ed.2d 315 (1987); Connick v. Myers, 461 U.S. 138, 103 S.Ct. 1684, 75 L.Ed.2d 708 (1983). Sanjour, in contrast, involves regulations proscribing a broad category of speech by a large number of potential speakers.
Fortunately, the Supreme Court’s recent decision in NTEU offers useful guidance on how to apply Pickering in such a case. NTEU involved a challenge by two unions and several career civil servants to § 501(b) of the Ethics in Government Act, 5 U.S.C. app. § 501(b) (1988), which prevented “offi-eer[s] or employee[s]” of the federal government from “receiv[ing] any honorarium.” The Court observed that the statute represented a “wholesale deterrent to a broad category of expression by a massive number of potential speakers,” and therefore “[gave] rise to far more serious concerns than could any single supervisory decision.” NTEU, — U.S. at -, 115 S.Ct. at 1014. It concluded that
the government’s burden is greater with respect to this statutory restriction on expression than with respect to an isolated disciplinary action. The government must show that the interests of both potential audiences and a vast group of present and future employees in a broad range of present and future expression are outweighed by that expression’s “necessary impact on the actual operation” of the government. Pickering, 391 U.S. at 571, 88 S.Ct. at 1736.
NTEU, — U.S. at -, 115 S.Ct. at 1014. This, then — the Pickering/NTEU test — is the standard we apply in this ease.
C. The Nature of Appellants’ Challenge
Before turning to that application, however, another preliminary matter requires attention — the nature of appellants’ First Amendment challenge to the regulations. The panel majority ascribed critical significance to its view that only a “facial” attack on the regulations is before us, and that an “as-applied” challenge awaits the attention of the district court below. See Sanjour, 984 F.2d at 437. We think this assertion is not supported by the record, and in any event the distinction is largely irrelevant in the context of the Pickering/NTEU analysis.8
. First, the notion that the -district court ruled only on a “facial” challenge while allowing appellants to proceed on an “as-applied” theory is incorrect. While neither the word “facial” nor the term “as applied” appears anywhere in the district court’s opinion — see Sanjour, 786 F.Supp. at 1034-41— that court clearly purported to dispose of the entirety of appellants’ First Amendment challenge. It broadly held that “the challenged regulation ... does not violate the plaintiffs’ First Amendment rights,” id. at 1038, and dismissed Counts I and III-V of the Complaint, the only counts alleging First [92]*92Amendment violations.9 We cannot but conclude that the whole of appellants’ First Amendment challenge — however characterized — is now before us on appeal.
More important, however, we doubt the centrality of the “facial”/“as-apphed” distinction in the Pickering/NTEU context. Indeed, in NTEU itself the Court did not categorize the employees’ challenge as either “facial” or “as applied.” This was not an oversight; the fact is that the test enunciated in NTEU for determining the constitutionality of a statute or regulation restricting government employee speech requires the reviewing court to consider whether the “interests of both potential audiences and a vast group of present and future employees in a broad range of present and future expression are outweighed by that expression’s necessary impact on the actual operation of the government.” NTEU, — U.S. at-, 115 S.Ct. at 1014 (internal quotations and citation omitted). Because this same test — which requires the court to go beyond the facts of the particular case before it — presumably applies to both “facial” and “as-applied” challenges, the distinction between the two is largely elided.10
In this regard, the present case resembles Edenfield v. Fane, —— U.S. -, 113 S.Ct. 1792, 123 L.Ed.2d 543 (1993). Fane challenged a Florida Board of Accountancy rule prohibiting direct, personal solicitation of business clients. The relevant First Amend[93]*93ment test, developed in Central Hudson Gas & Electric Corp. v. Public Service Comm’n of New York, 447 U.S. 557, 100 S.Ct. 2343, 65 L.Ed.2d 341 (1980), required the Court to determine whether the challenged regulation advanced substantial state interests in a direct and material way, and if so to consider whether the burden on speech was reasonably proportioned to the state interests served. Thus the Court was essentially called upon to balance the state’s interest in suppressing a category of expression against the citizenry’s interest in that speech, the same balance we must strike in Sanjour. Fane’s challenge, the Court has since observed, was an “as applied challenge to a broad category of commercial solicitation”; the Court “did not suggest that Fane could challenge the regulation on commercial speech as applied only to himself or his own acts of solicitation,” United States v. Edge Broadcasting Co., — U.S. -, -, 113 S.Ct. 2696, 2706, 125 L.Ed.2d 345 (1993), but rather weighed the interests of individuals in Fane’s position generally against the government’s interest in suppressing the relevant category of speech.
The most accurate characterization of appellants’ challenge may therefore be — following Fane — that it is an “as applied challenge to a broad category of [non-official employee speech].” Nevertheless, while analyzing this broad category of speech requires that we look beyond the particular facts of the appellants’ ease, we cannot go so far as to include every possible application of the challenged scheme. As the Supreme Court noted in NTEU, the balancing of interests relevant to senior executive officials might “present[] a different constitutional question than the one we decide today.” — U.S. at -, 115 S.Ct. at 1018. We therefore express no view on whether the challenged regulations may be applied to senior executive employees.
D. Applying Pickering/NTEU
We begin our substantive discussion of the regulations by briefly enunciating the interests on either side of the Pickering/NTEU balance. We then examine several attributes of the regulations that we think must inform our evaluation of the weight to be assigned the competing interests.
1. Interests of the Employees and the Public
We have already noted the nature of the employees’ interest in this challenge; their interest lies in receiving reimbursement for travel expenses necessary to make “teaching, speaking or writing” appearances on matters that “relate[] to the [their] official duties.” See 5 C.F.R. § 2635.807(a). The government concedes that the speech at issue touches on “matters of public concern,” thus satisfying the threshold requirement for protection under Pickering.
The government contends, however, that because the regulations do not “ban” speech concerning employees’ “official duties,” but only remove an incentive to speak on these matters, the regulations impose only a “moderate” burden on appellants and others similarly situated. This argument was also made in NTEU, where the Supreme Court rejected it:
[The honoraria ban’s] prohibition on compensation unquestionably imposes a significant burden on expressive activity.... Publishers compensate authors because compensation provides a significant incentive toward more expression. By denying respondents that incentive, the honoraria ban induces them to curtail their expression if they wish to continue working for the government.
NTEU, — U.S. at -, 115 S.Ct. at 1014 (citations omitted).
Of course, the burden described by the Court in NTEU is far greater in the present case. As Judge Sentelle wrote in his dissent from the decision of the NTEU panel:
[T]he [honoraria] ban imposes significantly less of a burden on appellees’ First Amendment rights than did the [regulations] upheld [by the panel] in Sanjour. Unlike the \Sanjour regulations], the ban allows employees to recover all of the costs they necessarily incur in expressive activity. The ban only prevents employees from profiting from their outside activities.
[94]*94National Treasury Employees Union v. United States, 990 F.2d 1271, 1286 (D.C.Cir.1993) (emphasis in original). By denying government employees the ability to recover even necessary travel expenses, the regulations here represent a greater impediment to their attempts to publicize their views than did the honoraria ban struck down by the Court in NTEU, which did not affect such expenses at all.11
Under NTEU, we must weigh on the employees’ side of the balance not only the interests of “present and future employees” in a broad range of inhibited “present and future expression,” but also the interests of their “potential audiences” — such as NC WARN — in receiving the speech suppressed. NTEU, — U.S. at -, 115 S.Ct. at 1014. This interest is manifestly great; as numerous courts and commentators have observed, government employees are in a position to offer the public unique insights into the workings of government generally and their areas of specialization in particular. See, e.g., Pieczynski v. Duffy, 875 F.2d 1331 (7th Cir.1989) (“[P]ublic employees have valuable insights and information about the operation of the government to convey.);” Developments in the Law — Public Employment, 97 Habv.L.Rev. 1611, 1768 (1984) (“[P]ublic employees, by virtue of their expertise and experience, are often among the citizens who are best informed ... and [ ] their opinions are thus especially valuable to the public.”). Depriving NC WARN and the general populace of government employees’ novel and valuable perspective would therefore require a serious and carefully considered justification.
2. The Government’s Interest
During the course of this litigation, the EPA has advanced two interests that it claims the challenged regulatory scheme advances. Before the district court and the appellate panel, appellees urged primarily that the regulations represent an attempt to “protect against the appearance of impropriety in the actions of their employees.” See, e.g., Sanjour, 786 F.Supp. at 1037. The nub of this claim was that when a government employee accepts travel expense reimbursement from a private party the employee may, to the general public, appear beholden to the private interest and prone to provide illicit regulatory “favors” in return.
Indeed, some such arrangements certainly could evoke the specter of partiality on the part of government employees. The danger in these transactions bears no relation, however, to the distinction between “official” and “unofficial” employee speech — the line drawn by the challenged regulatory scheme — but rather derives from the private source’s interest in the future actions of the employee’s agency. Provided that the reimbursing party has an interest in the actions of the reimbursed employee, the appearance of impropriety is the same regardless of the agency’s approval or disapproval of the “reimbursement.” Because the government cannot single out speech for restriction on the basis of a criterion bearing “no relation [] to the particular interest[ ] ... asserted,” City of Cincinnati v. Discovery Network, — U.S. -, -, 113 S.Ct. 1505, 1514, 123 L.Ed.2d 99 (1993), the EPA’s abandonment of this justification before the in banc court was judicious.
The government now argues that “[t]he relevant governmental interest is the threat to the integrity of the government occasioned by employees using their public office for private gain.” Appellees’ Brief at 24 (emphasis in original). The current core evil to be averted thus lies in government employees “selling” their labor twice — once to the government as employer, and once, in the form of speech about their employment, to [95]*95private parties willing to provide travel reimbursement in return. The government argues that even when there is no reason to suspect the private donor is attempting to curry favor with the reimbursed employee, the employee’s acceptance of benefits from a private source is inappropriate in itself, and may cause the public to lose faith in the single-minded dedication of government employees to the public interest. Cf. Robert G. Vaughn, Confliot-of-InteRest Regulation in the Federal Exeoutive Branch 37 (1979) (“[Pjractices that enrich government employees beyond their appropriate compensation solely because of their status as government employees undermine public faith and confidence.”). The government contends that the regulations are designed to prevent this sort of “dual compensation.”
3. Underinelusiveness of the Regulations
Several features of the regulations cast serious doubt on the government’s submission that the potential for “dual compensation” so menaces the “actual operation of the government,” NTEU, — U.S. at -, 115 S.Ct. at 1014, as to render the regulations’ significant restriction of employee speech an acceptable response. Foremost is the obvious lack of “fit” between the government’s purported interest and the sweep of its restrictions. There is a patent incongruity between the two that features both an “underinelusive” and an “overinclusive” component.
The regulations’ underinelusiveness is their most troubling feature. As we have explained, see supra at 88-89, the challenged regulatory scheme permits government employees to receive reimbursement for luxurious travel and accommodations so long as the agency approves their activities. But the benefit accruing to an employee from a week relaxing in four-star hotels and regaling on five-course feasts at the expense of a private party is in no way diminished by first obtaining agency approval. Because the government has thus not even attempted to regulate a broad category of behavior — reimbursement for “official” employee appearances — giving rise to precisely the harm that supposedly motivated it to adopt the regulations, we have trouble taking the government’s avowed interest to heart. Cf. Discovery Network, — U.S. at -, 113 S.Ct. at 1514 (holding a ban on commercial but not noncommercial newsracks an “impermissible means of responding to the city’s admittedly legitimate interest” in safety and esthetics of its streets); Florida Star v. B.J.F., 491 U.S. 524, 540, 109 S.Ct. 2603, 2612, 105 L.Ed.2d 443 (1989) (professing “serious doubts about whether [the government] is, in fact, serving ... the significant interests which [it] invoke[d]” where it had failed to regulate a substantial part of the activity giving rise to the alleged harm); Smith v. Daily Mail Publishing Co., 443 U.S. 97, 104-05, 99 S.Ct. 2667, 2671-72, 61 L.Ed.2d 399 (1979) (striking down a statute prohibiting dissemination of juvenile defendants’ names because, inter alia, the law did not regulate electronic media and therefore could not accomplish its stated purpose).
The government responds to this charge of underinelusiveness by arguing that the official/unofficial distinction serves the critical purpose of assuring that private monies will be accepted only for undertakings that “further[] the public good.” So long as the agency ensures that this condition is satisfied, the government urges, there is no difference between “reimbursement of an employee’s expenses [ ] from appropriated funds” and reimbursement from “authorized augmentations of appropriations.” Appel-lees’ Brief at 31-32.
But this line of argument cannot justify the distinction drawn by the regulations. Presumably, nearly all aspects of an official’s job could be described as “further[ing] the public good.” Yet the very nub of the government’s “dual compensation” concern is that it is inappropriate for private parties to compensate government employees for doing their jobs. We cannot see how agency approval of employee reimbursement addresses the core evil of “dual compensation” at all— the employee receives the same private benefit whether the agency “approves” or not. On the other hand, the difference between “reimbursement of an employee’s expenses [ ] from appropriated funds” and reimbursement from “authorized augmentations of ap[96]*96propriations” appears to us quite plain; only the latter situation raises the possibility that the government employee is improperly “selling” its government labor to both the government and a private party, since in the former case the government itself is the only “buyer.”
Nor do we agree with the government’s contention that stamping generous perquisites 12 with official approval will alleviate any public perception that officials may be using their government offices for private gain. Indeed, officially sanctioned benefits from private sources would appear to create a greater appearance that government employment systematically translates into social advantage than would the unsanetioned perks of individual bureaucrats. At a minimum, however, we believe that both the private gain actually derived from public office and the public perception thereof are equally as great when the speech occasioning the gain is officially approved as when it is not.
The dissent, while apparently acknowledging that the regulations are underinclu-sive when measured against the “dual compensation” justification actually advanced by the government, attempts to evade our conclusion by reformulating the government’s interest. It proposes that the regulations were not designed to regulate “personal gain from public office” generally, but only that personal gain arising from “accommodating third-party interests external and potentially adverse to the agency.” Dissent at 6. The dissent therefore finds a “tight ‘fit’ ” between the regulations and their purported aim. Dissent at 101-102.
The Pickering/NTEU question, however, is not whether some conceivable “governmental” interest might be constitutionally advanced by the regulations; as the Supreme Court explained in Fane — under the similar commercial speech balancing test — we must limit our inquiry to the “interests the State itself asserts.” Fane, — U.S. at -, 113 S.Ct. at 1798. The applicable standard “does not permit us to supplant the precise interests put forward by the [government] with other suppositions.” Id.
Moreover, even if the government had asserted the interest conjured by the dissent — and we can find no evidence that it did — the regulatory scheme at issue here would still be an impermissible means to achieve it. For the regulations vest broad authority in the agency to prevent an employee from accepting reimbursement for any appearance, whether or not it would involve “interests ... potentially adverse to the agency.” Therefore, while the regulatory scheme might not be “underinclusive” when measured against the dissent’s freshly-minted “governmental” interest, it would still run afoul of the Supreme Court’s disapproval of regulations vesting essentially unbridled discretion in a government decisionmaker to restrict speech on the basis of the viewpoint expressed.
4. Restricting Anti-government Speech
It-is perhaps the .most fundamental principle of First AmendmenUjurispru-dence that the government may not regulate speech on the ground that it expresses a dissenting viewpoint. Cf. R.A.V. v. City of St. Paul, — U.S. -, 112 S.Ct. 2538, 120 L.Ed.2d 305 (1992) (invalidating a hate-speech ordinance on the ground that it singled out and suppressed concededly proscribable “fighting words” on the basis of the viewpoint expressed). Although the government asserts an interest ostensibly unrelated to the content of the employees’ speech— preventing private gain from public office — in practice the regulations almost certainly restrict a subcategory of such speech on the basis of the viewpoint expressed. The regulations permit official approval only for speech that is “within the mission of the agency.” Appellees’ Brief at 16. It therefore appears that employees may receive private reimbursement for travel costs neces[97]*97sary to disseminate their views only by toeing the agency line.
In its attempt to exorcise this specter of viewpoint discrimination, the government makes much of the fact that an employee might or might not receive reimbursement for precisely the same speech, depending only on whether he gets agency approval; the government concludes that “[b]ecause the two speeches are identical, the employee’s entitlement to reimbursement does not turn upon viewpoint, but upon something else.” Id. at 33. There is a superficially logical quality to that reasoning, but on closer analysis we do not think that the conclusion follows from the premise. Certainly the government could choose to approve or disapprove precisely the same speech — the more important point, however, is that the regulatory scheme vests essentially unbridled discretion in the agency to make the determination on the basis of the viewpoint expressed by the employee.
Far from being the saving grace of this regulatory scheme — as the government suggests — the broad discretion that the regulations vest in the agency reinforces our belief that they are impermissible. Outside the Pickering context, the Supreme Court has expressed its disapproval of similar discretionary provisions that enable the government to control speech. In City of Lakewood v. Plain Dealer Publishing Co., 486 U.S. 750, 763, 108 S.Ct. 2138, 2147, 100 L.Ed.2d 771 (1988), the Court wrote:
[A] law or policy permitting communication in a certain way for some but not for others raises the specter of content and viewpoint censorship. This danger is at its zenith when the determination of who may speak and who may not is left to the unbridled discretion of a government official.... [W]e have often and uniformly held that such statutes or policies impose censorship on the public or press, and hence are unconstitutional....
We think that the regulatory scheme challenged here “pose[s] a real and substantial threat of the [ ] censorship risks” identified by appellants, id. at 759, 108 S.Ct. at 2145, and that in the context of Pickering balancing this potential justifies an additional thumb on the employees’ side of our scales.
5. Overinclusiveness
Given the government’s asserted interest in preventing government employees from using their public office to obtain private gain, the regulations are nearly as troublingly overinclusive as they are underinclusive. Clearly, the government’s interest in restricting speech must be balanced against the interests of the employees and the public in the entire category of speech potentially suppressed. See NTEU, - U.S. at -, 115 S.Ct. at 1014. If the government has a substantial interest with respect to only a subcategory of the restricted speech, then its interest will not readily outweigh the burden imposed on the larger category of speech subject to regulation. In performing the Pickering balance, therefore, the courts must consider whether the challenged statute or regulation is tailored to address the harm that the government allegedly aims to protect. Cf. Ward v. Rock Against Racism, 491 U.S. 781, 799, 109 S.Ct. 2746, 2758, 105 L.Ed.2d 661 (1989) (noting, outside the Pickering context, that the government may not “burden substantially more speech than necessary to further the government’s legitimate interests”).
Indeed, this requirement appears close to the heart of the Supreme Court’s decision in NTEU. The Court cautioned there that the government should at least have limited its attempt to prevent any “appearance of impropriety” arising from employees accepting honoraria for outside engagements to those activities involving the officials’ employment — though it also noted that “[o]ne might reasonably argue that expressive activities, because they occupy a favored position in the constitutional firmament, should be exempt” from even such a ban. See NTEU, — U.S. at -, 115 S.Ct. at 1017. So, too, the regulations here are overinclusive, albeit in a different way.13 We doubt that a bus ticket [98]*98to Baltimore and a box lunch en route could possibly be construed as using public office for private “gain,” yet they would be equally as offensive to the challenged regulations as a lobster and a Lear jet to Lake Tahoe. Although we do not suggest that the Pickering test contains a “least restrictive means” component, we believe that the extraordinary reach of the challenged regulations places a heavy justificatory burden on the government — or put another, way, the great quantity of speech affected by the regulatory scheme weighs heavily on the side of the employees.
6. Insufficient Justification of the Regulatory Scheme
Finally, the government’s failure to demonstrate that the challenged regulatory scheme addresses genuine harms also contributes to our reluctance to weigh its interest heavily in the Pickering balance. Precedents of both the Supreme Court and this court support the relevance of this factor to our Pickering analysis.
In Edenfield v. Fane, — U.S. -, 113 S.Ct. 1792, 123 L.Ed.2d 543 (1993), the Court required that the government demonstrate actual harm before its interest may be deemed to justify a restriction on speech such as that challenged here. Fane concerned the regulation of commercial speech, where the courts apply the Central Hudson balancing test, which closely resembles the standard we apply today. See supra at 92-93. The Fane Court wrote that the government’s “burden [of justifying the restriction] is not satisfied by mere speculation or conjecture; rather a governmental body seeking to sustain a restriction on ... speech must demonstrate that the harms it recites are real and that its restriction will in fact alleviate them to a material degree.” — U.S. at -, 113 S.Ct. at 1800.
The Court’s recent decision in NTEU verifies that the government’s failure to show that- its. suppression of employee speech addresses genuine harms must inform the Pickering balance. The Court wrote that
[w]hen the Government defends a regulation on speech as a means to redress past harms or prevent anticipated harms, it must do more than simply posit the existence of the disease sought to be cured.... It must demonstrate that the recited harms are real[ and] not merely conjectural....
NTEU, — U.S. at -, 115 S.Ct. at 1017 (quotations and citation omitted). The Court also distinguished its earlier decision in Civil Service Comm’n v. Letter Carriers, 413 U.S. 548, 93 S.Ct. 2880, 37 L.Ed.2d 796 (1973), on the ground that Congress had designed the Hatch Act to “combat the demonstrated ill effects of government employees’ partisan political activities,” NTEU, — U.S. at -, 115 S.Ct. at 1015 (emphasis supplied); but in NTEU, the government had “cite[d] no evidence of misconduct related to honoraria in the vast rank and file of federal employees” affected by the challenged statutory provision. Id. An identical governmental oversight similarly colors our review in this case; neither the EPA nor the OGE has made any effort to demonstrate that the severe measures at issue here were adopted to address genuinely experienced harms.
In Pickering review of government actions against individual employees this court has already required that the government demonstrate actual harms to justify suppression of speech. We explained in American Postal Workers Union v. United States Postal Service, 830 F.2d 294, 303 (D.C.Cir.1987) (“APWU’), that because the government bears the affirmative burden of “justifying” actions stifling employee expression, the employee must prevail in the Pickering balancing “[g]iven the absence of any demonstrated harm” (emphasis supplied). We think that this pronouncement applies with still greater force here than in APWU, because the “government’s burden [of justification] is greater” in the context of a broad “[regulatory] restriction on expression” than in an action [99]*99against an individual employee. NTEU, — U.S. at -, 115 S.Ct. at 1014.
III. Conclusion
Government employee speech is protected by the First Amendment, and can only be infringed when the government demonstrates that the burden on such speech is “outweighed by [its] necessary impact on the actual operation of the government.” See id. (internal quotations and citation omitted). The regulations challenged here throttle a great deal of speech in the name of curbing government employees’ improper enrichment from their public office. Upon careful review, however, we do not think that the government has carried its burden to demonstrate that the regulations advance that interest in a manner justifying the significant burden imposed on First Amendment rights. We therefore reverse the decision of the district court, and remand the case for proceedings consistent with this opinion.
Reversed and remanded.