If EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt is still in office at week’s end, it will mark a singular failing of the Congress, the media, and simple decency to demand that some consequence follow an unbroken string of offenses, misdeeds, and indisputable crimes.
There hasn’t been a moment since his appointment when Pruitt wasn’t a source of scandals that would have downed whole administrations in eras where standards of sanity and decency were upheld. But here in the Middle Trumpian, our outrage tolerance has apparently evolved to such an extent that Pruitt’s transgressions go flying past, sometimes literally. Two Republican representatives have called for Pruitt’s ouster, along with many Democrats, but Trump still says he has Pruitt’s back.
Pruitt’s outrages should not be acceptable for anyone, in any time. He needs to go. Now. So before you call your congress person to demand Pruitt be sacked, here’s a quick list of some low-lights, broken down for you into suitable categories: corruption and paranoia.
Corruption
- Pruitt spent more than six months living in the townhouse of a fossil fuels lobbyist, getting complete run of a swanky townhouse for himself and guests for $50 a night — a fraction of the real value. And he didn’t even pay for the room when he was out of town.
- The lobbyist who owned the townhouse had a client with a oil pipeline that needed EPA approval. Pruitt told the State Department the EPA had no issues — even though the pipeline had already generated the most damaging spill since BP’s Deepwater Horizon.
- The townhouse wasn’t just a place where Pruitt could hobnob with lobbyists without it appearing on his calendar, it was also a place where lobbyists could host fundraisers for GOP congressmen. Pruitt won’t admit to being there … but he was there. That is on his calendar.
- Pruitt gave enormous raises to his favorite aides — raises that violate federal law. He even gave out a raise as a favor to an EPA official who took time away from official duties to help Pruitt locate a cheap place to live.
And those are just the things we learned about so far this week. Scott Pruitt has taken Donald Trump’s throw one atrocity on another strategy to an even greater extreme than Trump. The damage he’s causing goes beyond his department, and beyond just the dollars he’s costing the public. He has to go. Immediately.
More Corruption
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- Pruitt took his top aides on a four-day vacation to Morocco, during which Pruitt made a speech promoting fracking for natural gas. Neither the trip nor Pruitt’s speech had anything to do with the mission of the EPA.
- Pruitt spent $120,000 on a single trip to Rome that included a private tour of the Vatican. More than $30,000 of that was flying around Pruitt’s private security detail. That’s on top of $36,000 Pruitt spent commandeering a military aircraft simply to take him to the New York airport to catch his Italy flight.
- Pruitt spent $14,000 just on a trip around his home state of Oklahoma. To run up that total, Pruitt charted a plane just to take him between three towns in one state. The cost of moving Pruitt’s security team from DC to Oklahoma and back again isn’t included in that total.
- Under Pruitt, the EPA has dropped about one third of all enforcement actions and adopted a “a more lenient approach”
- Pruitt has refused to meet with citizens groups or environmental activists, and instead stuffed his calendar with meetings with fossil fuel companies, energy lobbyists, and advocates for deregulation.
- Over a 90 day period, Pruitt made a dozen trips to Oklahoma, and spent at least 43 days in his home state during March, April and May. All those trips were charged to taxpayers. But fortunately for Pruitt, the nice lobbyist folks didn’t charge him that $50 a night for his townhouse while he was back in Oklahoma.
- Pruitt didn’t just meet with oil and gas companies who had business before the EPA. He traveled to oil and gas conferences to speak to them and reassure them the EPA would be reducing its actions.
- Pruitt purged scientists from the EPA’s scientific advisory boards, and replaced them with fossil fuel industry insiders and lobbyists.
Paranoia
- Pruitt claims that he can only fly first class … because he gets so many threats. How threats and not flying in a coach seat are related has never been made clear. The “blanket authorization” given Pruitt for flying first class is another violation of government regulations.
- Pruitt had a sound-proof booth constructed in his office at a cost of $25,000 — even though there was already a sound-proof booth in the EPA building.
- Pruitt was so convinced that someone was tapping his phone lines, that he frequently leaves his office and takes over the phone of another EPA staffer to throw whoever he believes is listening in off the scent. He has also had his office swept for listening devices. Twice. They found nothing.
- Pruitt mandates that not only can no one bring a phone or other device to meetings, no one is allowed to take notes at meetings. Because that way, no one can prove what was said.
- Pruitt installed a second security system inside the EPA's existing security system that blocks off areas of the building from the use of veteran EPA staff.
- Pruitt dedicated an entire floor of the EPA office building for one person — Scott Pruitt. Anyone entering that floor has to be searched for phones or other recording devices, and escorted in and out by one of Pruitt’s personal guards.
- Pruitt has hired at least 30 personal guards at a cost calculated to be at least $2 million a year. His excuse is that he gets threats. The number of cabinet officers ever attacked: 0.
There’s another important category: Destruction. The utter dismantling of everything from the Office of Environmental Justice to the elimination of clean air standards to hiding climate change data to protect the lies told by Trump and Pruitt.
Scott Pruitt is running roughshod over regulations, the law, common sense, and common decency. Make that call. Make this end.