EPA Chief Scott Pruitt Faces Renewed Pressure Despite Trump's Support

By Martin Pengelly, Guardian UK

09 April 18

Controversy for Pruitt mounts over rent deal linked to an energy sector lobbyist and spending of public money on a security detail

he Environmental Protection Agency administrator, Scott Pruitt, remained under pressure on Sunday over his use of public money and a rental arrangement linked to an energy sector lobbyist – despite Donald Trump’s tweeted support.

“While security spending was somewhat more than his predecessor,” the president wrote on Saturday night, “Scott Pruitt has received death threats because of his bold actions at EPA. Record clean Air & Water while saving USA Billions of Dollars.”

Earlier, the Associated Press reported that the EPA spent “millions of dollars” on a full-time security detail more than three times the size of that which looked after Pruitt’s predecessor. Reuters reported that Pruitt’s use of a condominium owned by the wife of an energy lobbyist was being investigated by the House oversight committee.

“Rent was about market rate,” Trump claimed, “travel expenses OK. Scott is doing a great job!”

In fact Pruitt rented a room in a Capitol Hill townhouse co-owned by the wife of energy industry lobbyist Steven Hart for $50 a night, reported to be less than a third of the price of similar properties. Hart lobbies for companies regulated by the EPA.

Pruitt is a vocal critic of accepted climate change science who sued the EPA more than a dozen times when he was Oklahoma attorney general. In office, he has presided over a rollback of environmental protections often established under Barack Obama.

On Sunday, Republicans criticised his behaviour but backed his work. Asked on CBS’s Face the Nation if attacks on Pruitt were all generated by environmentalists who did not like what he was doing, Senator John Kennedy of Lousiana said: “Some of it is – but all of it isn’t.”

Pruitt was making “unforced errors” he said. “They are stupid. There are a lot of problems we can’t solve. But you can behave.”

Kennedy said Pruitt’s future was in Trump’s hands. Senator Mike Rounds of South Dakota, meanwhile, told NBC’s Meet the Press Pruitt should keep his job because he was “following through with the policies the president said he wanted to implement”.

Critics of Pruitt were “nitpicking little things”, Rounds said, adding that though he was not going to call such stories “fake news” – a loaded term favoured by Trump – “sometimes we overblow something”.

It was widely reported that Trump met Pruitt on Friday, a week after the White House chief of staff, John Kelly, urged the president to fire him. Trump told reporters on Thursday he would look into allegations against Pruitt but added that he was doing a “fantastic job”.

“You know, I just left coal and energy country,” the president said on Air Force One, after a trip to West Virginia. “They feel very strongly about Scott Pruitt. And they love Scott Pruitt.”

The news website Axios reported on Saturday that Kelly threatened to quit on 28 March. It did not link the reported threat to Pruitt or to the firing of David Shulkin, the veterans’ affairs secretary who went the same day. It also noted that Kelly had threatened to quit before.

Shulkin and Trump’s first health secretary, Tom Price, lost their jobs amid scandals involving the spending of public money. The housing and urban development secretary, Ben Carson, and the interior secretary, Ryan Zinke, have faced similar controversy.

An EPA official with direct knowledge of Pruitt’s security spending who spoke to the AP said there were legitimate concerns about the administrator’s safety, given public opposition to his rollbacks of anti-pollution measures. An EPA spokesman, Jahan Wilcox, cited “unprecedented” threats against Pruitt and his family as justification for expenses such as first-class airfares to keep the administrator separate from most passengers.

The EPA official, however, said Pruitt flew coach on personal trips to Oklahoma. The official spoke on condition of anonymity, for fear of retaliation.

News of the House oversight investigation added to pressure on Pruitt. Regarding the room on Capitol Hill, the EPA has produced a memo from its ethics office that initially cleared Pruitt of accepting a gift from a lobbyist but did not address whether he broke other ethics regulations.

Pruitt is also under fire for purchasing costly items for his office including a soundproof telephone booth.

“I don’t have a lot of patience with that kind of stuff,” the House oversight committee chair, Trey Gowdy ,said of Pruitt in a video released by the environmental group Friends of the Earth on Friday. “You’ve just got to be a good steward of public services.”

Speaking to the Guardian this week, a senior EPA official who asked not to be named said of agency management: “People are so done with these folks. We wanted and waited for some adults to show up. But the relentless tide of bullshit from Pruitt and his cronies is tough to deal with.”

Janet McCabe, a former EPA assistant administrator, said: “I think morale at the EPA is at a very low ebb.”

But she added: “The bigger concern is the environmental mission of the agency. Substantively, what has happened in the last year is a big a threat as the agency has ever faced.”