Scott Pruitt, Friend or Foe
WASHINGTON D.C. - The EPA is under attack from inside. The date is September 26, 2017. The EPA has just signed a contract for a $25,000 to build a soundproof communications booth for Scott Pruitt. “What you are referring to is a secured communication area in the administrator’s office so secured calls can be received and made,” EPA spokeswoman Liz Bowman said in a statement. “Federal agencies need to have one of these so that secured communications, not subject to hacking from the outside, can be held. It’s called a Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility (SCIF). This is something which a number, if not all, Cabinet offices have and EPA needs to have updated.” The EPA has a secure room for classified information. So why does the new Administrator need a special room?
Steve Snider, a salesman at Acoustical Solutions who handled the EPA contract, said that privacy booths are usually around $5,000 to $6,000. He said the EPA requested significant modifications that required a custom order with the manufacturer. They wanted a secure phone and computer room, essentially for sensitive information,” Mr. Snider said. “You can’t hear what’s going on outside, but conversely people outside can’t hear what’s going on inside.” This is the first time Acoustical Solutions has created this type of room for any of the multiple governmental agencies it has worked for. It seems as though Scott Pruitt is afraid of being overheard.
Pruitt also fears for his life at all times. His personal round-the-clock guard is three times bigger than any other Administrator before him. He's actively pulling agents off environmental cases to rotate in his personal security detail. The EPA’s Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance has summoned agents from various cities to serve two-weeks stints helping guard Pruitt in recent months. While hiring in many departments is frozen, the agency has sought an exception to hire additional full time staff to protect the Administrator. Michael Hubbard, a former special agent who lead the EPA’s Criminal Investigation Division office in Boston says, “This never happened with prior administrators...These guys signed on to work on complex environmental cases, not to be an executive protection detail,” Hubbard said. “It’s not only not what they want to do, it’s not what they were trained and paid to do.”
On Friday, the EPA inspector general acknowledged plans to expand inquiries into Administrator Scott Pruitt travel habits. The move came after recent disclosures that Pruitt had taken at least four noncommercial and military flights since mid-February, costing taxpayers more than $58,000 to fly him to various parts of the country. The EPA inspector general’s office announced in August that it had opened an inquiry into Pruitt’s frequent travel to his home state of Oklahoma. “congressional requests and a hotline complaint, all of which expressed concerns about Administrator Pruitt’s travel — primarily his frequent travel to and from his home state of Oklahoma”. But on Friday, the inspector general’s office said it will expand that inquiry to include all of Pruitt’s travel through the end of September, and not just trips to Oklahoma.
In a statement Friday, Sen, Sheldon Whitehouse (D- R.I.) wrote to the EPA inspector general on Sept. 26, requesting an additional inquiry into Pruitt’s travels. In a statement Friday, Whitehouse welcomed the widening of the probe, noting that Pruitt has proposed cutting the agency by 30 percent even as he has “spent tens of thousands of taxpayers dollars on chartered flights and a secure communication chamber in his office, even when the agency already has one.”
