Anyone who tries to follow the political controversies that keep growing around EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt needs a scorecard.
From his exorbitant travel expenses to the secure phone booth for his office to the room he rented from an Oklahoma energy lobbyist, it’s fuel for his critics.
Consider how Politico’s Morning Energy Report laid out the list on Wednesday…..one issue after another.
INSIDE THE AGENCY – THIS WON’T HELP: The ousting of an EPA employee Tuesday may only stiffen the resolve of some of Administrator Scott Pruitt’s strongest critics within the agency, POLITICO’s Emily Holden reports. EPA pushed out Mario Caraballo, a career staffer who approved an internal report that undermined the claims that Pruitt required expensive security protection, two former agency employees familiar with the situation said. One career EPA staffer told Emily that Caraballo was a “standout manager,” and his departure wouldn’t frighten staff, but instead “embolden us to leak more to get these criminals out.” The source added: “They need to know we’re not intimidated and we’re going to blow the whistle on anything even borderline questionable.”
Caraballo was the deputy associate administrator of EPA’s Office of Homeland Security, which in February concluded that an earlier assessment failed to identify credible direct threats against Pruitt – the subject of a letter from Sens. Sheldon Whitehouse and Tom Carper that was released Tuesday. One source with direct knowledge of Caraballo’s dismissal said the agency claimed he was let go because of a personnel issue from a previous military job nearly a decade ago. But that same source also said senior officials were not happy with the report from Caraballo’s office.
“They’re in full panic mode right now,” the source said. EPA Principal Deputy Assistant Administrator Donna Vizian said the agency would not comment on personnel matters, but added in an emailed statement that Tuesday’s action “was based on a recommendation by the Office of Administration and Resources Management.” Vizian said she was “not aware of any connection between the personnel matter and the document mentioned in media reports.” Read the story here.
BE PREPARED: Though Senate Energy Chairman Lisa Murkowski said the final call on Pruitt’s future rests with President Donald Trump, she made clear Tuesday she thought Pruitt’s string of ethical woes weren’t helping him implement his agenda and that he should be ready for a grilling once he finally returns to Capitol Hill. “If I were the administrator, I’d certainly be prepared to answer anything that may come his way,” Murkowski, who oversees the EPA spending subcommittee, told reporters.
Ramping up their efforts: Senate Democrats used a portion of their Tuesday caucus lunch to discuss a sense of the Senate resolution, soon to be introduced by Sen. Tom Udall, calling for Pruitt’s resignation. “While we expect to have policy differences with a Republican EPA administrator, Scott Pruitt’s transgressions have gone far beyond policy disagreements,” a “dear colleague” letter that Udall handed several reporters on the subway said.
Democrats worry about review: House Energy and Commerce Democrats meanwhile sent a letter to the EPA Office of the Inspector General on Tuesday, urging it to take over the review of Pruitt’s potential ethics violations, following a letter from the Office of Government Ethics to EPA’s top ethics official, Kevin Minoli. Ranking member Frank Pallone and Reps. Diana DeGette, Paul Tonko and Kathy Castor instead requested Tuesday that the IG’s office conduct the review, citing concerns with impartiality. Read it here.
AT THE WHITE HOUSE: Trump’s Sunday tweet that Pruitt was “doing a great job!” seemed to be the White House’s last word on the embattled administrator’s recent storm of ethical controversies. But press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders told reporters Tuesday the president expects “all members of his Cabinet to be honest and certainly open with the public,” which could be problematic for the administrator if it is confirmed that he’d lied during last week’s Fox New interview, when he said he had only recently found out about pay raises to top aides.
IG WILL LOOK INTO DRAVIS’ ATTENDANCE: EPA’s IG will review the work attendance of Samantha Dravis, the associate administrator of EPA’s Office of Policy who resigned last week, according to a letter to Carper on Monday. Carper previously wrote in a letter to the IG that Dravis had not worked for much of a period from November through January, though she was known to have accompanied Pruitt and other EPA officials to Morocco in December, Pro’s Alex Guillén reports. “While Ms. Dravis has subsequently announced that she is leaving the EPA, the issues you raise would not be answered by her departure,” EPA IG Arthur Elkins Jr. wrote. Read more.
EPA UNION CALLS FOR PRUITT’S OUSTER: EPA’s largest union, Save the U.S. EPA, has aligned itself with environmentalists’ “Boot Pruitt ” campaign by calling on Pruitt to resign or be fired. “Not only is morale at the lowest it’s ever been, but by reducing the importance of science at the EPA, denying the basic tenets of climate change and advocating for drastic cuts to the EPA’s annual budget, Mr. Pruitt is putting everyone at risk, including our children and grandchildren,” AFGE National Council of EPA Locals #238 President John O’Grady said in a statement. “Some of the damage he has done will take years, if not decades, to undo.”
SPITTING FIRE: Carper, the ranking member of the EPW Committee, told reporters a portion of floor debate on Andrew Wheeler’s nomination for EPA deputy administrator would go toward discussing the “mistakes and misdeeds” of Pruitt. “We fought his nomination about as hard as anything I’ve ever fought against in my life. I don’t think he should be the administrator today,” he said. “If Gina McCarthy were the EPA administrator, the Republican majority would have dragged her in before us maybe not every day of every week, but maybe every week.”