Members of the audience hold up "Fire Him" signs as EPA administrator Scott Pruitt testifies before Congress on Wednesday. | Andrew Harnik/AP Photo Senator to Pruitt: EPA meddling in health study ‘unconscionable’

Senate Democrats tore into Scott Pruitt on Wednesday, blasting the Environmental Protection Agency's meddling in a report on toxic chemicals as "unconscionable" and calling the EPA administrator's mounting ethics controversies an embarrassment to the agency.

"You’re trailing a string of ethical lapses and controversies, they’re an embarrassment to the agency, an embarrassment to Republicans and Democrats alike," Sen. Pat Leahy (D-Vt.) told Pruitt at a Senate hearing. "Forget about your own ego and your first class travel and your special phone booths and all these things that just make you a laughingstock and your agency a laughingstock."


Pruitt has faced a wave of scandals over the past few months, with scrutiny focused on his expensive flights, round-the-clock security detail, privacy phone booth, and below-market condo rental from an energy lobbyist. With news this week that EPA's Inspector General would look into Pruitt's use of multiple email accounts, he is now facing more than a dozen probes and investigations from Congress, the White House and his agency's internal watchdog.

And earlier this week, POLITICO reported that EPA helped to bury a federal study that would have increased warnings about toxic chemicals found in hundreds of water supplies across the country. That report showed Pruitt's senior aides intervened in the release of the Health and Human Services Department assessment into PFOA and PFOS after the White House warned of a "public relations nightmare."

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Leahy said efforts by the White House and political officials at EPA to block the chemicals assessment “unconscionable,” and he pointed to a community in his state that is grappling with chemical contamination.

“It’s incomprehensible to the people in Bennington and in Vermont why an agency that works for them — their tax dollars are paying for it — whose charge it is to protect their health, turns their back on them and tries to hide health dangers,” Leahy said in his opening statement.

West Virginia Republican Sen. Shelley Moore Capito also pressed Pruitt on his agency's intervention on the study, prompting him to deny that he had a hand in it.

“I was not aware that there had been some holding back of the report. I think it is important to have all information in the marketplace,” Pruitt said.

Capito encouraged Pruitt to get that study released before an EPA summit on the chemicals next week. “I appreciate the fact that you are trying to reach the scientific limit that would impact any kind of health impacts in our areas, regardless of who has to remediate and what the remediation costs are going to be,” she said, alluding to the fact that cleanup requirements would create major costs for the Defense Department and chemicals manufacturers.

Leahy also mocked Pruitt's security concerns as a justification for flying first class for more than a year. "Nobody even knows who you are," he said, adding later, "it’s ego run amok."

Much like appearance last month in front of two House panels, Pruitt shifted the blame for many of the recent scandals, blaming “processes” at the agency not being followed for some of his ongoing spending and ethical issues, and he told Senate Appropriators he had taken steps to avoid similar issues going forward.

“There have been decisions over the last 16 or so months, that as I look back, I would not make those same decisions again,” Pruitt said. But he stopped short of apologizing, and blamed critics of his deregulation agenda for the negative publicity.

"I want to rectify those going forward," Pruitt continued. "I also want to highlight for you that some of the criticism is unfounded and I think exaggerated. And I think it feeds this division that we’ve seen around very important issues affecting the environment.”

Pruitt also confirmed media reports that he had established a legal defense fund amid the spate of federal investigations. Donations to the fund would be made public pursuant to disclosure requirements and Pruitt said he would not solicit money from lobbyists or corporations with business before the agency. He later noted he would not personally seek contributions himself “since that’s done by attorneys and others.”

The EPA chief said his attorney “who’s done this for a number of years” has worked with Government Accountability Office “to make sure it’s done properly.”

Despite criticism from lawmakers from both parties and frustration from White House aides, Pruitt has continued to receive the support of President Donald Trump, who's praised the former Oklahoma attorney general for rolling back many of the Obama administration's environmental policies.

Sen. Tom Udall (D-N.M.) pressed Pruitt on his requests that his security detail use his vehicle's lights and sirens to beat Washington traffic and get to a restaurant.

“I don’t recall that happening,” Pruitt answered. But Udall shot back by referencing an email from Pruitt’s former security chief, Pasquale “Nino” Perrotta, that said “Administrator Pruitt encourages the use” of those lights and sirens. POLITICO has reported that Perrotta goaded and encouraged such behavior on security matters.

Udall later accused Pruitt of violating federal law by having an aide search for apartment rentals for him on personal time without being paid. The aide, Millan Hupp, an EPA scheduler and advance staffer who has worked for Pruitt since he was Oklahoma attorney general, is “a long-time friend of my wife and myself,” Pruitt said, and she took those actions entirely “on personal time.”

“It doesn’t cut it that they’re a friend or that kind of thing,” Udall replied, since federal law requires that any subordinate — even if they volunteer — be paid fair market value for their work or it’s considered a gift.

“That’s in violation of federal law,” Udall said.

Even Sen. Lisa Murkowski, chairwoman of the Appropriations panel hosting Pruitt, said at the start of the hearing she saw “legitimate questions that need to be answered” about the ethics scandals plaguing Administrator Scott Pruitt.

“Unfortunately, I am concerned that many of the important policy efforts that you are engaged in are being overshadowed because of a series of issues related to you and your management of the agency,” Murkowski said at the opening the budget hearing.

Udall also peppered Pruitt about his contacts with conservative political commentator Hugh Hewitt over a polluted California site. POLITICO first reported that EPA added the Orange County North Basin site to Pruitt’s list of sites targeted for "immediate and intense” action just weeks after Hewitt arranged a meeting with Pruitt and his law firm.

But Pruitt said the agency had been discussing potential action on the Superfund site “well before” Hewitt arranged a meeting on the issue. “I’m not entirely sure why there would be criticism around us taking concerted action to address Superfund sites and get accountability — whomever brings that to our attention,” he said.

That didn't placate Udall.

“The idea is that here’s been scientific analysis and through analysis on the list, and then special friends get to get on the list that’s been created by the agency,” Udall said. “Looks a little bit fishy to me."

Udall, who called on Pruitt to resign because of the recent controversies, said Pruitt was unfit to lead the agency because he didn't believe in its mission to protect human health and the environment.

“It needs to be said that your tenure at the EPA is a betrayal of the American people,” he said, criticizing not just the ethics scandals, but also his regulatory rollbacks.

“This isn’t cooperative federalism, it’s flat-out abandonment,” he said.