The week at the Environmental Protection Agency has been a brutal low point in what many staff members refer to as the most difficult year in its near half-century history. An avalanche of allegations of ethical misconduct by the EPA administrator, Scott Pruitt, has heaped embarrassment upon a watchdog struggling to adapt to the industry obeisance demanded by the Trump administration.



“This sucks. It sucks big,” said a senior EPA official who asked not to be named. “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.”

Pruitt was already attempting to swat away criticism over his penchant for luxury travel, having spent $105,000 on first-class flights in his first year in the job, and his unusual preoccupation with personal safety, having pulled a group of EPA staff from investigating environmental crimes to become his 24-hour security accompaniment. He had also spent more than $50,000 on sweeping his office for listening bugs, installing biometric locks and constructing a soundproof booth in which to take and receive calls.

A series of revelations over the past week have seemingly pushed Pruitt close to being fired. There was the Washington DC townhouse where he stayed last year, renting a room for just $50 a night from the wife of an energy lobbyist. Occasionally his daughter would join him, to help make eggs with avocado for breakfast.

This was followed by evidence that Pruitt had used an obscure provision of the Safe Drinking Water Act to give two favoured aides, the counsel Sarah Greenwalt and the scheduling director Millan Hupp, raises of almost $57,000 and $28,000 respectively, after the White House refused them.

This sucks. It sucks big … the relentless tide of bullshit from Pruitt and his cronies is tough Senior EPA official

The pay issue is a “big sock in the gut” for EPA staff, according to an agency source, due to the departure of hundreds of employees and reduced bonuses for those who remain.

The alleged malfeasance then descended almost into farce: according to the New York Times, at least five EPA officials were reassigned or demoted after they raised concerns about Pruitt’s spending, including a request for a $100,000-a-month charter aircraft membership and $70,000 for two office desks, one of them bulletproof, as well as Pruitt’s desire to use sirens to sweep aside DC traffic so he could reach Le Diplomate, a French restaurant.

If the allegations are true then “this isn’t what taxpayer dollars are for”, said Janet McCabe, a former EPA assistant administrator.



“This isn’t the life I’m used to living as a government person,” McCabe said. “You have to be scrupulous about even any whiff of a financial relationship with anyone being regulated. How can you trust a regulatory system when people aren’t held to very strict standards of ethics?”

Pruitt rushed to sympathetic conservative media outlets to declare himself baffled by the storm of controversy, describing the townhouse arrangement as an “Airbnb situation” on which an EPA ethics official had signed off. The same official, Kevin Minoli, has since issued a memo stating that he lacked key facts when making that judgment. Pruitt also falsely claimed the clients of Steven Hart, the energy lobbyist linked to the condo, had no business before the EPA.

Describing Washington as “toxic”, Pruitt said opponents of his deregulatory policies “will resort to anything” to halt his progress.

Pruitt has perhaps been the most effective member of Donald Trump’s cabinet, attacking dozens of environmental regulations with the sort of zeal that saw him sue the EPA repeatedly while attorney general of Oklahoma.

While the White House spokeswoman, Sarah Sanders, said Trump was not happy with Pruitt’s controversies, the president himself said on Thursday that the EPA administrator was “a good man, he’s done a terrific job. But I’ll take a look at it.”

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

How can you trust a regulatory system when people aren’t held to very strict standards of ethics? Janet McCabe, former EPA assistant administrator

The rollback of Obama administration efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from coal plants and vehicles, stem pollution from entering streams and rivers and ban chemicals linked to brain damage and other ailments in children has delighted industry groups and conservatives, who have rallied to Pruitt’s defence.



Senator Ted Cruz said that Trump would not fire Pruitt because he is “too cagey to be duped and bullied by the Obama groupies”. His fellow Republican senator Rand Paul called Pruitt the “bravest and most conservative member of Trump’s cabinet”.

This esteem, along with the aggressive agenda to eliminate any Obama-era legacy at the EPA, could save Pruitt even though Tom Price and David Shulkin, two cabinet members also caught up in taxpayer-funding scandals, were dismissed for seemingly far lighter misdemeanors.



Even in the midst of the scandals last week, Pruitt was continuing the rollbacks, launching an attempt to tear up new pollution standards for cars and trucks, handing himself more control over the regulation of activities near waterways and introducing “transparency” to EPA science by tossing aside research based on confidential data – the cornerstone of studies that show the harmful impacts of air pollution.

The pace of these reversals has left Pruitt open to legal attack, with the courts already halting some of the more legally careless maneuvers. But the legacy of the Kentucky-born lawyer is likely to linger longer than the spending scandals once the US decides it again wants to do something about climate change or cut the number of people dying from air pollution.

“I think morale at the EPA is at a very low ebb,” said McCabe. “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.”

On Friday, it was reported that the White House chief of staff, John Kelly, urged Pruitt’s dismissal last week but was rebuffed. Trump reportedly met Pruitt at the White House, and tweeted that the administrator was “doing a great job but is TOTALLY under siege”. Sanders, his press secretary, then told reporters Pruitt’s actions were under review.