Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Scott Pruitt is supposed to be in charge of keeping our water clean, but these days, he seems to be focused on keeping our water swampy.
Pruitt used a little-known 1977 provision to the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA) to hire two ex-lobbyists who were then assigned roles crucial to maintaining clean water, the Washington Post reported Tuesday.
The provision lets the EPA hire more than two dozen people without any approval by the White House or Senate. But it wasn’t designed for hiring cronies to fill political slots. Rather, during times of need, it lets the EPA quickly add civil servants to its “cadre of senior management and scientific personnel,” as the Chair of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee said in a 1977 floor speech.
What’s more, under this provision, these hires do not have to sign the ethics pledge that President Trump put in place as part of his promise to “drain the swamp.” The pledge bans lobbyists from working on anything “directly and substantially related to my former employer or former clients, including regulations and contracts,” for two years.
Pruitt, however, abused the law to hire Lee Forsgren, a former attorney for the fossil fuel lobbying firm HBW Resources, which has campaigned for the controversial Dakota Access pipeline and Keystone XL tar sands pipeline. Last year, Forsgren became the Office of Water’s deputy assistant administrator, where he has jurisdiction over the Clean Water Act, the SDWA, and, of course, oil spills.
Pruitt also abused the law to hire Nancy Beck, a former chemical industry lobbyist, as the top deputy at the EPA’s Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention. In October, the New York Times detailed how Beck has been working to weaken or undo countless environmental rules and standards aimed at preventing the most toxic chemicals from contaminating the country’s drinking water.
Pruitt also used the provision to give raises to two young political staffers he had brought with him from Oklahoma — raises the White House had previously rejected.
Sarah Greenwalt, a 30-year-old attorney working as Pruitt’s senior counsel, received a $56,000 raise and now makes $164,200. And 26-year old Millan Hupp, Pruitt’s scheduling director, got a $28,000 raise and now makes over $114,590.
The Atlantic — which broke the story of these significant salary increases — quotes an unnamed EPA official saying, “This whole thing has completely gutted any morale I had left to put up with this place.”
Pruitt’s misuse of the Safe Drinking Water Act to hire cronies who risk making our water less safe is just the latest in a series of scandals that have rocked the EPA and led many to call for his resignation.
So far, the White House appears to be standing by the embattled EPA chief, since he’s been quite effective at putting Trump’s anti-environment and pro-pollution agenda into action. Still, Pruitt’s reign in the swamp may soon be over.