@strangerworks watched the Scott Pruitt hearings for 6 hours yesterday (Highlights here)....

[riversedge]

Well organized. Good summary of the 6 hours. #FirePruitt





Sierra Magazine Retweeted
Paul Rauber @paulrauber
Apr 27

.@strangerworks watched the Scott Pruitt hearings for 6 hours yesterday so you didn't have to. But you do need to read her report:

https://www.sierraclub.org/sierra/who-else-fed-pruitt-congress-epa-budget-hearings?utm_source=twitter&utm_campaign=sierramag&utm_medium=sierra_social …

Link to tweet

https://www.sierraclub.org/sierra/who-else-fed-pruitt-congress-epa-budget-hearings?utm_source=twitter&utm_campaign=sierramag&utm_medium=sierra_social


Who Else Is Fed Up With Pruitt? Congress.
We watched six hours of EPA budget talks so you didn't have to

Scott Pruitt | Photo courtesy of House Appropriations Subcommittee on Interior

By Heather Smith | Apr 27 2018

“This is not dodge-question day,” Representative Anna Eshoo (D-Calif.) told Scott Pruitt about an hour in to what turned out to be six hours of questioning by two congressional committees on Thursday. But it was dodge-question day, because, for the embattled EPA administrator, every day is dodge-question day. While Pruitt's prepared statements before the hearings stuck to budget and policy, the EPA sent some lawmakers a 23-page document defending the multitudinous ethical infractions that Pruitt has been accused of, complete with a helpful table of contents.




Pruitt’s testimony followed tactics familiar to anyone who has seen him being grilled in the past—he talked very fast, said very little, and, when cornered, blamed everything on nameless EPA staffers. Among these were the “career employees” who liked nothing more than buying him things and finding covert ways to give substantial raises to the staffers referred to as Pruitt’s “Oklahoma Posse.” There was also the EPA’s Office of General Counsel, which allegedly told him that spending $43,000 of taxpayer money for a soundproof phone booth straight out of a James Bond movie was totally legal. Also shouldering the blame was the EPA’s inspector general, who so feared for Pruitt’s life that he approved unprecedented security expenditures.






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I will drive you there myself.

Marcy Kapur (D-Ohio) wore a lime-green suit as she addressed Pruitt. “I wore this color for a reason,” Kapur said. “Last year I invited you to come to Lake Erie." Lake Erie is very shallow, Kapur continued. Phosphorus and manure runoff left it overcome with toxic algal blooms, hence the algal-bloom-colored ensemble.

"I was a little offended you did not come out to visit us," said Kapur. "I know you're a busy man. But I read in the paper that you in the past year traveled to Italy and Morocco, and the trip to Italy alone cost more than $120,000. Do you have any idea what a plane ticket to Cleveland, Ohio, might cost you?”

“Less than a trip to Italy?” asked Pruitt.

“A great deal less. About $250,” said Kapur. “The president's budget for this year recommended elimination—zeroing out—of the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative. Did you recommend that to the president?”
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"The Region 5 Superfund office is understaffed," Kapur said. "Region 5 lost at least 90 employees, and the EPA has hired only two to replace them. It has zero hydrogeologists and zero civil investigators to look into who is polluting the Great Lakes, which means that there aren’t the resources to sue companies that pollute, which means that Superfund is also underfunded."

“The good news,” said Pruitt, “is that the OMB [the EPA's Office of Management and Budget] has actually lifted the hiring freeze for Region 5.”

“So what are you going to do for Region 5?” asked Kapur. “This is what it looks like. [She paused to wave her jacket collar in Pruitt’s direction.] I invite you out here this year. I will drive you myself, if you don't like airplanes."

“For us, this is a life-or-death issue. And I just don't see that EPA is serious. . . . To have this kind of ignorance by the EPA, I consider at this point to be un-American,” Kapur continued. “I expect more than cursory answers to this committee. I look forward to your letter of reply.”........................

[calimary]

1. That's a noble sacrifice, for sure.