The head of the EPA, Scott Pruitt, is paranoid. Actually, he’s not paranoid at all. He knows people are out to get him and he’s right—we are out to get him. The reason he knows people are out to get him is because he’s a corrupt and narcissistic zealot who is turning the agency he leads away from its original mission statement of protecting the environment and the public in order to gain power and glory from fossil fuel interests. The Associated Press reports that members of the public and the press have been barred from the EPA’s hearing on widespread water contamination.
Guards barred an AP reporter from passing through a security checkpoint inside the building. When the reporter asked to speak to an EPA public-affairs person, the security guards grabbed the reporter by the shoulders and shoved her forcibly out of the EPA building.
While the press is reporting that Pruitt has said that water contamination is a “national priority,” he has been working to dismantle the existing, albeit meager, water pollution safeguards. And because of our country’s neglected infrastructure, pollutants like plastics and lead are clear public health emergencies. Pruitt and the EPA’s lack of transparency is not a symptom of his corruption: it’s an essential part of maintaining the power he needs to continue poisoning the regulatory system he has been charged with running.