At yesterday’s budget hearing, EPA administrator and high schooler voted “most likely to sue his future employer” Scott Pruitt continued his tradition of stonewalling Congress instead of answering tough questions. And practically the only question he gave a concrete answer to, regarding the decision whether or not to ban the pesticide chlorpyrifos, he got wrong by five years.
Over and over, he answered questions about cuts the to EPA budget by saying that the issue--be it clean water, superfund sites or clean air--was a top priority. When pressed on how these issues can be priorities if funding is pulled, he used some variation of “let me be clear” or “what’s important is” to pivot back to (non)answers about process and management and promises to work with Congress to make sure everything turns out just fine.
Coral Davenport’s bombshell NYT report that the EPA pressured scientist to change her congressional testimony to better reflect the administration’s talking points of course came up in the hearing...and, naturally, Pruitt dodged. With EPA chief of staff Ryan Jackson--who sent the “bullying” emails to scientific board head Dr. Deborah Swackhamer--sitting behind him, Pruitt told Congress that he hadn’t seen the Times report but would provide a written response. No doubt that response will contain the politically correct talking points Jackson tried to force on Dr. Swackhamer.
Dr. Swackhamer, who heads the EPA’s Board of Scientific Counselors, testified in front of the House Science Committee on May 23rd, two weeks after the purge of experts from the board. Before Trump, there were 68 members on the board. By September that number will be whittled down to 11, leaving them with too few staff to actually do much advising. Jackson pushing Dr. Swackhamer to toe the political line left her feeling “stunned” and “bullied.”
In response to the board cuts, minority members of the House Science Committee sent letters to the EPA’s inspector general and Scott Pruitt, requesting an investigation and seeking information respectively. They point out that tampering with a witness and obstructing committee proceedings are both illegal. Consequently, the concern that Jackson “may have sought to interfere with the testimony” deserves investigation to determine if the emails “simply display a lack of effective management” and not “an intentional effort to attempt to silence Dr. Swackhamer.”
As the letters point out, Jackson was chief of staff for Senator Inhofe,. That implies the reps know he’s well aware of the rules against political interference in congressional testimony.
While we wait for Pruitt to figure out how to avoid honest answers to these tough questions, it’d be great if concerned citizens could nominate independent experts to a similar Science Advisory Board. Despite the fact that industry is already represented on these boards, Pruitt is likely to stack them with pro-pollution voices. The more obvious it is that he picks those over real experts, the better.
Though we would feel a little bad for whoever ends up nominated, because Dr. Swackhamer’s experience shows that apparently “energy dominance” just means continuing Obama-era energy policies, but with more bullying of scientists.
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