Scott Pruitt testified before Congress that he wasn’t to blame for his $43,000 sound-proof booth, and that the decision had been made by ‘career individuals’ at the Environmental Protection Agency, which he heads. And now it appears we know just whose body gets the tire tracks from that particular bus.
Pruitt said Tuesday his security chief, Pasquale “Nino” Perrotta, was retiring. Pruitt gave no cause, but Pruitt’s spending on security at the EPA is the subject of ongoing federal investigations.
Pruitt’s security spending includes not just his cone of silence, but installing an entire security system within the existing security system, a bullet-proof car, and an apparently aborted effort to purchase a pair of bullet-proof desks. Theoretically, Pruitt could pin the blame for those purchases on Perrotta, whose LinkedIn profile indicates that he’s not just spent 14 years as an agent with the protective service detail, but is also the owner of Sequoia Security Group which offers “Executive Protection” and “Vulnerability & Threat Assessments.” Attempting to pin the office security systems on Perrotta would only make Pruitt a miserable manager with no grip on his staff or his budget.
It’s a bit harder to see how Perrotta could also be to blame for Pruitt’s staffing up with a 20-person, full time, $2 million-per year protection detail. Or how his security concerns inexplicably required Pruitt to fly first class.
The other aide heading out on Tuesday was already controversial when he came in.
Pruitt also announced the departure of Albert Kelly. Pruitt had put the former Oklahoma banker in charge of the EPA’s Superfund sites, overseeing the nation’s toxic waste cleanup program. That was after authorities banned Kelly from banking for life.
King not only lacked any experience in environmental law, environmental science, or environmental clean-up, but his sole qualification seemed to be a political one.
Pruitt announced this spring that the Superfund Task Force would revamp the remediation process at more than 1,300 sites. To lead the group, he appointed Albert “Kell” Kelly, a political supporter without experience in cleanups. In roughly a month’s time, the task force issued more than 40 detailed recommendations that Pruitt summarily adopted.
How did the inexperienced, unknowledgeable Kelly manage this record-fast evaluation? It’s a secret.
After the new Superfund procedures were adopted, the advocacy group Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, or PEER, asked through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to see the work that led to the changes. After a deadline passed with no records to review, the environmentalists sued. Half a year later, a Department of Justice attorney representing the EPA told the environmentalists there were no records to supply.
This is the same Scott Pruitt EPA that recently went to Capitol Hill to tout their new rules that block almost every scientific study of public health in the name of “transparency.”
Neither Kelly or Perrotta were among the aides who got a special “raise” generated by dipping into funds set aside for environmental consultants.