April 09, 2018
By Elaina Plott –
An email that suggests Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt personally signed off on a controversial pay raise for a favored aide last month is roiling the agency.
In the last few days, top staffers became aware of an email exchange between one of two aides who received such a raise and the agency’s human resources division. In mid-March, Sarah Greenwalt, senior counsel to the administrator, wrote to HR in an attempt to confirm that her pay raise of $56,765 was being processed. Greenwalt “definitively stated that Pruitt approves and was supportive of her getting a raise,” according to an administration official who has seen the email chain.
A second administration official confirmed the exchange. The email “essentially says, ‘The administrator said that I should get this raise,’” the official told me. Both spoke on condition of anonymity in order to discuss the private correspondence. A request for comment sent to an EPA spokesman was not immediately returned.
The mission of the Environmental Protection Agency is “to protect human health and the environment.” Disgraced EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt tried his best to undermine this vital mission by choosing to slash critical health protections and let corporate polluters off the hook. Now that Pruitt’s been booted, we need an EPA administrator dedicated to undoing his toxic agenda and restoring the agency to its core mission. Progress is possible and necessary – but another corporate crony or climate skeptic will not get us there.
Scott Pruitt is gone, but the fight is just beginning. We need an EPA administrator who puts our health and environment first, period. Any alternative is unacceptable.
