April 06, 2018
By Zahra Hirji –
Environmental Protection Agency chief Scott Pruitt still has ethical questions to answer over his renting of a Washington, DC, apartment last year that was owned by the wife of an energy lobbyist, according to a bombshell memo and new comments from department ethics officials.
Contrary to initial reports, the EPA’s ethics office has not cleared Pruitt of all ethics allegations. Instead, agency staff have so far only carried out a very narrow ethics assessment based on limited information, which concluded it didn’t fit the bill of a gift.
That’s according to the new memo by Kevin Minoli, the EPA’s principal deputy general counsel, who has personally come under fire for how the agency has handled the controversy. Minoli, in the new memo, said he only reviewed the living arrangement in the context of the lease he was provided, but did not assess outside circumstances raised in news reports. Minoli declined to be interviewed for this story.
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.
