EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt, the Least Transparent Cabinet Member, Demands Science Transparency

EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt, the Least Transparent Cabinet Member, Demands Science Transparency

Maximal Hypocrisy Achieved!  Much better than a simple Trump Mission Accomplished!

Scott Pruitt, Administrator of the EPA, has required that only completely transparent studies with fully published data, can be used to set EPA policies.  This means that all studies of the serious and costly health effects of pollution on actual people cannot be used, since patient records remain confidential.  He failed to get Congress to pass such an act, called the Honest Act, so he is just imposing the order anyway.  Science Magazine of April 13 had an editorial justifying studies without such impossible transparency.  It is clearly just meant to remove regulation on pollution that is severely damaging to human health.

But Scott Pruitt has probably set records for lack of his own transparency among government employees and records.  Pruitt has installed a $45,000 “cone of silence” to make or take phone calls from industrial polluters that he ethically shouldn’t be making or taking in the first place.  What’s more, he did not get permission for this, so that $40,000 of that was spent illegally.  He already had such a quiet room anyway.

Pruitt does not keep a public record of who he talks to, or whom he meets with.  He flies first class because he is afraid to talk to the public.  He has fired most scientific advisors and installed industry sources of who-knows-what qualifications instead.  He has ruled out any scientific experts who get funding from the EPA, although no conflict of interest has been shown.

There are several other irregularities and conflicts of interest in his behavior, including the extremely low-cost rental of a Washington apartment from a lobbyist.

He has a full-time security detail, despite not possessing any top-secret data.

So, the only man in the Trump cabinet demanding complete transparency, is the least transparent cabinet member. 

On April 18, 131 Representatives and 39 Senators signed a resolution calling for his resignation.  That the public health is being denigrated by an Administrator with so much Congressional opposition is an incredible indictment of the corruption of the Trump Administration. 

About Dennis SILVERMAN

I am a retired Professor of Physics and Astronomy at U C Irvine. For two decades I have been active in learning about energy and the environment, and in reporting on those topics for a decade. For the last four years I have added science policy. Lately, I have been reporting on the Covid-19 pandemic of our times.
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