Scott Pruitt, administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, doesn’t want the American public to think about why natural disasters like Hurricane Harvey and Hurricane Irma are happening. As he just told CNN, “To have any kind of focus on the cause and effect of the storm; versus helping people, or actually facing the effect of the storm, is misplaced . . . there’s the . . . place (and time) to do that, it’s not now.”
These are worrisome words for anyone who puts their faith in the power of science to solve and prevent problems. It also indicates that Pruitt doesn’t think the media and the American public are capable of considering both short and long-term perspectives.
Scientists are clear that the number and severity of hurricanes is directly related to warming ocean waters, a consequence of climate change. That’s an important variable in thinking about how to prepare coastal cities for rising sea levels and severe storms.
But Scott Pruitt, who wears his climate-change skepticism on his sleeve, seems to believe it’s best to keep information about the environment under wraps. On August 31, Senators on the Committee on Environment and Public Works, which has oversight of the EPA, sent a letter accusing Pruitt of shirking his duties as a public official, hiding communications, ignoring FOIA requests, and “taking deliberate steps to thwart transparency.”
Pruitt, who wears his climate-change skepticism on his sleeve, seems to believe it’s best to keep information about the environment under wraps.
The Senate Committee asked Pruitt to take a number of steps to “promote transparency,” such as requiring that top agency officials create paper trails of their actions, including posting public calendars of meetings and logging phone calls.
Defending Pruitt’s secretive managerial style, Steven J. Milloy, a member of Mr. Trump’s EPA transition team, told The New York Times, “EPA is legendary for being stocked with leftists. If you work in a hostile environment, you’re not the one that’s paranoid.”
Pruitt’s lack of faith in the American people’s ability to process information was on the display during Hurricane Harvey, when he said an AP reporter caused “panic and politicized the work of first responders” by writing about the risks of toxic pollution from Superfund sites inundated by Harvey’s floodwaters. Pruitt accused the journalist of “reporting from the comfort of Washington.” In fact, the AP reporters personally visited Superfund sites and found “the flow from the raging river washing over the toxic site was so intense it damaged an adjacent section of the Interstate 10 bridge, which has been closed to traffic due to concerns it might collapse.”
In fact, it was the EPA that was missing in action. The Houston Chronicle reported that EPA staff cuts had left the agency ill-prepared to monitor and protect against toxin spills.
“God knows what’s in the soil and water now that floodwaters have receded,” Gretchen Goldman, research director for the Union of Concerned Scientists, was quoted as saying. “I don’t know if there's a capacity to test what you'd ideally want to test.”
The EPA has been offering buyouts to staff, prompting 400 people to leave their posts with the agency since the end of August.
Things will likely get worse. The EPA has been offering buyouts to staff, prompting 400 people to leave their posts with the agency since the end of August, according to The Wall Street Journal. The agency could be facing its smallest operating staff since the late 1980s.
And additional buyouts are likely, a fact that has Pruitt gleeful. “We’re proud to report that we’re reducing the size of government, protecting taxpayer dollars and staying true to our core mission of protecting the environment and American jobs,” he said in a statement.
Despite Pruitt’s determination to not talk about or deal with climate change, the problem is not going away. But there’s no need to tell that to the people in Texas and Florida.