Center for Biological Diversity

For Immediate Release, September 25, 2017

Contact: Meg Townsend, (971) 717-6409, mtownsend@biologicaldiversity.org

In Records, EPA Won't Come Clean on Who Pruitt Meets With or Why

PORTLAND, Ore.— After months of stonewalling, the Environmental Protection Agency has released a partial schedule for EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt. As reported in The Washington Post, Pruitt met several times with corporate executives shortly before approving rules favorable to those industries.

But the EPA has yet to fully disclose important details of Pruitt’s schedule. The public records released by the agency, which covers the period of April 3 through Sept. 8, 2017, include only dates, times and names of certain individuals and groups that Pruitt met with. However, the records are incomplete and fraught with unexplained gaps, such as the subject matter of his meetings and missing days.

The Center for Biological Diversity filed a lawsuit under the Freedom of Information Act in May seeking a full release of Pruitt’s schedule, email and phone logs.

“The public has every right to know who’s pulling the strings as Pruitt continues his quest to dismantle key environmental safeguards,” said Meg Townsend, the Center’s open government staff attorney. “Pruitt is supposed to be protecting our air and water, not corporate profits. Missing details about who he’s meeting with and what they’re talking about raise troubling questions about who he’s really working for.”

Earlier this year the EPA released 10 days of Pruitt’s schedule and calendar to the Center in response to a public records request. The format of those records contains much more information than the agency’s most recent public release. The records that the Center received covered the final two weeks of February, and this recent public release begins on April 3. The 10 days of Pruitt’s schedule and calendar that the Center obtained also contain extensive redactions, which the Center is challenging in our May lawsuit.

“It’s disturbing to see public records come to us that black out information about who Pruitt met with and why,” Townsend said. “We’ll get to the bottom of it in court, but this isn’t how an open and transparent government — one that works for people instead of polluters — is supposed to operate.”

The Center for Biological Diversity is a national, nonprofit conservation organization with more than 1.5 million members and online activists dedicated to the protection of endangered species and wild places.

www.biologicaldiversity.org

More press releases