Most likely because no actual work was done to remediate the Superfund Sites.
Pruitt’s buddies still got paid the full contract amount, and then some…
Thank you PEER for your oversight, since the GOP led congress has completely abdicated it’s role. Only if this gets picked up and run wildly in the press - especially in the states and localities where superfund sites are - will their be any pressure to attempt to get Congress to do something (they won’t).
But perhaps with intense scrutiny (which Pruitt has invited due to his noxious and secretive behavior in his job), more can be learned (and if not reversed, at least highlighted in order to later be remediated - by a later administration) and moved into the public’s collective mind.
Pruitt is stunningly sinister - and appears to be far more competent in avoiding the public eye than his obnoxious counterpart over at Interior.
It’s the Bush years all over again.
Remind me again NeverHillary that there is no difference between the parties. I need to hear it often for reinforcement because it seems like the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.
their contempt for the American people is truly breathtaking
she gave a speech to wall street executives and got paid a lot of money! she had a foundation and trump had a foundation! she was over 40! oh, and emails.
Yea, that’s right! Thanks. I needed that because I was started to believe the dumbest people on Earth did this to us.
Only the best…
Trump EPA pick for Chicago office cut enforcement, scrapped climate change information in Wisconsin
The Environmental Scandal in Scott Pruitt’s Backyard
By MALCOLM BURNLEY December 06, 2017
Tar Creek is also part of the environmental legacy of one of the state’s—and nation’s—leading politicians, Senator Jim Inhofe, and his longtime ally, Scott Pruitt, the former Oklahoma attorney general who is now head of President Donald Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency. After the EPA struggled to clean up the area, in 2006, Inhofe endorsed a plan in which a trust overseen by local citizens would use federal dollars to purchase homes and businesses in the toxic region so residents could move elsewhere. Then, when the plan proved so problematic that it spawned more than a half-dozen civil lawsuits and an audit into possible criminal wrongdoing, Pruitt, as the state’s attorney general, invoked an exception to state freedom-of-information laws to keep the audit from being an open public record.
Now, that decision is coming into new light as many Oklahomans clamor for the audit to be released, suggesting that its revelations will prove embarrassing to Inhofe, who played a key role in designing the buyout plan, and cast doubt on Pruitt’s decision not to move forward with charges. Last week, a Washington, D.C., nonprofit called Campaign for Accountability raised the stakes even further, filing suit in Oklahoma courts to force the release of the audit.
“If you take a look at Scott Pruitt’s record, you see a general disregard for transparency,” said Daniel Stevens, the group’s executive director. “I don’t think it’s outside our bounds to say that Pruitt is trying to hide evidence of criminal wrongdoing.”…snip
…After spending almost two years on the investigation, Jones turned over the results of the audit to the attorney general’s office in January 2014, apparently believing it had uncovered important information.
For a year and a half, the attorney general sat on the findings. Then, in May 2015, Pruitt announced that he wouldn’t press charges. In addition, he vowed to keep the audit secret by refusing to release it.
Jones fired back at the attorney general’s office days later, penning a letter to Pruitt that described his rationale for withholding the audit as “baffling.”
“To our knowledge, the individuals named in the report are members of a public trust or contractor whose services were retained as part of this substantive project,” Jones wrote. Further, he contended, “our office has received no inquiries from you or your staff regarding the content of the audit report.”
Pruitt justified the secrecy by comparing the investigation results to the findings of a grand jury. “Specifically, our office is concerned about publication of unsubstantiated criminal allegations against private citizens,” Pruitt wrote in a 2015 statement…snip
…Numerous veteran Oklahoma political watchers, some of whom spoke to POLITICO on condition of anonymity, suggest that there may be an ulterior motive in Pruitt’s embrace of Inhofe: It’s widely believed that Pruitt, who is 49, wants to run for Inhofe’s seat when the senator retires. Many observers think Inhofe is unlikely to seek reelection in 2020, when he’ll be 85…snip
The only records needed are copies of the checks from the polluted sites’ owners to Pruitt, who is obviously a crook or a moron. Sad.
Abhorrent. Or perhaps in Pruitt’s case Abwhoreant.
Well, Pruitt seems to have learned from the mistakes of the Trump Transition Team… they can’t prosecute you for records that were never created.
When the task force report has already been written by industry, there’s no need for notes, working papers, meeting minutes, documents or communication of any kind. Did they even have meetings?
This doesn’t pass the smell test. No emails? No drafts? How did 107 EPA staff participate? Stop by a cafeteria table and have an off-the-record conversation? All deliberations back and forth done verbally? With the chairman himself typing up the first and only document, magically free of typos or any errors?
I’ve worked on and managed task forces in my industry career and there’s no way this is how it went down. Unless it was all written off-site by an industry organization or lobbyist, handed to the chairman who thanked them profusely for making his job so easy, and quickly adopted to pay off donors. Clearly something is being hidden here.
True that. After all, how much work does it take to “re-allocate” billions of dollars in federal funds to your buddies? The best part, however, is that Pruitt can personally vouch for all of these “new, improved” contractors.
You mean beside all those grueling luncheons and cocktail parties at Trump International Hotel Washington DC?
And pantsuits.
And emailbenghaziwhitewatermumblefroth.
The got the recommendations from the Koch brothers, ALEC, or some other BS oligarch group. All 107 members plus Pruitt should be locked up for fraud. LOCK THEM UP!
Ding! Ding! Ding! We have a winner!
Actually it’s back to the Reagan era.
“Anne Gorsuch, served as President Ronald Reagan’s first Environmental Protection Agency administrator and the first female leader in the agency’s history. But her short, tumultuous tenure was marked by sharp budget cuts, rifts with career EPA employees, a steep decline in cases filed against polluters and a scandal over the mismanagement of the Superfund cleanup program that ultimately led to her resignation in 1983.”
Which is exactly the kind of thing Pruitt’s “Cone of Silence” leadership (instructing subordinates to make no personal notes during meetings, while also eschewing official minutes, for example) is designed to hide.
The whole thing is totally outrageous, SCREAMINGLY illegal/unethical in every way, and yet…