EPA pulls officers from other duties to protect Pruitt: report

The Environmental Protection Agency is pulling EPA law enforcement officers away from other duties to protect Administrator Scott Pruitt, according to a new report.

Officers from outside Washington have had to serve two-week stints on Pruitt’s security detail since he started at the EPA in February, taking them away from environmental crime responsibilities, The Washington Post reported Wednesday, citing current and former employees.

Unlike his predecessors, Pruitt has around-the-clock security that requires of team of up to 18 officers, the Post reported.

{mosads}The EPA spent more than $800,000 in a three-month period on Pruitt’s security earlier this year, and has requested more funding for the operations. Officials have also sought an exception to the administration-wide hiring freeze for Pruitt’s detail.

Patrick Sullivan, the EPA assistant inspector general for investigations, told the Post that his office has seen an increase in the number of reported threats against Pruitt, compared with previous administrators.

“We have a number of cases directed against the administrator that we’ve already closed, and we also have a number of pending cases,” he said.

“A lot of correspondence we have reflects that people are unhappy with his perceived unenforcement of environmental laws,” Sullivan continued. “When Ms. [Gina] McCarthy was the administrator, some of the threats involved people being upset because they were enforcing them too much.”