• About
    • Which Energy Mix is this?
  • Climate News Network Archive
  • Contact
The climate news that makes a difference.
No Result
View All Result
The Energy Mix
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities
SUBSCRIBE
DONATE
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities
SUBSCRIBE
DONATE
No Result
View All Result
The Energy Mix
No Result
View All Result
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities
  FEATURED
Danske Bank Quits New Fossil Fuel Financing January 23, 2023
Extreme Warming Ahead Even as Worst-Case Scenarios Grow ‘Obsolete’ January 23, 2023
Notley Scorches Federal Just Transition Bill as Fossil CEO Calls for Oilsands Boom January 23, 2023
IRON OXIDE: New Battery Brings Long-Duration Storage to Grids, 750 Jobs to West Virginia January 23, 2023
BREAKING: GFANZ Banks, Investors Pour Hundreds of Billions into Fossil Fuels January 17, 2023
Next
Prev

Paranoid Pruitt Needs Armed Guards, Private ‘Cone of Silence’ in Office

October 3, 2017
Reading time: 2 minutes

Gage Skidmore/Flickr

Gage Skidmore/Flickr

 

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt, who’s in charge of rolling back protection of America’s water, air, and climate, is so worried about his personal safety that he has tripled his security detail—taking agents off their work investigating environmental crimes—and installed a unique “soundproof communications booth” in his office at a cost of US$25,000.

According to a sales rep involved in installing Pruitt’s cone of silence, the installed model cost far more than conventional booths meant to conduct hearing tests. “They had a lot of modifications,” Steve Snider told the Washington Post. “Their main goal was that they wanted essentially a secure phone booth that couldn’t be breached from a data point of view, or from someone standing outside eavesdropping.” The outlet notes the EPA already had such a secure communications booth, but not in Pruitt’s own office.

  • The climate news you need. Subscribe now to our engaging new weekly digest.
  • You’ll receive exclusive, never-before-seen-content, distilled and delivered to your inbox every weekend.
  • The Weekender: Succinct, solutions-focused, and designed with the discerning reader in mind.
New!
Subscribe

“Pruitt also has shied away from using email at EPA,” the Post reports, “often preferring to deliver instructions verbally and hold face-to-face meetings.” The paper speculates Pruitt does so to avoid a repeat of the discovery of his close working ties to the oil and gas industry, after access to information requests produced copies of his earlier emails as Oklahoma attorney general.

Those close ties continue, according to the Post. “Scott Pruitt has met regularly with corporate executives from the automobile, mining, and fossil fuel industries—in several instances shortly before making decisions favourable to those interest groups,” the paper reports, citing a copy of his schedule it obtained. “There were, by comparison, only two environmental groups and one public health group on the schedule [for] April through early September.”

The New York Times similarly reports that Pruitt “has gone to unusual lengths to operate in secrecy at the EPA, where employees report he is often accompanied by armed guards even inside the agency, and avoids making important calls in his office.”

In addition to seeking to roll back regulations covering everything from stream protection to methane released by oil and gas companies, Pruitt has been the administration’s cheerleader for withdrawal from the Paris climate accord. He questions the consensus that human carbon emissions are warming the climate, and has sought to staff his agency’s science advisory positions with individuals recommended by the denialist Heartland Institute.



in Climate Denial & Greenwashing, Energy Politics, United States

The latest climate news and analysis, direct to your inbox

Subscribe

Related Posts

RL0919/wikimedia commons
Finance & Investment

Danske Bank Quits New Fossil Fuel Financing

January 23, 2023
2.1k
@tongbingxue/Twitter
Ending Emissions

Extreme Warming Ahead Even as Worst-Case Scenarios Grow ‘Obsolete’

January 23, 2023
262
Rachel Notley/Facebook
Jobs & Training

Notley Scorches Federal Just Transition Bill as Fossil CEO Calls for Oilsands Boom

January 23, 2023
248

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

I agree to the Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy.

Trending Stories

RL0919/wikimedia commons

Danske Bank Quits New Fossil Fuel Financing

January 23, 2023
2.1k
@tongbingxue/Twitter

Extreme Warming Ahead Even as Worst-Case Scenarios Grow ‘Obsolete’

January 23, 2023
262
Rachel Notley/Facebook

Notley Scorches Federal Just Transition Bill as Fossil CEO Calls for Oilsands Boom

January 23, 2023
248
James Vincent Wardhaugh/flickr

Canada Sidelines Ontario’s Ring of Fire, Approves Separate Mining Project

December 4, 2022
374
Weirton, WV by Jon Dawson/flickr

IRON OXIDE: New Battery Brings Long-Duration Storage to Grids, 750 Jobs to West Virginia

January 23, 2023
492
TALL ORDER -- A field of “Freedom” giant miscanthus on Mississippi State University’s South Farm towers over research agronomist Brian Baldwin. Baldwin’s 12-year study of grassy feedstocks indicates the plant is a viable resource for biofuel production. (Photo by MSU Ag Communications/Scott Corey)

Bamboo-like Crop Could Cut U.S. Midwest Warming by 1°C

May 4, 2022
957

Recent Posts

United Nations

Salvage of $20B ‘Floating Time Bomb’ Delayed by Rising Cost of Oil Tankers

January 27, 2023
4
EcoAnalytics

Albertans Want a Just Transition, Despite Premier’s Grumbling

January 23, 2023
185
Sergio Boscaino/flickr

Dubai Mulls Quitting C40 Cities Over ‘Costly’ Climate Target

January 24, 2023
84
hangela/pixabay

New UK Coal Mine Faces Two Legal Challenges

January 24, 2023
43

Gas Stoves Enter U.S. Climate Culture War, Become ‘Bellwether’ for Industry

January 22, 2023
72
Jeff Hitchcock/flickr.

BREAKING: GFANZ Banks, Investors Pour Hundreds of Billions into Fossil Fuels

January 23, 2023
493
Next Post
Hurricane María photo by FEMA/Wikimedia Commons

Trump Contrasts Puerto Rico with ‘Real Catastrophe’, But Migration Could Reshape U.S. Mainland

The Energy Mix - The climate news you need

Copyright 2023 © Energy Mix Productions Inc. All rights reserved.

  • About
  • Contact
  • Privacy Policy and Copyright
  • Cookie Policy

Proudly partnering with…

scf_withtagline
No Result
View All Result
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities

Copyright 2022 © Smarter Shift Inc. and Energy Mix Productions Inc. All rights reserved.

Manage Cookie Consent
To provide the best experiences, we use technologies like cookies to store and/or access device information. Consenting to these technologies will allow us to process data such as browsing behaviour or unique IDs on this site. Not consenting or withdrawing consent, may adversely affect certain features and functions.
Functional Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes. The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
Manage options Manage services Manage vendors Read more about these purposes
View preferences
{title} {title} {title}