Rep. Dan Kildee, who represents Flint, Mich., the site of the 2014 lead water crisis, asked the Environmental Protection Agency’s inspector general on Thursday to conduct an investigation into the agency’s decision to limit public access to a summit this week on dangerous chemicals that have contaminated water supplies.
“Unfortunately, the EPA’s actions to block journalists and elected officials fit a disturbing pattern by the Trump administration when it comes to transparency in government. The actions by the Trump administration and Administrator [Scott] Pruitt give me great concern about the lack of accountability and transparency in our government,” the Michigan Democrat wrote in a letter to EPA Inspector General Arthur Elkins obtained by the Washington Examiner.
[Related: White House ‘looking into’ EPA barring reporters from summit]
Kildee said his staff was not allowed to attend the second day of the day-and-a-half summit at EPA headquarters Wednesday.
“I am deeply troubled by Administrator Pruitt and EPA’s attempt to block access to a taxpayer-funded meeting, either for journalists or members of Congress,” Kildee said. “Simply put, the public has a right to know what is happening inside their government.”
The EPA closed Wednesday’s session of the chemical summit to media and the public, saying the event was at capacity and was not subject to federal rules on public access.
“Both state and federal officials had the expectation that the second day of the summit would be a government-to-government discussion between federal and state co-regulators who are working together to address this important issue,” said Peter Grevatt, the EPA’s director of groundwater and drinking water.
The agency initially allowed only select reporters and the public to attend the first hour of Tuesday’s opening session of the summit, where Pruitt delivered an opening address. But after an outcry, the agency opened the afternoon session to everyone.
Kildee’s staff was invited to Tuesday’s session, but did not attend it, the EPA said.
The Federal Advisory Committee Act says “any committee, board, commission, council, conference, panel, task force, or other similar group” used by an agency “in the interest of obtaining advice or recommendations” for the federal government must be open to the public.
The day-and-a-half summit, attended by state, local, tribal, industry, and nonprofit officials, focused on the challenge of removing toxic chemicals known as per- and poly-fluorinated substances, or PFAS, from water supplies. The chemicals have been linked with thyroid defects, problems in pregnancy, and certain cancers.
PFAS have been used since the 1940s in Teflon, nonstick pans, electronics, water-repellent clothes, and firefighting foam.
The meeting was held after emails produced by a Freedom of Information request showed that the EPA helped delay the release of a study that found PFAS in water are harmful to human health at lower levels than the agency previously deemed safe.
The study, conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said the EPA’s benchmark for PFAS, at 70 parts per trillion, is six times higher than what it should be. It also said exposure to PFAS in drinking levels at just 12 parts per trillion can be dangerous.
Pruitt this week said he has no authority to release the study, saying that power rests with the Health and Human Services Department, which prepared the study.
The EPA’s inspector general is already probing Pruitt for his frequent first-class travel, heavy use of the agency’s security detail, and other ethics and spending issues.
