In order to provide around-the-clock security for EPA administrator Scott Pruitt, the agency “has summoned agents from various cities to serve two-week stints helping guard Pruitt,” says the Washington Post. “The practice has rankled some employees and outside critics, who note that the EPA’s criminal enforcement efforts already are understaffed and that the Trump administration has proposed further cuts to the division.”
Previous EPA chiefs had a security team of a half-dozen or so. Pruitt’s security detail “has swelled to about 18 people to cover the round-the-clock needs and the administrator’s frequent travel schedule,” reported the Post. According to E&E News, the EPA spent $833,000 on security for Pruitt during his first quarter in office, nearly double the total for his predecessors.
Aides requested the 24/7 protection shortly after Pruitt took office, said the Post. “Pruitt has developed a particularly high profile, as well as a divisive one,” it said, for moving aggressively to roll back Obama-era regulations. A former EPA special agent said the manpower needed to guard Pruitt was dipping into “guys [who] signed on to work on complex environmental cases, not to be on an executive protection detail.”