Almost $25K to make phone booth for EPA administrator

The Environmental Protection Agency is spending nearly $25,000 to provide administrator Scott Pruitt something none of his predecessors have had — a custom soundproof booth for making private phone calls.

The agency signed a $24,570 contract this summer with Acoustical Solutions, a Richmond, Va.-based company, for a “privacy booth for the administrator.” The company sells and installs an array of sounddampening and privacy products, from ceiling baffles to full-scale enclosures like the one purchased by the EPA. The project’s scheduled completion date is Oct. 9, according to the contract.

Typically, such soundproof booths are used to conduct hearing tests. But the EPA sought a customized version — one that eventually would cost almost several times more than a typical model — that Pruitt can use to communicate without fear of being monitored.

“They had a lot of modifications,” said Steve Snider, an acoustic sales consultant with the company, who worked with the agency on the order. “Their main goal was they wanted essentially a secure phone booth that couldn’t be breached from a data point of view or from someone standing outside eavesdropping.”

No previous EPA administrators had such a setup.

“What you are referring to is a secured communication area in the administrator’s office so secured calls can be received and made,” EPA spokeswoman Liz Bowman said in a statement. “Federal agencies need to have one of these so that secured communications, not subject to hacking from the outside, can be held.”