Report: EPA failed to assess security needs

Agency spent $3.5M on Pruitt’s protective detail, report says.

WASHINGTON — The Environmental Protection Agency failed to properly assess security threats facing former administrator Scott Pruitt before spending $3.5 million on round-the-clock protective detail in his first year, according to an Inspector General’s report.

Those costs covered just 11 months from February to December 2017 — and amount to more than double what was spent during the same period a year earlier.

“The increased costs associated with this undocumented decision represents an inefficient use of agency resources,” the report concluded.

Pruitt began receiving 24/7 protection from the moment he took office in February 2017, at the request of a Trump political appointee who said the polarizing former Oklahoma attorney general faced a higher security risk than his predecessors.

Guarding Pruitt soon demanded triple the manpower of previous protective details, requiring EPA special agents to pause criminal investigations and rotate in from around the country.

In its report Tuesday, EPA Inspector General Arthur Elkins said the agency had no formal threat assessment process to determine what was actually warranted. Rather, the agency relied on an August 2017 report that listed threats against Pruitt and his family but “did not assess the potential danger presented by any of these threats.”

In a statement Tuesday and in written responses to the inspector general, the EPA disputed the notion that it lacked justification for protecting its controversial administrator.

“Some protectees are at risk simply based on the positions they hold,” EPA officials wrote. “We are, unfortunately, living in an era when political discourse is no longer polite and persons feel that political disagreements justify making statements on social media that incite violence.”

The EPA also said that a threat assessment alone, while “a useful tool,” does not “mean that there is no risk or that protective services are not justified.”

The agency added that since “most attacks are not preceded by a threat, physical protection remains a necessity.” It cited the 2017 attack at a Republican congressional baseball practice and the 2011 shooting of thenRep. Gabby Giffords, D-Ariz., as examples.

Michael Abboud, an EPA spokesman, said Tuesday that given the generalized threat, “there is no support for the (inspector general’s]) insinuation that expenditures for protective services carried out before a threat analysis was conducted were not justified.”

The costs eclipse what taxpayers paid on average to provide security for Pruitt’s immediate predecessors, Gina McCarthy and Lisa Jackson.

MARK WILSON / GETTY IMAGES Scott Pruitt had round-the-clock protective detail in his first year as Environmental Protection Agency chief, an Inspector General’s report says.