[Source: Washington Examiner] Scott Pruitt is under fire, this time for trying to stay safe. Because the EPA chief requires 24/7 security, according to a new Washington Post report, the agency has pulled agents from environmental investigations to serve on his security detail.
There is an obvious solution to this staffing problem. End the demonization of Pruitt in the press and the threats against the environmental administrator will taper off.
A safer Pruitt will inevitably free-up agents to pursue dangerous polluters.
Normally the EPA’s Criminal Investigation Division doesn’t do VIP security. G-men with green thumbs, they follow up leads and knock down the doors of criminal polluters. “These guys signed on to work on complex environmental cases, not to be an executive protection detail,” explains former special agent Michael Hubbard. “It’s not only not what they want to do, it’s not what they were trained and paid to do.”
So when the executive director of Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility Jeff Ruch attacks Pruitt for allowing the “evaporation of criminal enforcement,” he should really be asking why his organization has demonized the administrator to such a point that security is even needed. After all, conservatives aren’t the ones calling for Pruitt’s head.
Mild-mannered in person, Pruitt has been made into a Bond villain in the press. The National Association of Biology Teachers warns in the New York Times that “Pruitt is delegitimizing science.” Environmentalists in Slate accuse him of rejecting the food “science that keeps us safe.” And Greenpeace goes so far to charge the administrator with “selling out children’s health.”
None of that vitriol is surprising. Pruitt disagrees with the prevailing climate change narrative on the Left. Global warming has been declared an existential threat, and anyone who disagrees is a public enemy. Academics and environmental activists will say the criticism is just and the terms warranted embellishment. But their followers aren’t as discerning.
Check out the #PollutingPruitt hashtag and you’ll find dozens of malcontents complaining about how the EPA boss is “raping the Earth” and “destroying the future.” If well-heeled greenies are really angry about polluters getting off the hook, they’ll stop attacking Pruitt personally. Then his green-thumbed g-men could get back to work.
Source: Washington Examiner/Opinion
September 21, 2017
