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Groton Daily Independent
Thursday, Dec. 21, 2017 ~ Vol. 25 - No. 165 ~ 26 of 44
say that the task force had no agenda for its meetings, kept no minutes and used no reference materials other than Pruitt’s memo appointing them.
Further, there were no written standards for choosing the 107 EPA employees the agency says served on the task force.
“Task force members were all volunteers from EPA staff with no selection criteria,” Johnny Walker, a Jus- tice Department lawyer representing EPA, wrote to PEER last month. “Meeting minutes were not kept and materials (other than the May 22, 2017 memorandum) were not presented to the Superfund Task Force.”
According to EPA’s lawyer, the task force also retained no work product other than its nal report.
Jeff Ruch, the executive director of PEER, said that seems unlikely.
“Pruitt’s plan for cleaning up toxic sites was apparently immaculately conceived, without the usual trap-
pings of human parentage,” Ruch said. “It stretches credulity that 107 EPA staff members with no agenda or reference materials somehow wrote an intricate plan in 30 days.”
In a statement issued Wednesday after The Associated Press rst reported on Walker’s response in the FOIA lawsuit, EPA’s press of ce sought to distinguish between the environmental agency and its legal representation.
“The communication at issue was sent by the Department of Justice, U.S. Attorney’s Of ce of D.C., as part of an ongoing effort to resolve litigation,” said Jahan Wilcox, an EPA spokesman.
The Justice Department routinely represents executive agencies in legal disputes over FOIA requests. In his notice of appearance before the court in the PEER lawsuit, Walker described himself as “counsel for Defendant the United States Environmental Protection Agency.”
Wilcox did not respond to follow-up questions about whether the lawyer’s representations were inac- curate or if EPA possessed additional records it has yet to disclose.
The recommendations adopted by Pruitt include prioritizing cleanup sites that can be redeveloped for new construction or where nearby residents are under threat from spreading pollution. EPA held no public hearings about the plan.
Pruitt has pledged to make mitigating decades-old pollution EPA’s core mission, even as he has moved to block or delay Obama-era regulations aimed at curbing ongoing contamination from coal- red power plants and fossil-fuel production.
President Donald Trump’s proposed 2018 budget seeks to cut the program by 30 percent. Congress has not yet approved a budget for the current scal year, which began in October.
The task force was led by Albert “Kell” Kelly, whom Pruitt hired at EPA as a senior adviser at an annual salary of $172,100. Kelly was previously the chairman of Tulsa-based SpiritBank, where he worked as an executive for 34 years.
The Associated Press reported in August that Kelly was barred by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corpora- tion from working for any U.S. nancial institution after of cials determined he violated laws or regulations, leading to a nancial loss for his bank. The FDIC’s order didn’t detail what Kelly is alleged to have done. Without admitting wrongdoing, he agreed to pay a $125,000 penalty.
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Follow Associated Press environmental reporter Michael Biesecker at http://twitter.com/mbieseck
With shutdown clock ticking, GOP struggles for spending deal By ANDREW TAYLOR, Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) — With a shutdown clock ticking toward a midnight Friday deadline, House Republican leaders struggled on Wednesday to unite the GOP rank and le behind a must-pass temporary spending bill. Although a major obstacle evaporated after key GOP senators dropped a demand to add health insur- ance subsidies for the poor, a number of defense hawks offered resistance to a plan by GOP leaders to
punt a guns-versus-butter battle with Democrats into the new year.
GOP leaders appear likely to go ahead nonetheless with a vote on Thursday — in time to avert a politically
debilitating government shutdown, which would detract from the party’s success this week in muscling