Federal investigators who were criticized for allegedly bungling a Colorado mine leak investigation will review whether agency chief Scott Pruitt misspent funds on a $25,000 private phone booth.
The Environmental Protection Agency’s Inspector General will determine if Pruitt misused appropriated funds on a “privacy booth” with a secure phone line, according to a letter to democrats on the House Energy and Commerce Committee. Critics scrutinized the watchdog group earlier this year for its handling of an investigation into the 2015 Gold King mine disaster.
Inspector General Arthur A. Elkins told lawmakers that the investigation might be tabled because the office doesn’t have enough resources or funds to satisfy the office’s investigation caseload. Pruitt claims that the line, which is called a Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility (SCIF), is necessary to discuss confidential topics with President Donald Trump.
“The fact is that the OIG has been funded at less than the levels we deem adequate to do all the work that should be done, and therefore we have to make difficult decisions about whether to accept any given potential undertaking,” Elkins wrote in the letter.
The government watchdog reported earlier this year that the agency committed no wrongdoing in an environmental disaster, even though the auditors ignored crucial inconsistencies in officials’ stories.
The EPA breached Colorado’s Gold King Mine on August 2015, which resulted in an estimated 3 million gallons of toxic pollution being dumped into a river that provides drinking water for people living in three states and the Navajo Nation. The pollution turned the river water yellow for days after the initial dumping.
Officials “inadvertently” breached the mine due to a “misjudgment,” but they didn’t violate any “standards for the level of care,” since none existed, the EPA’s Inspector General (IG) wrote in the report. The Department of Justice previously declined to prosecute the EPA employee responsible for the disaster after a year-long IG investigation.
The IG’s inquiry is also reviewing whether Pruitt misused money during his official travel, specifically regarding one chartered flight and multiple government flights that cost more than $58,000. It would also look into whether he followed the procedures when traveling back to his home state of Oklahoma.
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