Scott Pruitt’s EPA blacklists reporters from summit on toxic water contaminants, forcibly removes reporter from the building

Journalists from AP, CNN, E&E News, and Politico were all prevented from attending

Special Programs Climate & Energy

Written by John Whitehouse

Published

Sarah Wasko / Media Matters

This post was updated on 5/23/18 to incorporate additional news reports.

Reporters from The Associated Press, CNN, E&E News, and Politico were barred from attending parts of an Environmental Protection Agency summit on water contaminants on May 22 and 23. At one point, security guards used force to remove an AP reporter from the building.

From a May 22 AP report:

The Environmental Protection Agency is barring The Associated Press, CNN and the environmental-focused news organization E&E from a national summit on harmful water contaminants.

The EPA blocked the news organizations from attending Tuesday’s Washington meeting, convened by EPA chief Scott Pruitt.

EPA spokesman Jahan Wilcox told the barred organizations they were not invited and there was no space for them, but gave no indication of why they specifically were barred.

Pruitt told about 200 people at the meeting that dealing with the contaminants is a “national priority.”

The AP’s environmental reporter tweeted about the incident:

An E&E News reporter tweeted:

Hallie Jackson of NBC News relayed an EPA spokesperson's response:

CNN issued a statement:

The EPA issued a statement opening the second half of the May 22 meeting to any outlet, contradicting a previous statement:

But on the following day, May 23, the EPA again blocked journalists from attending the summit, including Emily Holden from Politico, author and journalist Mariah Blake, and, once again, journalists from E&E News and CNN.

As Holden reported, “The Federal Advisory Committee Act states that ‘any committee, board, commission, council, conference, panel, task force, or other similar group’ used by an agency ‘in the interest of obtaining advice or recommendations’ for the federal government must be open to the public.” Holden asked for a statement about why the EPA thinks its actions were not a violation of the act, but the EPA simply pointed her to its statement from the previous day about the event being at capacity.

This is just the latest in a long string of incidents in which EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt's press team has blocked reporters from events as well as dropped them from press release distribution lists and retaliated against them in other ways. On April 3, Pruitt barred reporters from his announcement about loosening automobile fuel economy standards. Journalists have been escorted out of Pruitt events by police. Reporters from The Associated Press and The New York Times have been personally attacked in official agency press releases. And the EPA has repeatedly refused to give reporters basic information about the agency's staffing and activities.

Pruitt is currently under fire for multiple scandals and seemingly corrupt activities, including a sweetheart deal he got to rent a D.C. condo from the wife of an energy lobbyist.

The Trump administration has a history of blacklisting reporters. In February of 2017, reporters from The New York Times, CNN, the Los Angeles Times, BuzzFeed News, and Politico were barred from attending a briefing in then-press secretary Sean Spicer’s office. During the campaign, Trump banned a number of outlets from his events. There are numerous other examples of Trump’s war on the press.

The May 22 and 23 summit on per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) comes days after a Politico report revealed that Pruitt’s EPA and the White House sought to block a Health and Human Services study about PFAS and water contamination that “would show that the chemicals endanger human health at a far lower level than EPA has previously called safe.” According to the article, a Trump aide had said the release of the study would cause a “public relations nightmare.”