New Lawsuit Targets EPA Over Audit Scott Pruitt Has Tried to Keep Secret

"A report raised red flags about an Oklahoma environmental program. Pruitt ordered it sealed."

"Environmental Protection Agency administrator Scott Pruitt is under fire in Washington for his lavish travel expenses and for bunking in the townhouse of an energy lobbyist, but he also faces an ongoing controversy in Oklahoma connected to an allegedly corrupt buyout program to compensate residents of a catastrophically polluted mining town.

Tar Creek, in the northeastern corner of Oklahoma, once sat on one of the world’s largest deposits of lead-zinc, but the mining eventually petered out, leaving an environmental disaster in its wake. As old mine shafts collapsed, the land crumbled under residents’ homes. The town was declared a Superfund site in 1983, and the EPA embarked on cleanup effort that has cost more than $176 million. Meanwhile, a state program was launched with federal funding to purchase the homes of Tar Creek residents so they could relocate.

As Oklahoma’s attorney general, Pruitt investigated that program, which some residents contended doled out sweetheart deals to certain Tar Creek homeowners while offering a pittance to others. In 2014, he commissioned an audit that raised flags about the buyouts. Instead of prosecuting, Pruitt determined that the audit should be sealed from public scrutiny—a move the auditor himself described as “baffling.” The secrecy struck some Oklahomans as suspicious especially because Pruitt’s political ally, Sen. Jim Inhofe, helped to engineer the buyout program. Pruitt’s successor as Oklahoma’s attorney general, Mike Hunter, has maintained Pruitt’s position that the audit should not be released."

Russ Choma reports for Mother Jones April 5, 2018.