Trump's EPA Admits and Defends Ignoring Public-Records Requests from Environmental Groups

Trump's Environmental Protection Agency is assigning public-records requests from environmental groups to a "special internal review process" that can take months or longer.   This is an attempt to shield their devious actions from the public and is illegal.

The Environmental Protection Agency assigns public-records requests from environmental groups or others that it sees as “politically charged” to special internal review, a top agency official told congressional staffers investigating the actions of Scott Pruitt, the scandal-plagued former administrator who resigned this month.

Keep in mind these public-record requests are the way groups found out that Scott Pruitt was a thoroughly corrupt government official and forced to resign.  Without the tremendous work of organizations like the Sierra Club to fight for public-record released in court, we would not have known Pruitt was selling access to our environmental destruction.

Many of the most-damaging allegations stemmed from EPA public records released after the Sierra Club and other organizations went to court to compel the agency to respond to FOIA requests.

Pruitt quit July 5 after months of revelations about his free-handed spending on travel and security and allegations that he misused his federal office for personal gain. 

“The Freedom of Information Act is a law meant to provide transparency so that the public can see how our government works, not an opportunity to do favors for corporate polluters and play politics,” Melinda Pierce, the Sierra Club’s legislative director, said in a statement Friday July 27th.

News organizations, including The Associated Press, have been told that the EPA under Pruitt would take months or longer to comply with records requests. An AP analysis this spring found that the federal government censored, withheld or said it couldn’t find records sought by citizens, journalists and others more often last year than at any point in the past decade.

Some government agencies under previous administrations also have directed their political appointees to review FOIA requests to determine what information to surrender.

Source: https://apnews.com/7de11cb2263c4737addb6d60d281dca8/EPA-aide:-Scrutiny-of-'politically-charged'-records-requests