Agency defends enforcement as cops return from Pruitt detail

摘要

BALTIMORE — Most of the U.S. EPA criminal investigators who had been assigned to Administrator Scott Pruitt's security detail are back at work on cases, according to an agency official. EPA has requested around-the-clock security for Pruitt, a substantial boost in protection for the administrator. The agency had sought to hire more agents to fill out the security detail, an exception to EPA's hiring freeze (Greenwire, Sept. 14). In the meantime, the agency had temporarily transferred a few criminal investigators — who normally pursue environmental-rule breakers — to the administrator's detail. "The good news is that we have gotten authorization to staff up the protection function, and that has allowed us to stop most of the temporary assignments of our investigators from case work to protection," said Michael Fisher, director of the legal counsel division in EPA's Office of Criminal Enforcement.