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EPA staff worried about toxic chemical exposure -- for Pruitt
David Fahrenthold Retweeted:Pruitt is gone but this story is amazing: aides tried to protect him from formaldehyde exposure from an office desk "just months before his top political aides blocked the release of a report on health dangers from the same chemical."
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" target="_blank">EPA staff worried about toxic chemical exposure — for Pruitt
Aides later sought to block an assessment that found the levels of formaldehyde that many Americans breathe in daily are linked to cancer.
By ANNIE SNIDER 07/19/2018 01:37 PM EDT
EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt's staff sought to protect him from exposure to toxic formaldehyde from an office desk last year, emails show — just months before his top political aides blocked the release of a report on health dangers from the same chemical.
In the spring of 2017, as Pruitt was finishing the more than $9,500 redecoration of his office, a top career official in the administrator's office noticed a California warning that one of the ornate desks their boss wanted contained formaldehyde, which the state classifies as a carcinogen. It's unclear whether Pruitt ultimately ordered that desk as part of the renovation — which included artwork from the Smithsonian, framed photographs of Pruitt and President Donald Trump and a standing "captain's" desk — but the documents show that his staff took steps to protect Pruitt from exposure to the chemical.
After seeing the warning, acting deputy chief of staff Reginald Allen reached out to Wendy Cleland-Hamnett, the career official then serving as acting head of EPA's toxic chemicals office, according to emails released to the group American Oversight under the Freedom of Information Act and shared with POLITICO.
"Sorry to bother you with this but we need some help. The desk the Administrator wants for his office from Amazon has a California Proposition 65 warning. What I am asking is can someone in your area tell us whether it is OK to get this desk for the Administrator related to the warning?" Allen wrote April 7 to Cleland-Hamnett and another career official in the office, referring to a California state chemicals law.
....
Emily Holden contributed to this report.
" target="_blank">EPA staff worried about toxic chemical exposure — for Pruitt
Aides later sought to block an assessment that found the levels of formaldehyde that many Americans breathe in daily are linked to cancer.
By ANNIE SNIDER 07/19/2018 01:37 PM EDT
EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt's staff sought to protect him from exposure to toxic formaldehyde from an office desk last year, emails show — just months before his top political aides blocked the release of a report on health dangers from the same chemical.
In the spring of 2017, as Pruitt was finishing the more than $9,500 redecoration of his office, a top career official in the administrator's office noticed a California warning that one of the ornate desks their boss wanted contained formaldehyde, which the state classifies as a carcinogen. It's unclear whether Pruitt ultimately ordered that desk as part of the renovation — which included artwork from the Smithsonian, framed photographs of Pruitt and President Donald Trump and a standing "captain's" desk — but the documents show that his staff took steps to protect Pruitt from exposure to the chemical.
After seeing the warning, acting deputy chief of staff Reginald Allen reached out to Wendy Cleland-Hamnett, the career official then serving as acting head of EPA's toxic chemicals office, according to emails released to the group American Oversight under the Freedom of Information Act and shared with POLITICO.
"Sorry to bother you with this but we need some help. The desk the Administrator wants for his office from Amazon has a California Proposition 65 warning. What I am asking is can someone in your area tell us whether it is OK to get this desk for the Administrator related to the warning?" Allen wrote April 7 to Cleland-Hamnett and another career official in the office, referring to a California state chemicals law.
....
Emily Holden contributed to this report.