![EPA Director Scott Pruitt. / [Image by Gage Skidmore via Flickr, CC BY-SA 2.0]](https://staticr1.blastingcdn.com/media/photogallery/2017/8/12/660x290/b_502x220x82/epa-director-scott-pruitt-image-by-gage-skidmore-via-flickr-cc-by-sa-20_1510909.jpg "EPA Director Scott Pruitt. / [Image by Gage Skidmore via Flickr, CC BY-SA 2.0]")
Seven months into the Trump presidency's first year and the world is still "horrified" with the daily news about the administration. The horrors are not just with Donald Trump as they have also taken root throughout government agencies and in areas where he has picked his cabinet members to "lead", who are more interested in dismantling those agencies rather than improving them. Such was the case with his appointment of Scott Pruitt to lead the Environmental Protection Agency (epa), a man who has sued the EPA 14 times and is essentially "on the warpath" to kill the agency.
Scott Pruitt's 'leadership' makes EPA uneasy
Many Americans who look towards the White House as leading the nation have expressed how Trump entering its walls was like an imposter moving into their home. This is also the case when Scott Pruitt entered the walls of the EPA. Christopher Sellers -- who is an environmental history expert at Stony Brook University -- said that there was a feeling of paranoia among the staff there with Pruitt's presence. According to an article by the New York Times via MSN News titled: "Scott Pruitt is carrying out his E.P.A. agenda in secret, critics say," Sellers said that the EPA employees feel that the guy in charge is treating everyone there like they are his enemies and therefore to them, his presence feels like a "Hostile Takeover."
Trump administration 'targeting' Leftists and leakers
The article also quotes Steve J.
Milloy, who was a member of the President's transition team at the EPA who said that the environment there is hostile now because of how "legendary" the EPA was in being "stocked" with "leftists." This is in league with how the Trump administration and Republicans see their opposition, treating Liberals as the threat. The article also said that Liz Bowman, a spokeswoman for the agency, denied the claims that the director was operating in secrecy.
She emailed her statement to the New York Times saying that it was "disappointing" that the media outlet would collude with union officials and solicit leaks to distract from the work they are doing to "implement the President's agenda."
Attacking criticism of Pruitt's EPA
This also reveals another pattern in the Trump administration's response to reports that expose the obvious problems seen throughout Trump's presidency.
The President himself has been combative with the press by referring to them as the "enemy of the people" even saying that reporters should be arrested for publishing leaks. Bowman's attack against the New York Times for obtaining this information is par for the course. William D. Ruckelshaus, who was a former EPA director, also said in the article that the there should be more transparency for the changes that have taken place within the transition process. But being more transparent is not something that the Trump administration is interested in doing.
