Removing an EPA employee

Conservatives wanted Pruitt to derail a climate report — by removing an EPA employee

By ALEX GUILLÉN and ANTHONY ADRAGNA

Conservative allies of EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt lobbied last year to remove a career agency staffer in hopes of stopping the release of a government-wide report on the science of climate change, newly released emails show.

The attempt was unsuccessful, even after a member of President Donald Trump’s EPA landing team emailed Pruitt’s chief of staff, Ryan Jackson, in June. But the previously unreported effort showed how far some conservatives are willing to go to undermine accepted climate science, even as Pruitt went about dismantling the Obama administration’s biggest climate initiatives and persuaded Trump to withdraw from the 2015 Paris agreement.

The first part of the 13-agency National Climate Assessment did come out as scheduled in November, concluding that human activity is “extremely likely” to be driving climate change. But even then, the White House maintained that the Earth's climate "has changed and is always changing,” and Pruitt said the report wouldn’t change his actions to undo the Clean Power Plan, the centerpiece of the Obama administration’s efforts to combat climate change.

Some conservative activists wanted to go even further, however. That included pushing EPA to “recall and replace” Lisa Matthews, a career EPA staffer who worked for the committee overseeing the congressionally mandated report, according to an email to Jackson from former EPA enforcement attorney David Schnare. Schnare, a former member of Trump's EPA landing team, is also a former general counsel for the E&E Legal Institute, a group that dismisses mainstream climate change science as fraud.

“[Matthews'] position has management responsibility over the entire committee and can stop action on the rewrite of the National Climate Assessment, a quiet effort now under way to impose the IPCC view of the science on the U.S. government,” Schnare wrote. The IPCC is the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the United Nations’ body of climate science experts.

Schnare told Jackson to expect a call on the matter from House Science Chairman Lamar Smith (R-Texas) or Smith’s chief of staff, Mark Marin. Smith is a vocal skeptic on global warming whose committee has advanced a variety of arguments attacking mainstream science, including one lawmaker's idea that rocks tumbling into the ocean are raising sea levels. Marin is also closely connected to EPA leadership: He turned down an offer from Jackson for a job at EPA's Office of Research and Development last May, according to another newly released email.

But when reached by POLITICO, Schnare said he had merely acted as a “conduit” after discussing the idea with Smith’s office and that he did not “have any recollection” of the email.

“I did not personally play a role in making decisions about or suggesting anything. I was the conduit. That’s all,” he added. “At the end of the day, if I did anything, it was simply on his behalf.”

The Sierra Club obtained the emails after suing EPA under the Freedom of Information Act.

Schnare told POLITICO that officials from E&E Legal and other groups had discussed the idea with Smith’s office and he relayed the concept. Both Smith and EPA deny that a phone call advocating for Matthews’ removal ever took place.

Smith has been influential at EPA, with the agency recently adopting his proposal to severely limit the kinds of research it considers when making decisions.

Schnare, who left EPA after a three-decade career in 2011 but returned to serve on the Trump beachhead team, departed the agency again in March 2017 after conflicting with other political appointees — but told Jackson he wanted to stay connected to the climate debate. He wrote to Jackson in April 2017 about the media's interest in his departure, saying he planned to ignore most requests. “Don't be a stranger,” Jackson wrote back.

Schnare wrote again in June and said he wanted to be included if Pruitt was going to formally reconsider EPA's position on climate science.

Reached by phone, Matthews said she was unfamiliar with the matter and that her position as executive secretary on the committee is largely administrative, not a decision-making job. Matthews' primary role at EPA is as a senior adviser and state liaison in the Office of Research and Development.

It is unclear how replacing Matthews would have derailed the climate assessment, a comprehensive process that involves more than a dozen agencies. However, Schnare‘s email specifically cites her as a keystone official whose replacement could hamper the report.

The effort revealed by the emails is just one of the many attempts by Republican lawmakers, conservative groups and EPA to challenge the wealth of research concluding that humans are the main cause of the rising temperatures observed across the planet. But White House staffers have stood in the way, consistently trying to prevent the reopening of a debate that could prove embarrassing and politically damaging for Republicans who fear being tarred as the anti-science party.

For instance, Pruitt has floated the idea of staging a "red team, blue team" debate in which scientists presenting the overwhelmingly accepted findings of mainstream climate research would face off against skeptics. Newly released emails show that EPA was prepared to use a special hiring authority in May 2017 to bring Steve Koonin, an Obama-era Energy Department official tapped to lead the effort, on board without having to go through the usual federal hiring process.

Pruitt’s proposed debate almost got off the ground in July, when Jackson emailed Koonin again about logistics.

“I know we were initially thinking waiting until Fall but the Administrator would like to announce the red team blue team the week of July 10 here at EPA in an event and invite whoever we deem appropriate,” Jackson wrote on June 21, 2017. Communications that POLITICO reported in May showed extensive coordination between Koonin and EPA to launch the red team exercise before the White House stopped it. And EPA ultimately never hired Koonin.

Smith, a supporter of the debate, offered to circulate a congressional letter to encourage the White House, according to Koonin. But the plan was stymied in July and again in November, amid resistance from some in the White House. As late as Dec. 5, Jackson emailed Koonin and EPA air chief Bill Wehrum offering “an update” on the proposed effort.

Another source outside the agency said outside advocates floated multiple plans last year, including for EPA to hire a "red team" manager to run the operations out of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy.

Internal records also show that EPA in late January was considering drafting a notice to take comment on climate science, which some said could have replaced Pruitt’s plans for the public debates that White House chief of staff John Kelly had halted.

A Jan. 28 calendar entry shows senior EPA political appointees gathered for a 45-minute briefing on an initial regulatory step related to the red team-blue team debate. Jackson, Wehrum, air office adviser Mandy Gunasekara, then-policy adviser Samantha Dravis, senior policy aide Brittany Bolen and Pruitt were all listed as attending.

EPA could have requested feedback on the national assessment but also could have laid the groundwork to challenge its Obama-era, science-based “endangerment finding” that concluded that climate-warming greenhouse gases harm people and must be regulated, sources familiar with the discussion told POLITICO. Pruitt has yet to pursue action to undo the finding, despite the urging of some conservatives.