EPA staff worried

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

Then-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.

Cleland-Hamnett replied explaining that the desk was likely made of compressed wood in which formaldehyde is frequently used as a glue. Although an EPA regulation limiting formaldehyde emissions from such products had been put on hold by the Trump administration, the state of California regulates formaldehyde in such products, meaning the air emissions from the desk were "likely to be fine," Cleland-Hamnett wrote.

However, she suggested letting the desk sit somewhere other than the administrator's office to air out for a few days. Administrative personnel appeared to make plans to have the desk assembled at a warehouse and left there for a week, when the highest concentrations of formaldehyde are usually emitted.

The email exchange about the desk last spring took place just months before top aides to Pruitt took steps to block a health assessment produced by another division within the agency that found the levels of formaldehyde that many Americans breathe in daily are linked with leukemia, nose-and-throat cancer and other ailments. The chemicals industry has fought the assessment, which could prompt federal and state regulators to issue new restrictions on the chemical, and could lead to class-action lawsuits.

POLITICO reported last month that Pruitt aides, including chief of staff Ryan Jackson and Richard Yamada, a top official in the agency's Office of Research and Development, blocked the report from going through necessary internal review steps, effectively preventing it from being made public.

Austin Evers, executive director of American Oversight, the watchdog group that obtained the emails, said the emails fit into the pattern of perk-seeking that led to Pruitt's downfall.

“You can add 'EPA chemical safety science' to the list of taxpayer funded benefits that Scott Pruitt kept for himself. The irony would be comical if this wasn't so dangerous. Months before Scott Pruitt blocked the EPA's report on the dangers of formaldehyde to public health, he got the benefit of EPA's safety experts looking out for his own health," Evers said in a statement.

Cleland-Hamnett retired last year. Allen, who had objected to other spending and travel by Pruitt, was reassigned to a job outside the agency this spring, E&E News reported at the time.