The Environmental Protection Agency is reviewing all of its Freedom of Information Act responses under Administrator Scott Pruitt to ensure that they included all four of Pruitt’s email accounts.
Steven Fine, the EPA’s deputy chief information officer, told Environment and Public Works Committee Chairman John Barrasso, R-Wyo., in a letter released Thursday that the agency’s long-held policy is to search all emails, secondary or otherwise, in responding to FOIA and congressional requests.
Nevertheless, Fine said the agency will conduct a review of all searches made in response to FOIA requests as long as Pruitt has been head of the agency.
“As long as EPA administrators have had secondary email accounts, EPA staff have routinely searched requested accounts in response to FOIA and congressional requests,” Fine’s letter to Barrasso read.
“However, in response to your concern, my office is conducting a full review of the searches conducted regarding FOIA requests seeking Administrator Pruitt’s emails,” the letter continued.
Fine said if new, relevant emails are uncovered during the review, the requesters will be contacted, and Barrasso will be updated.
Fine’s letter was in response to one Barrasso sent to Pruitt last week requesting information on reports of the several email accounts that Pruitt has at the agency.
Fine confirmed that Pruitt does have several secondary accounts, which has become common practice across administrators because of the high volume of emails received by their primary account.
Barrasso said in response to the letter that he looks “forward to receiving the findings of the agency’s full review that’s being conducted in response to my letter.”
Fine explained that since 1993, when Carol Browner ran the agency under former President Bill Clinton, the agency has had to create secondary emails to account for high volumes.
Fine runs the office that creates the accounts.
