The Environmental Protection Agency is spending nearly $25,000 to install a secure phone booth in the office of Administrator Scott Pruitt, according to a report Tuesday.
The agency signed a $24,570 contract with Acoustical Solutions this summer for a “privacy booth for the administrator,” the Washington Post reported, citing government contracting records.
The project is expected to be completed Oct. 9, the contract shows.
No previous EPA administrators have had a secure phone both in their office.
EPA spokeswoman Liz Bowman described the setup as normal.
“What you are referring to is a secured communication area in the administrator’s office so secured calls can be received and made,” Bowman said. “Federal agencies need to have one of these so that secured communications, not subject to hacking from the outside, can be held. It’s called a Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility (SCIF). This is something which a number, if not all, Cabinet offices have and EPA needs to have updated.”
The Post said the EPA has long had a secure phone booth on a separate floor, meant to be used by government officials with proper security clearances to share classified information.
Pruitt has taken other steps to maintain security, moves that critics say shows a lack of transparency.
Pruitt avoids using email, and employees who meet with him are told to leave behind their cellphones, the New York Times reported last month.
He is the first head of the EPA to request round-the-clock security.
The EPA until recently did not publicly post Pruitt’s schedule. Last week, the agency released months’ worth of meetings after media outlets filed Freedom of Information Act requests.
They show the administrator has met regularly with representatives of the oil and gas industry.
Pruitt worked closely with corporate interests as Oklahoma’s attorney general, when he repeatedly sued the Obama administration over its environmental regulations.
