The Environmental Protection Agency’s top communications staff member has resigned amid turmoil inside the agency while Administrator Scott Pruitt attempts to fend off multiple scandals.
Liz Bowman, the top communications staffer at the EPA, resigned Monday. The Washington Examiner is the first to report her departure.
Bowman, the EPA’s associate administrator of public affairs, has managed an approximately 40-person EPA press shop that has been increasingly on the defensive in recent weeks responding to a series of ethics and spending allegations facing Pruitt.
Bowman says she decided to resign for reasons unrelated to the Pruitt scandals, and is leaving the EPA on good terms. Bowman, who began working in the EPA in March of last year, is headed to Capitol Hill, where she will be director of communications for Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa. She previously directed communications for the American Chemistry Council.
Bowman’s last day at EPA is May 11.
“I leave extremely grateful for the opportunity to serve the Trump Administration and Administrator Pruitt,” Bowman said in her resignation letter to EPA chief of staff Ryan Jackson, dated April 30 and obtained by the Washington Examiner. “Being a member of the EPA team has allowed me to further my skills, learn from my mistakes, and make lifelong friendships. It has also provided me the opportunity to develop a new, and deep, respect for the public servants who serve the American people, day in and day out, to ensure that we have access to clean air, land, and water.”
Colleagues credit Bowman with leading outreach to conservative groups and figures who embrace Pruitt’s deregulatory agenda, and for helping Deputy Administrator Andrew Wheeler, the No. 2 official at EPA, survive a tough confirmation process through the Senate.
“Liz Bowman is a true professional who really helped me through the confirmation process,” Wheeler told the Washington Examiner. “She is respected by the staff at the agency and will be sorely missed.”
Her departure comes amidst other high-level departures of aides close to Pruitt. But, Pruitt’s chief of staff says scandals aren’t causing departures of top aides.
Jackson is downplaying perceptions of turmoil among EPA rank-and-file and political staff, and insisted agency employees are still motivated to work for Pruitt.
“People are principally focused on doing their jobs whether in the press office or program offices,” Jackson told the Washington Examiner in an interview Wednesday night. “We respond to a lot, but at the same time we have policies that we are working on and finalizing and that gives career and political staff a lot of gratification.”
The EPA earlier this week announced the departures of Albert “Kell” Kelly, who led the agency’s Superfund program that helps clean up hazardous sites, and Pasquale “Nino” Perrotta, the head of Pruitt’s security detail, a major figure and witness in federal probes of Pruitt’s spending and ethics.
Pruitt, in testimony before two House committees last week, downplayed his role in various spending, hiring, and security decisions at the agency, mostly blaming career and political staff who work under him.
Jackson, in the interview with the Washington Examiner, expressed regret at Bowman leaving, but excitement for her new opportunity.
“We always appreciate when folks want to pursue other options,” Jackson said. “She has a great opportunity ahead of her at the Senate. I came from the Senate. The Senate is great place to work. I loved my time there. I don’t blame her at all. She will work for a great member that has a great future in front of her.”
“What Liz brought to the table at EPA was good judgment, good management, good organization. She speaks her mind. She might even spoken her mind to a fault. But I loved it. I am going to miss her,” Jackson added.
Jackson joined EPA after nearly 20 years working in the Senate, as chief of staff to Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., a close Pruitt ally from his home state, and staff director of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee.
He has found himself as a central figure in the Pruitt investigations.
Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., the chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, has requested a transcribed interview with Jackson, and other top Pruitt aides, as part of its probe into the EPA administrator’s spending and ethics.
Jackson has taken responsibility for authorizing massive raises for close aides to Pruitt who used to work for him when he was Oklahoma’s attorney general.
The EPA gave the raises after the White House refused to approve them.
To give the raises, the EPA used a 1977 provision of the Safe Drinking Water Act that authorizes the agency to hire up to 30 people without the approval of the Senate or the White House
The provision was designed so the EPA could quickly hire senior management and scientific personnel during times of critical need. Critics say those qualifiers do not apply in the case of Pruitt’s former political staffers from Oklahoma.
At least two other EPA press officers, James Hewitt and Jahan Wilcox, were hired via Pruitt’s safe-water authority, the Washington Post has reported.
Jackson told the Washington Examiner Bowman was not hired that way, but he defended the broader practice.
“I’ve got to be candid with you, sometimes there is a lot flexibility for this hiring authority which every administration has used,” Jackson said. “Sometimes, it is the most direct and convenient way to bring someone aboard quickly.”
He said he doesn’t expect a broader staff shake-up after the resignations of Bowman, Kelly, and Perrotta, while acknowledging that there “might be one other” change to the communications staff.
“I am really not [concerned],” Jackson said. “I gotta tell you that it doesn’t bother me at all that for some of these folks who are moving on to other opportunities that their proving ground was at EPA and at our shop.”
Jackson added he’s “proud” of staff who he says are focusing on the EPA’s agenda, despite Pruitt’s uncertain status, citing recent work on a “science transparency” rule, efforts to change fuel efficiency standards, and replacing the Obama administration’s Waters of the U.S. regulation.
Pruitt is the subject of 11 federal investigations, involving his frequent first class travel, hefty spending on a 24/7 security detail, hiring practices, and a $50-per-night rental agreement he had with the wife of an energy lobbyist with business before the EPA.
“I am exceptionally proud of the team at EPA,” Jackson said. “We had a great announcement last Tuesday with the science transparency rule. We will have very shortly a new rule with CAFE [vehicle efficiency] standards, and very soon we will have a new WOTUS rule. So we are moving. EPA is moving.”
