Jonathon Berman, jonathon.berman@sierraclub.org
Washington, DC -- Today, E&E News reported that one of Scott Pruitt’s top political aides, Deputy Associate Administrator for the Office of Public Affairs John Konkus, has been serving as a media consultant outside the Agency, but is refusing to disclose his clients. House Democrats wrote Pruitt a letter on the matter outlining “serious concerns of potential conflicts of interest” regarding Konkus and potentially other EPA staff.
Konkus is charged with reviewing EPA grant solicitations that cumulatively are worth hundreds of millions of dollars per year, but according to a court filing, he has also taken part in reviewing actual grant awards, including the funding for the Bay Journal, whose funding had been pulled last year before just recently being restored.
In response, Sierra Club Legislative Director Melinda Pierce released the following statement:
"The American people already know that Scott Pruitt is working for corporate polluters and not for them, but the revelation that his staff moonlighting for private clients while working at the EPA full time brings suspicions of pay to play to a whole new level. And if Konkus is not working for polluters directly, the public is forced to ask whether he is running a partisan political operation from within the Agency instead. The public deserves to know who Konkus is really working for: the American people, corporate polluters, or partisan political clients, and that information should be made public immediately."
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