EPA security guards physically barred an Associated Press reporter this morning from a national summit on water contaminants. Also excluded from the event were reporters from CNN (a frequent target of President Donald Trump’s ire) and the environmental news network E&E, publisher of Greenwire, ClimateWire, and other subscription newsletters. In the case of the unnamed female AP reporter, the news agency reported, “When the reporter asked to speak to an EPA public-affairs person, the security guards grabbed the reporter by the shoulders and shoved her forcibly out of the EPA building.” 

The EPA press office did not immediately return Sierra’s request for more information, but agency spokesman Jahan Wilcox told AP that it and the other news organizations “were not invited and there was no space for them," but gave no indication of why they specifically were barred.  

AP Executive Editor Sally Buzbee issued the following statement:

The Environmental Protection Agency’s selective barring of news organizations, including the AP, from covering today’s meeting is alarming and a direct threat to the public’s right to know about what is happening inside their government. 

It is particularly distressing that any journalist trying to cover an event in the public interest would be forcibly removed. 

“If Pruitt truly has nothing to hide,” said Sierra Club Resist Campaign director Maura Cowley, “he should be welcoming reporters with open arms, not ejecting them for trying to do their jobs.” Internal EPA emails obtained by the Sierra Club through a Freedom of Information Act request detailed the extreme lengths to which the agency goes to shield administrator Scott Pruitt from public scrutiny; last August, for example, EPA spokesman Wilcox threatened to call security on reporters trying to cover an appearance by Pruitt at the University of North Dakota. 

Today’s hearing on water contaminants comes in the wake of a report in Politico last week that the EPA had tried to cover up a report on toxic chemicals in drinking water, for fear it would cause “a public relations nightmare.” For Pruitt’s EPA apparently, no news is good news.