Tester to EPA Administrator: Can You Hear Montana?

Senator Criticizes Pruitt’s Plans for a $25,000 ‘Privacy Booth’

(U.S. Senate) – U.S. Senator Jon Tester is calling on the Environmental Protection Agency to stop wasting taxpayer dollars and start improving cleanup operations at Montana’s Superfund sites.

Tester slammed the agency’s irresponsible spending following reports of excessive travel perks and a proposed $25,000 soundproof “privacy booth” for controversial EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt. Tester noted the EPA already has a secure room to discuss classified information, and the purchase of the soundproof booth is, “frivolous and an embarrassment to taxpayers.”

“Montanans expect their public servants to be responsible and open stewards of hard-earned taxpayer resources,” Tester wrote to Pruitt. “I expect that you would be dedicating all available resources to cleaning up communities in Montana such as Butte, Libby, Anaconda, and Columbia Falls, instead of wasting taxpayer money on an expensive and silly office perk that should be addressed with a simple door.”

Montana is home to 17 Superfund sites in need of cleanup. Tester, a relentless champion of cleaning up Montana’s Superfund sites, grilled Administrator Pruitt in June over the proposed cuts to the Superfund cleanup budget.

Butte’s Montana Standard newspaper on Sunday called Pruitt’s planned privacy booth “this week’s government horror story.”

“If Administrator Pruitt makes good on plans to visit Butte this fall, he may wish he could have brought his new soundproof room with him,” the newspaper editorialized.

Tester’s entire letter to Pruitt can be found HERE.

Tester is the only member of Montana’s Senate delegation who opposed Pruitt’s confirmation in February.