'This Is Not Ok'

Guard Shoves Reporter as EPA Bars Multiple News Outlets From Water Pollution Event

By Jessica Corbett, staff writer for Common Dreams

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) blocked reporters from CNN, E&E News, and the Associated Press from attending a summit about water pollution on Tuesday, and a security guard reportedly grabbed a journalist by the shoulders and "forcibly" shoved her out of the building.

"Guards barred an AP reporter from passing through a security checkpoint inside the building. 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 AP said Tuesday.

EPA spokesman Jahan Wilcox told the journalists they had not been invited to the summit and there was not space for them. Wilcox told NBC News the agency provided them with a livestream. 

He claimed the AP reporter threatened "negative coverage" if she was not allowed to attend the event, but also that he was "unaware of the individual situation that has been reported."

A climate reporter for Politico tweeted Tuesday that a security guard joked about how he told an AP reporter she could not film as she was being kicked out of the agency building.

A journalist from E&E confirmed that his outlet as well as CNN and the AP had been barred from attending the event.

The AP report of the incident provoked widespread condemnation of the agency and guard's behavior.

EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt convened the meeting about water contaminants perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl after facing fierce criticism last week for preventing the release of a major study examining their impacts on waterways throughout the country.

Published emails revealed the agency and the Trump White House feared a "public relations nightmare" in response to widespread contamination from the chemicals, which are commonly used in Teflon, firefighting foam, and by the Department of Defense for exercises at U.S. bases, and have been tied to thyroid and pregnancy issues as well as some cancers.

After news broke that the agency and the White House were blocking the release of the study, Friends of the Earth had tweeted, "Scott Pruitt is more worried about journalists than poisoning millions of Americans."

"The White House reportedly worried about a 'PR nightmare' if this federal study were to be released. There is no better way to ensure a PR nightmare than to shove a journalist that showed up to report on how our government is handling water contamination," Wenonah Hauter, executive director of Food & Water Watch, declared in a statement on Tuesday.

While slamming Pruitt's cronyism and corruption scandals, she said these developments—the incident with the reporter coupled with the agency's efforts to block the water study, which could be "the administration's biggest attack on public health and safety to date"—indicate that "clearly, the administration has something to hide."

"No situation has so clearly illustrated why Pruitt must leave the EPA as this morning's tyrannical treatment of press at the hands of his agency—and that's saying a lot," Hauter concluded. "Now, it's a matter of sustaining our freedom of the press and protecting lives where communities are faced with toxic water contamination."