With major EPA cuts looming, Scott Pruitt wants a 10-person, 24/7 security detail

Scott Pruitt, President Trump's Environmental Protection Agency administrator, has voicedsupport for theWhite House's proposaltoradically cutthe agency's budget.But there's one spending category Pruitt wants to bulk up: his own security.Asreported by E&E News in Februaryandby The New York Timeson April 10, the EPAhas requested 10 additional full-time security guards to forma round-the-clock detail that willprotect the administrator.Pruitt has emerged as an unusually high-profile and iconoclastic agency chief. During his confirmation hearings, hemade two claims to Congress that eachturned out not to be true, and faced the opposition of nearly 800 former EPA officials due to his record of attacking the agency.As chief of the nation'senvironmentalpublic health agency, Pruitt has taken a number of steps that earned him praise among opponents of regulation, and sharp criticism fromenvironmental safety advocates. Hewent on cable news to question, without evidence, the scientific consensus that humans are driving climate change,stood by the president as Trump signed an order to dismantle core EPA emissions rules, told states they couldignore certain Obama-era carbon dioxide regulations, declined to ban a pesticide that appears to cause brain damage in infants, and backed off of methane limits.Pruitt has also becomethe first EPA administrator ever to seek a 24/7 security detail.Over the course of US history,16 cabinet membershave died in office, but nonewas the victim of an assassination. (The role of EPA administrator is not a cabinet position per se, but is of similar stature.)The most violent episodes involving members of the cabinet occurred when former vice president Aaron Burr killed former treasury secretary Alexander Hamilton ina duel in 1804, and when Abraham Lincoln's secretary of state, William Seward, was attacked in his home on the same night Lincoln was killed in 1865.SEE ALSO:Trump's EPA just told states they can ignore a key Obama-era carbon dioxide regulationJoin the conversation about this storyNOW WATCH: The Great Barrier Reef is turning white and it's a horrible sign for the environment
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