Former Republican California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger wants EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt to drink contaminated water because of Pruitt's habitual denial and enabling of pollution.
In a tweet posted on Wednesday, Schwarzenegger, who for years has broken with his party on environmental issues, said that Pruitt should drink polluted water until he resigns, since he seems to have no problem with consigning American citizens to that fate.
"I'm a simple guy so I have a simple remedy when people like Pruitt ignore or hide pollution: if you don't have a problem with Americans drinking contaminated drinking water, drink it yourself until you tap out or resign."
Recent reports show that Pruitt sought to bury a federal study which would have led to more stringent limits on chemical contaminants in drinking water. Emails released from Trump administration officials on Monday showed that the EPA feared a "public relations nightmare" over The Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR) recommendation to impose stricter limits on toxic pollutants in drinking water.
One intergovernmental official wrote:
"The public, media and Congressional reaction to these new numbers is going to be huge. The impact to EPA and DoD [the Department of Defense] is going to be extremely painful. We (DoD and EPA) cannot seem to get ATSDR to realize the potential public relations nightmare this is going to be."
The suggested revision of standards revolve around fluorinated chemicals, which are byproducts from a number of industries that include pharmaceuticals, clothing, and cookware. These toxins increase the risk of cancer if they are ingested in sufficient quantities.
Emails from ATSDR indicate that the agency wants to raise safety levels on fluorinated chemicals to approximately six times the those of current EPA guidelines, thus sending the EPA into a frenzy.
Environmental groups are sounding the alarm on Pruitt's lack of leadership.
On Monday, Environmental Working Group President Ken Cook slammed Pruitt in a statement, stating that the EPA's concerns are based on total reluctance to protect the public from contaminated water. "Unlike Scott Pruitt's Pollution Protection Agency, there is still one government agency clearly trying to safeguard the public from these dangerous chemicals," he said. "Only Scott Pruitt and the Trump administration would consider reducing drinking water contamination for the American people to be a 'nightmare.'"Twitter echoed Schwarzenegger's criticism of Pruitt, who is mired in a litany of ongoing scandals stemming from corruption to abuses of power. Lawmakers on both sides of the political isle are calling for him to be fired.
