EPA Guards Forcibly Remove Reporter From Summit on Contaminants

Environmental Protection Agency guards “forcibly” removed a reporter from the agency’s building after she was denied access to cover “a national summit on harmful water contaminants” on Tuesday, according to the Associated Press. After an AP reporter attempted to pass the security checkpoint and was denied, she asked to speak with an EPA public-affairs person. The reporter was then “grabbed...by the shoulders” by security personnel who “shoved her forcibly out of the EPA building,” the outlet reported. The agency also barred CNN and the environmental news organization E&E from attending the summit in Washington, D.C. EPA spokesman Jahan Wilcox told the organizations they were barred because “there was no space for them,” but did not specifically state why they were excluded from the meeting. Lincoln Ferguson, adviser to EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt, later called the AP journalist Ellen Knickmeyer to apologize and invite her to the summit's afternoon session–along with CNN and E&E. Administrator Scott Pruitt was reportedly present at the morning session, and convened the meeting of over 200 people.