EPA chief blows off his Chicago staff to catch a Cubs game

Rumors are swirling that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s regional office in Chicago may be shut down as part of the Trump administration’s plan to slash the agency’s budget and drastically downsize its staff. But on his swing through the Windy City after visiting lead-contaminated sites nearby, EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt decided to ditch meeting his employees to catch a baseball game. “Administrator Pruitt…should also come to the Chicago EPA headquarters, where hundreds of EPA employees work just a 30-minute drive from where he will be,” Michael Mikulka, president of Local 704 of the American Federation of Government Employees, told the Chicago Sun Times. “He should sit down with the EPA employees and answer their questions about how these cuts will impact their work, and the environment.” Unfortunately, that would only happen if an EPA employee bumped into the boss in the beer line at Wrigley.