Watchdog group sues EPA over suppressed Superfund site audit

A watchdog group is suing the Environmental Protection Agency seeking the release of records involving an investigative audit into the cleanup of the Tar Creek Superfund site in northeastern Oklahoma that the state’s attorney general wants to keep secret.
The Campaign for Accountability filed the federal lawsuit Thursday in Washington. The group says EPA administrator Scott Pruitt tried to cover up a report suggesting criminal wrongdoing while he was Oklahoma’s attorney general.
Pruitt’s successor, Mike Hunter, has also refused to release the audit of the federal program intended to help families who lived near the toxic site. Hunter has said releasing it could “tarnish the reputation of innocent Oklahomans.”
The watchdog group has also filed a lawsuit in state court seeking the audit’s release. An Oklahoma judge ruled in February that the suit could go ahead.