Scott Pruitt

Not to be confused with Scott Pruett.

Scott Pruitt
14th Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency
Incumbent
Assumed office February 17, 2017
President	Donald Trump
Deputy	Andrew Wheeler (Nominee)
Preceded by	Gina McCarthy
17th Attorney General of Oklahoma
In office January 10, 2011 – February 17, 2017
Governor	Mary Fallin
Preceded by	Drew Edmondson
Succeeded by	Mike Hunter
Member of the Oklahoma Senate from the 36th district
In office 2003–2007
Preceded by	Redistricted
Succeeded by	Bill Brown
Member of the Oklahoma Senate from the 54th district
In office 1999–2003
Preceded by	Gerald Wright
Succeeded by	Redistricted
Personal details
Born	Edward Scott Pruitt (1968-05-09) May 9, 1968 Danville, Kentucky, U.S.
Political party	Republican
Spouse	Marlyn Pruitt (1992–present)
Children	2
Education	Georgetown College (BA) University of Tulsa (JD)

Edward Scott Pruitt (born May 9, 1968) is an American lawyer and Republican politician from the state of Oklahoma who is the fourteenth Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Nominated for the position by President Donald Trump, Pruitt was confirmed by the United States Senate to lead the EPA on February 17, 2017.

Pruitt represented Tulsa and Wagoner Counties in the Oklahoma Senate from 1998 until 2006. In 2010, Pruitt was elected Attorney General of Oklahoma. In that role, he opposed abortion rights, same-sex marriage, the Affordable Care Act, and environmental regulations as a self-described "leading advocate against the EPA's activist agenda." In his campaigns for Oklahoma Attorney General, Pruitt received major corporate and employee campaign contributions from the fossil fuel industry, taking in at least $215,574 between 2010 and 2014, even though he ran unopposed in the latter year. As Oklahoma's Attorney General, Pruitt sued the Environmental Protection Agency at least 14 times regarding the agency's actions. In 2012, Pruitt was elected as chairman of the Republican Attorneys General Association, and re-elected for a second term in February 2013.

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Pruitt represented as a climate change denier

Pruitt rejects the scientific consensus that human-caused carbon dioxide emissions are a primary contributor to climate change. As EPA administrator, Pruitt reversed and delayed numerous environmental rules, relaxed enforcement of existing rules, and halted the agency’s efforts to combat climate change. Pruitt's expenditures as EPA administrator, such as the use of first class travel, as well as frequent charter and military flights, stirred controversy. Pruitt's living arrangements also stirred controversy; as EPA administrator, Pruitt leased a condo in Washington D.C. at a discounted rate from a lobbyist whose clients were regulated by the EPA. Pruitt further caused ethics concerns by circumventing the White House and using a narrow provision of the Safe Drinking Water Act to autonomously give raises to his two closest aides of approximately $28,000 and $57,000 each, which were substantially higher than salaries paid to those in similar positions in the Obama administration, and which allowed both to avoid signing conflicts of interest pledges.

Early life

Pruitt was born in 1968 in Danville, Kentucky, the eldest of three siblings, but moved to Lexington as a boy. There, his father, Edward, owned steak houses and his mother, Linda Pruitt Warner, was a homemaker. He was a football and baseball player at Lafayette, earning a baseball scholarship to the University of Kentucky, where he played second base. After a year, he attended Georgetown College in Kentucky and graduated in 1990 with bachelor's degrees in political science and communications. He then moved to Tulsa, Oklahoma where he attended the University of Tulsa and earned a Juris Doctor in 1993.

Legal experience

After law school Pruitt started a solo legal practice in Tulsa that he named "Christian Legal Services," which focused on defending Christians in religious liberty cases. Pruitt worked as a lawyer for 5 years before running for state senate representing Broken Arrow, a Tulsa suburb, where he served 2 terms.

Early political career

Oklahoma State Senate

Pruitt's official photo as a state senator

After five years as an attorney, Pruitt was elected to the Oklahoma Senate in 1998, representing Tulsa and Wagoner Counties. After two years in the Senate, Pruitt was selected to serve as the Republican whip from 2001 to 2003. He was then selected to serve as the Republican Assistant Floor Leader, a position he held until he left the Senate in 2006. During that time he also sat as the chair of a task force for the American Legislative Exchange Council. There, he sponsored a workers'-compensation reform bill that sought to impose drug tests on workers who were involved in job injuries or accidents. In 2005, Pruitt told a radio interviewer that there are not "sufficient scientific facts to establish the theory of evolution."

2001 U.S. House campaign

See also: Oklahoma's 1st congressional district special election, 2002

Pruitt, while a freshman state legislator, sought his party's nomination to succeed Steve Largent as the representative for Oklahoma's 1st congressional district in 2001, but was unsuccessful. Largent, who had resigned to run for Governor of Oklahoma, would be replaced by special election rather than by gubernatorial appointment. Two other main candidates emerged for the job, including sitting State Representative John A. Sullivan, the eventual winner, and Cathy Keating, the wife of then-Governor Frank Keating. Pruitt came in third behind Sullivan and Keating.

After his unsuccessful Congressional campaign, in 2003 Pruitt bought a share in a Triple-A baseball team, the Oklahoma City RedHawks. At the time, his state senator's salary was $38,400, so he partnered with successful businessman and major GOP donor Robert A. Funk to buy the team (reportedly for $11.5 million). Pruitt financed his part of the purchase with a loan from SpiritBank. In 2010, they sold the team for an undisclosed profit. Pruitt has said that, while he was the owner, the team "regularly rated among the league's leaders in attendance and merchandise sales."

2006 Lieutenant Governor campaign

See also: Oklahoma state elections, 2006 § Lieutenant governor

Pruitt sought the Republican nomination to replace outgoing Republican Mary Fallin as Lieutenant Governor of Oklahoma in the 2006 lieutenant gubernatorial election. In the primary election, Pruitt faced Nancy Riley and Speaker of the House Todd Hiett. In the primary election on July 25, 2006, Pruitt received 34% of the vote, Riley received 23%, and Hiett received 43%. Pruitt, pursuant to Oklahoma state law, had to face Hiett in a runoff election in order to receive the party's nomination. Pruitt was defeated by Hiett by less than one percent in the run-off primary.

Oklahoma Attorney General

2010 election

See also: Oklahoma state elections, 2010 § Attorney General

In 2010, Pruitt ran for the position of Attorney General of Oklahoma. He won the Republican primary on July 27, 2010, with 56.05% of the vote, defeating Ryan Leonard, a former state prosecutor in Canadian County and former senior aide to former U.S. Senator Don Nickles. Pruitt went on to defeat the Democratic nominee, Oklahoma City defense attorney Jim Priest, in the November 2, 2010, general election with 65.11% of the vote.

2014 election

See also: Oklahoma elections, 2014 § Attorney General

Pruitt ran unopposed in both the primary and general elections.

Tenure as Oklahoma A.G.

Pruitt speaking at the 2015 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Washington, D.C.

After winning election in 2010, Pruitt dissolved the Environmental Protection Unit in the Attorney General's office. He stated a desire to increase operational efficiency and shifted the attorneys responsible for environmental protection to the Attorney General's Public Protection Unit and the Solicitor General's Unit. Pruitt stated that "the Oklahoma Department of Environmental Quality – not the Office of Attorney General – has primary responsibility for implementing and enforcing environmental laws in Oklahoma."

Pruitt instead created a "Federalism Unit" in the Attorney General's office dedicated to fighting President Barack Obama's regulatory agenda and suing the administration over its immigration policy, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, and the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act.

Pruitt was successful in raising campaign contributions from the energy industry, helping him to become chairman of the Republican Attorneys General Association. The oil and gas industry contributed over $300,000 to Pruitt's campaigns over the years.

In 2012, Pruitt kept Oklahoma out of the mortgage settlement reached by 49 other states with five national lenders (Ally Financial/GMAC, Bank of America, Citi, JPMorgan Chase, and Wells Fargo), with Pruitt citing differing philosophies of government.

In 2013, Pruitt brought a lawsuit targeting the Affordable Care Act.

In 2013, Harold Hamm, CEO of Continental Resources, co-chaired Pruitt's reelection campaign. Pruitt ran unopposed in the 2014 primary election and won the November 2014 election for a new term as Attorney General. Pruitt then jointly filed a lawsuit against a federal regulation alongside the Oklahoma Gas & Electric and an energy industry group funded by Hamm.

Pruitt's office sued the EPA to block its Clean Power Plan and Waters of the United States rule. Pruitt also sued the EPA on behalf of Oklahoma utilities unwilling to take on the burdens of additional regulation of their coal-fired plants, and criticized the agency in a congressional hearing. As of June 2014, all of Pruitt's lawsuits against the EPA had failed. By January 2017, Pruitt had sued the EPA 13 times.

In 2013, Pruitt supported the Oklahoma legislature's bid to join four other states trying to restrict medical abortions by limiting or banning off-label uses of drugs, via House Bill 1970. After the state Supreme Court upheld a lower court's ruling that the abortion law was unconstitutional, Pruitt requested that the United States Supreme Court review the case. Pruitt was unhappy with the United States Supreme Court's rejection of the Oklahoma case.

In June 2013, Pruitt maintained that the Supreme Court's decision to strike down a provision of DOMA, a federal law that denied federal benefits to homosexual married couples did not affect Oklahoma's laws on the subject.

The Washington D.C. watchdog organization Campaign for Accountability sued Pruitt's successor as Oklahoma Attorney General for the failure of the office to release documentation that had been withheld from the public concerning corruption allegations involving the management of the Tar Creek Reclamation Superfund lead-contaminated waste site near Miami, Oklahoma. In 2014, Pruitt asked Oklahoma's State Auditor and Inspector Gary Jones to audit the financial corruption by contractors performing the cleanup. Pruitt blocked Jones from following his intention to release the audit results.

On March 6, 2014, Pruitt joined a lawsuit targeting California's prohibition on the sale of eggs laid by caged hens kept in conditions more restrictive than those approved by California voters. Less than a week later, Pruitt announced that he would investigate the Humane Society of the United States, one of the principal proponents of the California law. In October 2014, a California judge dismissed the lawsuit, rejecting the arguments of Pruitt and the other attorneys-general concerning California's Proposition 2, a 2008 ballot initiative. Judge Kimberly Mueller ruled that Oklahoma and the other states lacked legal standing to sue on behalf of their residents and that Pruitt and other plaintiffs were representing the interests of egg farmers, rather than "a substantial statement of their populations."

In April 2014, an Oklahoma trial court found the state's execution drug supply law was unconstitutional, and after the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals refused to order a stop to executions, the Oklahoma Supreme Court did. Pruitt then filed a motion arguing that the Supreme Court was acting outside its authority, complaining it was causing a "constitutional crisis". After the Supreme Court refused Pruitt's motion, Governor Mary Fallin faced conflicting court orders, so she issued a declaration rejecting the Supreme Court's authority and scheduling executions. After the state then botched the execution of Clayton Lockett, and the U.S. Supreme Court's subsequently approved of Oklahoma's method in Glossip v. Gross, Pruitt asked to delay all scheduled executions in Oklahoma upon discovering executioners had accidentally used the wrong drug in a lethal injection.

On September 9, 2014, in Pruitt v. Burwell, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Oklahoma ruled against the IRS.

Pruitt expressed his dissatisfaction when a federal court ruled that Oklahoma's voter-approved amendment in 2004 to the Oklahoma State Constitution that defined marriage as only the union of one man and one woman was a violation of the U.S. Constitution in 2014. In October 2014, Pruitt criticized the Supreme Court's refusal to hear Oklahoma's appeal in the definition of marriage case.

In November 2014, after the Oklahoma Supreme Court blocked the enforcement of two abortion-related laws until after their constitutionality was litigated (which could take up to a year or more), Pruitt's office communicated the Attorney General's intention to support their implementation and enforcement.

On December 7, 2014, The New York Times published a front-page story highlighting that Pruitt had used his office's stationery to send form letters written by energy industry lobbyists to federal agencies during public comment.

In April 2015, Pruitt wrote a letter to school superintendents stating that schools can lawfully allow the dissemination of religious literature on campus.

After the organization Oklahomans for Health collected the legally required number of signatures for a referendum ballot on the legalization of medical marijuana, in August 2016, Pruitt's office moved to rewrite the ballot title, but not in time for the November 2016 election. The measure will appear on the 2018 ballot.

In 2015, the Oklahoma Supreme Court rejected Pruitt's defense of the new Ten Commandments Monument on the Oklahoma State Capitol grounds. In 2016, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear Pruitt's original lawsuit against the legalization of cannabis in Colorado.

Pruitt was an advisor to the Jeb Bush presidential campaign, 2016, and in February 2016, said that Donald Trump would be "more abusive to the Constitution than Barack Obama".

Pruitt at the CPAC in February 2017

In February 2017, Pruitt was ordered by the Oklahoma District Court to release thousands of emails of communication with fossil fuel industries in order to comply with Freedom of Information Act requests filed over a two-year period by the liberal watchdog group Center for Media and Democracy.

Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency

Nomination and confirmation

Pruitt on January 4, 2017, during the transition period.

On December 7, 2016, President-elect Donald Trump announced his intention to nominate Pruitt as the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency. The nomination was reviewed during hearings held by the members of the Environment and Public Works Committee, then referred to the full Senate for a vote.

In a statement explaining the decision to nominate Pruitt, President-elect Trump said that the EPA had an "anti-energy agenda that has destroyed millions of jobs" and that Pruitt, "the highly respected Attorney General from the state of Oklahoma, will reverse this trend and restore the EPA’s essential mission of keeping our air and our water clean and safe." In response to the nomination, Pruitt said, "I intend to run this agency in a way that fosters both responsible protection of the environment and freedom for American businesses." Writing on their website, the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) said, "President-elect Trump has vowed to bring 'honesty, accountability and change to Washington.' General Pruitt's record of accomplishment suggests that he will bring those very same qualities to EPA."

Following Pruitt's nomination hearing, Republican Senator John Barrasso stated that "Mr. Pruitt answered significantly more questions than any past EPA administrator has. He has been comprehensively vetted and has demonstrated his qualifications to lead the EPA." West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey, who worked with Pruitt on multiple cases, said of Pruitt that "He cares passionately about the rule of law" and that "All the actions he's been involved in are rooted in the firm belief that what the [Obama] administration was doing was unlawful."

Pruitt's criticism as Oklahoma Attorney General of the organization he would administer, Gene Karpinski, the president of the League of Conservation Voters said, made the nomination "like the fox guarding the henhouse ... Time and again, he has fought to pad the profits of Big Polluters at the expense of public health." Ken Kimmell, president of the Union of Concerned Scientists, has said, "Pruitt's record gives us no reason to believe that he will vigorously hold polluters accountable or enforce the law ... everything we do know makes it clear that he can't and won't do the job." Many environmentalists voiced concerns. Saying that Pruitt had deliberately given misleading information about his position on the regulation of mercury emissions, a spokesperson from the Natural Resources Defense Council said, “It is a serious matter to give misleading testimony to Senators during a confirmation hearing." 447 former EPA employees penned a joint letter to oppose Pruitt's nomination, arguing that his lawsuits against the EPA "strongly suggest that he does not share the vision or agree with the underlying principles of our environmental laws", and that they believed that he had not "put the public's welfare ahead of private interests".

Senate Democrats unsuccessfully attempted to delay a vote until after the release of a batch of emails ordered by an Oklahoma judge. On February 17, 2017, the Senate confirmed Pruitt, by a vote of 52–46, to be the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency. The vote was mostly along party lines, with Republican Susan Collins voting against, and Democrats Joe Manchin and Heidi Heitkamp voting in favor (Republican John McCain and Democrat Joe Donnelly did not vote). Pruitt was sworn in the same day by Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito.

Following Pruitt's confirmation, The Guardian reported that emails and other records released by the Oklahoma attorney general's office showed "a cosy relationship between Pruitt and the American Legislative Exchange Council [...] and other lobby groups sponsored by the Koch brothers." Released documents showed that while serving as Oklahoma attorney general, Pruitt "acted in close concert with oil and gas companies to challenge environmental regulations, even putting his letterhead to a complaint filed by one firm, Devon Energy." Devon has since benefited from policies implemented by Pruitt. Emails showed that American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers "provided Pruitt's office with template language to oppose ozone limits and the renewable fuel standard program in 2013."

Tenure as EPA Administrator

Pruitt speaking in February 2017 at the Conservative Political Action Conference.

At the end of 2017, The Washington Post summarized Pruitt's leadership of the EPA in 2017 as follows:

In legal maneuvers and executive actions, in public speeches and closed-door meetings with industry groups, he has moved to shrink the agency’s reach, alter its focus, and pause or reverse numerous environmental rules. The effect has been to steer the EPA in the direction sought by those being regulated. Along the way, Pruitt has begun to dismantle former president Barack Obama’s environmental legacy, halting the agency’s efforts to combat climate change and to shift the nation away from its reliance on fossil fuels.

On March 9, 2017, in an interview on CNBC's Squawk Box, Pruit stated that he "would not agree that" carbon dioxide is "a primary contributor to the global warming that we see" backing up his claim by stating that "measuring with precision human activity on the climate is something very challenging to do and there's tremendous disagreement about the degree of impact." This was in direct contradiction with EPA's public stance that was published on their official website which stated: "Carbon dioxide is the primary greenhouse gas that is contributing to recent climate change". By April 28—the day before the climate change mass protests—EPA announced that the website "would be 'undergoing changes' to better represent the new direction the agency is taking" which included "the removal of several agency websites containing detailed climate data and scientific information" including the site that "had been cited to challenge Pruitt's Squawk Box statements." A March 9 analysis by fact-checking website Snopes.com found that "Pruitt's statements to CNBC are misrepresentative of the scientific consensus on carbon dioxide's role as a greenhouse gas — a consensus that has essentially existed for more than a century." The Atlantic published an article on the same day, pointing out that in 2007, the United States Supreme Court had acknowledged the link between carbon dioxide and global warming—in 2013 the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change stated the probability of carbon dioxide causing global warming was at least 95%.

Pruitt's chosen deputy, chief of staff, and deputy chief of staff are all former members of Senator Jim Inhofe's (R-OK) staff. Pruitt picked Washington State senators Don Benton and Doug Ericksen to be, respectively, a White House liaison and a regional administrator. Andrew R. Wheeler has been nominated to be Pruitt's deputy administrator. Pruitt's principal deputy at the EPA's Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention was previously an executive at the American Chemistry Council. In December 2017, Michael Dourson withdrew his nomination to be Pruitt's assistant administrator.

The President's first budget instructs Pruitt to cut the agency's budget by 24% and reduce its 15,000 employees by 20%. Pruitt has sought to end EPA funding for the United States Department of Justice Environment and Natural Resources Division, which relies on $20 million a year from the EPA for 27% of its budget. Pruitt has issued a directive to stop litigants from pressuring the EPA to regulate, referring to the practice as "sue and settle". In response, 57 former EPA counsels signed a letter criticizing Pruitt’s directive. Pruitt has offered himself as a replacement of U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions.

On April 28, 2017, Pruitt fired scientists from the agency's 18-member Board of Scientific Counselors, indicating he intends to replace them with industry representatives. Ryan Jackson, Pruitt's chief of staff, asked the Scientific Counselors Board's chair to change testimony she had submitted before a May 23 hearing of the House Science Committee, causing her to complain she felt "bullied." In October 2017, Pruitt removed several scientists from EPA advisory panels and forbid any scientist who receives a grant from the EPA from then serving those panels. By December 2017, 700 staff had left EPA during Pruitt's tenure, including over 200 scientists. During that time, Pruitt hired 129 people, including 7 scientists. In March 2018, Pruitt proposed to restrict the EPA from considering research that relies on confidential information, such as medical data. The proposal was modeled on a stalled Congressional bill.

On June 29, 2017, Pruitt attended a board meeting of the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity, and told them that he will have researchers publicly debate the human role in climate change, adopting Steven E. Koonin's suggestion to hold a "red team blue team" exercise. In December 2017, White House Chief of Staff John F. Kelly rejected the debate idea. Pruitt has met with industry representatives almost daily while rarely meeting with environmentalists.

Pruitt and other agency heads delayed the public release of the Climate Change Report within the National Climate Assessment. The report was ultimately released in November 2017.

In August 2017, the Environmental Integrity Project determined that the administration was collecting 60% less money in civil environmental penalties than prior administrations. Pruitt has sought injunctive relief valued at 12% of that sought by the prior administration. As of January 2018, the administration had removed, relaxed, or delayed 67 environmental rules.

In March 2018, Time magazine reviewed the status of the EPA's website after a year of Pruitt's tenure. The magazine reported that the website's Climate Change section was taken down in April 2017 after existing in various forms for more than twenty years. The message, "This page is being updated", was left in its place. In addition, searching for "climate change" produced 5,000 results compared to the previous 12,000. Resources on how local communities could combat climate change were cut from 380 to 170 pages, and a 50-page resource on "a Student’s Guide to Global Climate Change" was not archived. On some pages, edits have been made to remove terms like "climate change", "air pollutant", "greenhouse gas", while "carbon footprint" and "carbon accounting" were replaced with "environmental footprint" and "sustainability accounting".

Calling Pruitt on March 2, 2018, President Trump assured him, “we’ve got your back,” urging him to “keep fighting,” according to administration officials who remained anonymous. However, two additional officials confirmed that presidential Chief of Staff John F. Kelly had expressed the administration's displeasure over being caught unaware by some of the ethical problems Pruitt's conduct raised.

Rulemaking

American Energy Executive Order 1902

On March 28, 2017, President Trump signed an executive order directing Pruitt to rescind the Clean Power Plan. Pruitt has refused to rescind EPA's endangerment finding which determined that carbon dioxide emissions threaten public health, prompting criticism from some Trump supporters. Pruitt has stated that a move to rescind would almost certainly be overturned by the courts. On October 10, 2017, Pruitt issued a notice of proposed rulemaking to repeal the Clean Power Plan.

On June 27, 2017, Pruitt released a proposal to rescind the Clean Water Rule. On January 31, 2018, Pruitt finalized repeal of the Clean Water Rule.

On March 1, 2018, Pruitt issued a proposed rule to relax regulation of coal ash. Pruitt has finalized a rule postponing new effluent guidelines on power plants. Pruitt has rejected a proposed rule to require hard rock miners to guarantee they can pay mine reclamation costs. Pruitt has agreed to allow permitting to proceed for the Pebble Mine on Bristol Bay.

In June 2017, Pruitt announced that he would delay designating which areas met new National Ambient Air Quality Standards for ozone. In August 2017, Pruitt said he would reverse that decision after being sued by 16 state Attorneys General. In March 2018, Pruitt was finally ordered to do so by U.S. District Judge Haywood Stirling Gilliam Jr.

In August 2017, Pruitt began reconsidering new car emissions standards. Pruitt has been planning to reduce federally mandated corporate average fuel economy. Pruitt has proposed to repeal heightened emissions standards on "glider trucks", which are semi-trailer trucks that have new bodies but old engines. Pruitt had requested public comment on reductions to the Renewable Fuel Standard after being encouraged to do so by Carl Icahn. Pruitt has since traveled to Iowa twice to promote the repeal of the Clean Water Rule and to promise support of corn ethanol production.

Pruitt has indefinitely postponed regulations of methylene chloride, N-methylpyrrolidone, and trichloroethylene that had been called for by the Frank R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act. In December 2017, after Pruitt requested six years to regulate lead levels, a divided federal appeals court issued a writ of mandamus ordering Pruitt to regulate lead within the next 90 days.

Chlorpyrifos ban

On March 29, 2017, Pruitt denied an administrative petition by the Natural Resources Defense Council and the Pesticide Action Network North America to ban chlorpyrifos, explaining "we are returning to using sound science in decision-making – rather than predetermined results". On April 5, 2017, Earthjustice sued the EPA, again demanding that the pesticide be banned.

The American Academy of Pediatrics responded to the administration's decision, saying they were "deeply alarmed" by Pruitt's decision to allow the pesticide's continued use.

Asked in April whether he had met with Dow Chemical Company executives or lobbyists before his decision, an EPA spokesman replied: "We have had no meetings with Dow on this topic." In June, after several Freedom of Information Act requests, the EPA released a copy of Pruitt's March meeting schedule which showed that a meeting had been scheduled with Dow CEO Andrew Liveris at a hotel in Houston, Texas, on March 9, 2017. Internal documents show Pruitt worked closely with the American Farm Bureau Federation to retain the pesticide. EPA scientists had not been able to find any level of exposure to the pesticide that was safe.

Methane rule

On March 22, 2017, Pruitt had dinner at the Washington Trump International Hotel with 45 board members of the American Petroleum Institute, where they asked for relief from a new regulation of methane leaks from their wells. On June 13, Pruitt ordered the rule delayed for two years. On July 3, Judges David S. Tatel and Robert L. Wilkins of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit vacated that delay, finding Pruitt's order was "arbitrary" and "capricious" and in violation of the Clean Air Act, over the dissent of Judge Janice Rogers Brown. In October 2017, a federal magistrate judge ordered the administration to reimpose regulations it had repealed on methane gas flares.

Controversies

Due to the multiple ongoing scandals Pruitt is embroiled in, at least 20 members of Congress, including three Republicans (Carlos Curbelo, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and Elise Stefanik, called for Pruitt's resignation. Curbelo said that Pruitt's "corruption scandals are an embarrassment to the Administration, and his conduct is grossly disrespectful to American taxpayers". On April 3, 2018, Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) and Congressmen Ted Lieu (D-CA) and Don Beyer (D-VA) called for an investigation of Pruitt's housing arrangements by the EPA's inspector general.

Management of agency

EPA employees reported that the doors to the floor in the EPA's headquarters containing Pruitt's office were frequently locked, with employees required to have escorts while visiting the floor. Some EPA employees also reported being told not to bring cellphones or take notes in meetings with Pruitt. Pruitt is also accompanied by armed guards even while at EPA's headquarters, an unprecedented level of security for an EPA administrator. Pruitt also "terminated a decades-long practice of publicly posting his appointments calendar and that of all the top agency aides." These measures have prompted critics to charge that Pruitt is running the agency in secret.

Five officials at the EPA - four of them high-ranking - were reassigned, demoted or pushed out of the EPA after raised concerns about Pruitt's management of the agency, in particular Pruitt's expenditures. Several of these officials played a key role in reviewing Pruitt's travel plans; one occasions they put a halt to unjustifiably expensive travel plans. One political appointee was put on leave after voicing concerns about Pruitt to the White House’s presidential personnel office. The New York Times reported that the appointee had objected to proposals considered by Pruitt's staff to buy a $100,000-a-month charter aircraft membership, spend $70,000 on two desks for Pruitt's office, and spend $43,000 on a sound-proof security booth. The appointee first asked Pruitt in private to rein in his spending, but then did it through intermediaries after he got frozen out.

Early into his tenure, Pruitt asked his security detail to use flashing lights and sirens when they were stuck in D.C. traffic; the lead agent of his security detail told Pruitt that flashing lights and sirens were only used in emergency circumstances. One of the instances included a trip to Pruitt's favorite French restaurant in D.C. Less than two weeks later, the lead agent had been reassigned. The same lead agent had also expressed a reluctance to sign off on requests that Pruitt needed to travel first class for security reasons. Agency staff questioned requests for a bulletproof sport utility vehicle, the construction of a special security booth in Pruitt's office, the tripling of the size of Pruitt's security detail , and the 24/7 work hours of his security detail. Reginald E. Allen, a career official at the EPA and decorated 30-year retired Army officer, was reassigned to an office within the EPA described as "an unmarked grave" after he objected to Pruitt's spending.

Expenditures

Pruitt drew controversy in the late summer and fall of 2017 over his use of taxpayer funds. Unlike his predecessors, Pruitt has as EPA head regularly flown first or business class on commercial airlines, as well as chartered private jets and military planes at exorbitant costs. The cost of Pruitt's seats on those flights are often several times higher than the seats for his accompanying staffers. Pruitt also has a vastly larger around-the-clock security detail than his predecessors.

In August 2017, the inspector general of the Environmental Protection Agency launched a probe into Pruitt's travel to and from Oklahoma at taxpayer expense. In September 2017, it was revealed that he had used at least $58,000 worth of noncommercial charter flights and military flights during his tenure. It was also reported that when he and his staff used commercial flights, they opted for business or first class when those seats were available.

In February 2018, a The Washington Post investigation determined that Pruitt has thus far spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on first-class airline travel, charter flights, military aircraft and luxury hotel stays, potentially contravening federal travel regulation and contrary to the practices of his predecessors, who routinely traveled in economy class. On June 5, 2017, for example, Pruitt billed the government for a $1,641.43 first-class ticket on a flight from Washington, D.C. to New York. Pruitt defended his unprecedented travel costs (military and charter flights, and first-class travel) as necessary for security reasons. His spokesman told The Hill that Pruitt has a "blanket waiver" to travel regulations which normally prohibit first-class travel by federal employees. Pruitt's staff later elaborated that the security reasons included other passengers being uncivil, quoting one individual yelling a vulgarism at him, referring what he was doiing to the environment.

Pruitt frequently opted to fly with Delta Airlines, despite US government contracts giving discounts on certain routes. During one trip, Pruitt used Emirates, a costly Dubai-based airline with a reputation for luxurious service. This travel required a waiver from the Fly America Act, which normally requires federal employees to travel on American-owned airlines. Pruitt also tended to stay at high-end hotels during his trips. Pruitt was found to have spent 43 of the 92 days from March to May 2017 in Oklahoma or traveling there.

In September 2017, the EPA spent what was thought to be $25,000 to build a soundproof booth for Pruitt to use in his office. The EPA's spokesperson said that this was to protect against hacking and eavesdropping. In March 2018, it was revealed that the cost of the booth was even higher than initially reported; actually almost $43,000. In September 2017, it was reported that Pruitt's security detail had increased to 18 people who guarded him around the clock, which was without precedent in size for an EPA chief. Additional agents for Pruitt's security detail were reassigned from the EPA's Criminal Investigation Division, which more typically investigates environmental crimes. The EPA justified the size of the detail, saying that it was because Pruitt faced greater security threats. In October 2017, CNN reported that Pruitt had requested a dozen more agents, which would cost the taxpayers at least $2 million per year in salaries alone.

In April 2018, it was reported that Pruitt's aides had researched leasing a private jet on a monthly basis for Pruitt's travel. The estimated cost of this would have been approximately $100,000 per month. The aides evaluated such expenditures prior to the outbreak of a similar scandal regarding exorbitant travel costs by Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price, which later led to Price's resignation.

December 2017 Morocco trip to encourage liquified natural gas (LNG) sales

In March and April 2018 Pruitt faced increased scrutiny concerning a December 2017 trip to Morocco. The trip was not disclosed to the public beforehand and was only disclosed by the EPA after Pruitt had returned, via a December 12, 2017 press release. That press release stated that while in Morocco Pruitt "outlined U.S. environmental priorities for updating the Environmental Work Plan under the U.S.-Morocco Free Trade Agreement," as well as discussed "the potential benefit of liquified natural gas (LNG) imports on Morocco’s economy."

Pruitt brought 10 EPA political aides and security detail on his 5-day trip to Morocco where he encouraged the country to import liquified natural gas (LNG) from the United States. Pruitt's travel expenses alone - not counting those of his 10 person entourage - cost nearly $18,000 for the five day trip, including his $500 per night Paris hotel. In a letter to Pruitt requesting him to explain the Morocco trip, Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) noted that the 5-day trip only included one full workday, and two other days with one hour long meeting each - which meant the 5-day trip consisted of one full work day, two days with 1 hour of work each, and a two-day, non-work layover in Paris over a weekend .

In addition to Senator Whitehouse, Pruitt's Morocco trip has raised significant concerns among several lawmakers and advocacy groups. Critics say that Pruitt's trip and other actions to encourage the importation of liquified natural gas (LNG) from the United States fall outside the EPA's mission of ensuring clean air and water, and that Pruitt has no jurisdiction or authority to oversee natural gas exports, as such activities are overseen by the Energy Department and Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, and not the EPA.

On December 18, 2017, Senator Tom Carper (D-DE) wrote to the FDA Inspector General, requesting that the IG expand the scope of the pending audit concerning Pruitt's travel to include the Morocco trip.

Housing arrangements

In March 2018, it was reported that Pruitt had leased a condominium in Washington D.C. from a lobbyist couple, Vicki and Steven Hart, at a discounted price of $50 per night, which amounted to $6,100 over a six-month period. The Harts represented at least a half a dozen clients in industries regulated by the EPA. At the same time that Pruitt was renting the condo, the EPA approved Canadian energy company Enbridge's plan to expand a pipeline carrying oil to the United States from Canadian tar sands. The company was represented by the husband's lobbying firm. Enbridge had in 2010 been given the second-largest fine in EPA history (second only to the penalty assessed against British Petroleum as a result of the Deepwater Horizon spill in the Gulf of Mexico) for spilling crude oil into the Kalamazoo River in Michigan. At the time that the EPA decision was made, Stephen Hart's lobbying firm was registered on disclosures forms as lobbying for Enbridge on "issues affecting pipelines and construction of new pipelines". Government ethics experts said that Pruitt's conflict of interests made it reasonable to question the EPA's decision. Other apartments in the building complex, which is in a prime location and less than a block away from the US Capitol - have rented for as much as $5,000-a-month. According to Airbnb, the average price for lodging per night in the same neighborhood is $142 per night (the average price is $113 per night in D.C.). Pruitt's adult daughter also stayed for months in the condo's second bedroom while participating in a White House internship in the General Counsel's office, but was not charged anything for her stay. On March 30, 2018, the EPA’s principal deputy general counsel, Kevin Minoli, wrote that Pruitt’s lease, charged only when he occupied a bedroom, didn't technically constitute a gift because the rate, $50 a night for 30 consecutive days, $1,500, constituted “a reasonable market value.” However Minoli emphasized he had only evaluated the narrow terms of the lease, not any other activities the document did not address. After reporting emerged that Pruitt's daughter stayed in a separate bedroom, Minoli said that he lacked key facts. Other apartments in the building complex - located in a prime location less than a block away from the U.S. Capitol and within walking distance to the EPA - rented for as much as $5,000-a-month. Furthermore, when the EPA ethics official reviewed the lease, the name of the husband who had EPA interests had been struck through by Vicki Hart and her own name had instead been handwritten in.

The luxury townhouse rented by Pruitt was also used as a Republican fundraising hub while Pruitt and his adult daughter were living there. GOP fundraising invitations show that at least three Republican lawmakers - Senator Mike Crapo (R-ID), Senator Jim Risch (R-ID) and Congressman Bill Huizenga (R-MI) - held fundraisers for themselves at the townhouse while Pruitt was living in it.

The Harts hosted a fundraising reception for Pruitt in 2014 (at the expense of $1,616.43) and contributed $1750 to Pruitt's campaign for Oklahoma attorney general over the period 2010-2012. The Harts also hosted a fundraiser for Senator Rafael ("Ted") Cruz (R-TX) at the Capitol Hill townhouse on April 9, 2013. Senator Cruz has been one of the few lawmakers to publicly support Pruitt during April 2018, in the midst of the media storm over Pruitt's multiple scandals.

No-bid contract to Republican opposition research firm

In December 2017, Definers Public Affairs was paid $120,000 in a no-bid contract from the EPA for services which included searching for "resistance figures" opposing Pruitt's agenda. During the bid Definers listed erroneously itself as a "small disadvantaged business", a preferred designation corrected after Definers received the contract. Definers cancelled the contract following a public backlash.

Hiring of Oklahoma associates and circumvention of White House to give aides massive salary increases

In April 2018, it became known that Pruitt had raised the salaries of two of his closest aides whom he'd brought from Oklahoma, despite rejection of the submitted increases by the White House. Pruitt sought to increase the salary from $107,435 to $164,200 for one aide and from $86,460 to $114,590 for the other. The provision was intended to allow the EPA administrator to hire specialists into unique roles in especially stressed offices. Instead, Pruitt circumvented the process by using a provision of the Safe Drinking Water Act which allowed him to autonomously determine the salaries for the two aides. The compensation of the two staffers was substantially higher than the salaries of staff in similar positions in the Obama administration. The method of raising their pay also allowed both to avoid signing ethics pledges meant to deter conflicts of interest, an issue raised by Democratic Senators Tom Carper and Sheldon Whitehouse for consideration of an investigation. While Pruitt claimed in an April 4, 2018 televised interview with Fox News correspondent Ed Henry that he didn't know anything about the raises to his 2 close aides, the Washington Post reported on April 5, 2018 that two EPA officials and a White House official told The Post that Pruitt instructed staff to award substantial pay boosts to both women, who had worked in different roles for him in Oklahoma.

Pruitt hired former Oklahoma banker Albert Kelly to head the Superfund program, which is responsible for cleaning up the nation's most contaminated land. Kelly completely lacked any experience with environmental issues, and had just received a lifetime ban from working in banking, his career until then, due to "unfitness to serve". The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) also fined him $125,000 and said he had made loans that harmed the bank. Kelly had a long-standing financial relationship with Pruitt as head of a SpiritBank, which held extensive outstanding loans to Pruitt. In his new position, Kelly earned $172,100 a year.

Reactions from ex-EPA administrators

Former EPA Administrators have been critical of Pruitt's tenure. William Ruckelshaus, the first and fifth EPA Administrator under Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan respectively, characterized Pruitt as disbelieving of "the mission of the agency" while believing that the EPA was "over-regulating". Ruckelshaus accused Pruitt of having an "ideological approach ... that affects the large contributors in his party in Oklahoma". Ruckelshaus also described the ideological opposition to the scientific consensus on climate change as a national "threat", and that "lives will be sacrificed" with further inaction. Ruckelshaus has also criticized Pruitt for lacking transparency.

Carol Browner, EPA Administrator under Bill Clinton, said, "Under Pruitt, what they’re doing is conscientiously tearing the place down." Christine Todd Whitman, EPA Administrator under George W. Bush, said it was "mindless" that under Pruitt, policies enacted under Obama were being reversed regardless of their merits or shortcomings. Gina McCarthy, EPA Administrator under Barack Obama, said that Pruitt's EPA had created a "wealth of uncertainty" in undoing so many regulations because businesses would not know if they should "take rules seriously".

The EPA's overhaul of their website under Pruitt has also drawn flak from former administrators. Whitman has argued that the website's credibility was damaged, and that "undermining science means there is no basis on which to act based on fact, which is dangerous." McCarthy described the EPA's website changes as "censoring scientific data" and carrying out a "a dangerous assault on public health safeguards that protect all Americans."

Pruitt's environmental views

Resist Trump Rally, NYC, 2017

Rejection of scientific consensus on climate change

Pruitt rejects the scientific consensus on climate change. Pruitt has also falsely asserted that there is no scientific consensus on climate change. During his January 18, 2017, confirmation hearing to be EPA Administrator, he said that "the climate is changing, and human activity contributes to that in some manner". In March 2017, Pruitt said that he does not believe that human activities, specifically carbon dioxide emissions, are a primary contributor to climate change, a view which is in contradiction with the scientific consensus. On June 2, 2017, Pruitt acknowledged that global warming is occurring, and that "human activity contributes to it in some manner." However he added "Measuring with precision, from my perspective, the degree of human contribution is very challenging."

In May 2016, Pruitt and Luther Strange authored an op-ed in the National Review criticizing a group of Democratic attorneys general for investigating ExxonMobil in connection with the ExxonMobil climate change controversy. Pruitt and Strange wrote that the Democrats were "acting like George III" and wrote that "global warming has inspired one of the major policy debates of our time. That debate is far from settled. Scientists continue to disagree about the degree and extent of global warming and its connection to the actions of mankind. That debate should be encouraged — in classrooms, public forums, and the halls of Congress. It should not be silenced with threats of prosecution. Dissent is not a crime." Additionally, Pruitt joined 12 other Republican attorneys general in writing a letter that stated that "If it is possible to minimize the risks of climate change, then the same goes for exaggeration. If minimization is fraud, exaggeration is fraud."

A May 2017 study in Nature Scientific Reports examined Pruitt's claim that "over the past two decades satellite data indicates there has been a leveling off of warming." The study found that the claim was false: "Satellite temperature measurements do not support the claim of a “leveling off of warming” over the past two decades".

In an interview with Las Vegas television station KSNV, Pruitt, in contradiction to the EPA’s own scientific position, argued that an increase in global temperate might not be “a bad thing” and that it is “arrogant” to say what “the ideal surface temperature should be in the year 2100.”

Paris Agreement

Pruitt opposes the Paris Agreement. He has incorrectly asserted that China and India have "no obligations" until 2030 under the Paris Agreement.

Lawsuits against the Environmental Protection Agency

Pruitt has described himself as "a leading advocate against the EPA’s activist agenda." Upon taking office as Oklahoma Attorney General, Pruitt established a "federalism unit" to fight "unwarranted regulation and systematic overreach" by the federal government, a first-of-its-kind. Andrew Miller, a former Democratic attorney general of Virginia who later represented energy companies, recalled a meeting in 2013 with Pruitt and other attorneys general: "[t]he issue of the day was discussed in a way that allowed Attorney General Pruitt, to his credit, to emerge as one of the leaders, if not the leader with respect to energy issues among the attorneys general."

As Oklahoma Attorney General, Pruitt sued the EPA at least 14 times. Regulated industry companies or trade associations who were financial donors to Pruitt's political causes were co-parties in 13 of these 14 cases. These cases included suing to block the anti-climate change Clean Power Plan four times, challenging mercury pollution limits twice, ozone pollution limits once, fighting the Cross-State Air Pollution Rule and the Clean Water Rule, as well as fighting regulations on methane emissions. Pruitt stated at his Senate confirmation hearing in January 2017 that the EPA has an "obligation" to regulate carbon dioxide in accordance with a 2007 Supreme Court case and 2009 EPA decision establishing carbon emissions as a threat to public health.

Under Pruitt, Oklahoma sued the EPA and lost on challenges to the EPA’s regulatory authority over mercury and other toxins, as well as pollutants responsible for creating regional atmospheric haze. It challenged the manner in which EPA sued unrelated entities and for what Pruitt termed the agency's "sue and settle" practices. Oklahoma further sued and lost after the EPA declined to provide extensive records in a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit, a request the federal judge hearing the case found to be overly broad and economically burdensome.

Personal life

Pruitt married his wife, Marilyn, in 1990, at Southeast Christian Church in Louisville, Kentucky. They have two children: daughter McKenna and son Cade.

Pruitt is Southern Baptist. According to the Oklahoma Office of Attorney General, the Pruitts are members of the First Baptist Church of Broken Arrow, where Pruitt serves as deacon. Pruitt was a trustee at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.

Electoral history

Stop Pruitt sign

November 4, 2014, general election results for Attorney General

Candidates	Party	Votes	%
Scott Pruitt	Republican Party	n/a	100.00%

November 2, 2010, general election results for Attorney General

Candidates	Party	Votes	%
Scott Pruitt	Republican Party	666,407	65.11%
Jim Priest	Democratic Party	357,162	34.89%

July 27, 2010, Republican primary election results for Attorney General

Candidates	Party	Votes	%
Scott Pruitt	Republican Party	134,335	56.05%
Ryan Leonard	Republican Party	105,343	43.95%

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August 22, 2006 Republican primary election results for Lt. Governor

Candidates		Party	Votes	%
Todd Hiett	Republican Party	66,220	50.92%
Scott Pruitt	Republican Party	63,817	49.08%
Source:

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July 25, 2006 Republican primary election results for Lt. Governor

Candidates		Party	Votes	%
Todd Hiett	Republican Party	76,634	42.82%
Scott Pruitt	Republican Party	60,367	33.73%
Nancy Riley	Republican Party	41,984	23.46%
Source:

November 5, 2002, general election results for Oklahoma Senate, District 54

Candidates	Party	Votes	%
Scott Pruitt	Republican Party	n/a	100.00%

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December 11, 2001, special election results for United States House of Representatives, District 1

Candidates		Party	Votes	%
John Sullivan	Republican Party	19,018	45.53%
Cathy Keating	Republican Party	12,736	30.49%
Scott Pruitt	Republican Party	9,513	22.77%
George E. Banasky	Republican Party	296	0.71%
Evelyn R. Rogers	Republican Party	210	0.50%
Source:

November 3, 1998, general election results for Oklahoma Senate, District 54

Candidates	Party	Votes	%
Scott Pruitt	Republican Party	9,971	63.51%
Shannon Clark	Democratic Party	5,728	36.49%
Source:

#E81B23 #E81B23

September 5, 1998, Republican runoff election results for Oklahoma Senate, District 54

Candidates		Party	Votes	%
Scott Pruitt	Republican Party	2,326	56.33%
Gerald Wright	Republican Party	1,803	43.67%
Source:

#E81B23 #E81B23 #E81B23

August 25, 1998, Republican primary election results for Oklahoma Senate, District 54

Candidates		Party	Votes	%
Scott Pruitt	Republican Party	1,959	48.94%
Gerald Wright	Republican Party	1,820	45.47%
Douglas E. Meehan	Republican Party	224	5.59%
Source:

External links

• Appearances on C-SPAN
• EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt
• Archive of Scott Pruitt campaign website