Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt testified before the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee on Wednesday to make the case for why he should be confirmed as President-elect Donald Trump’s administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency.
Six hours of questioning revealed four key problems about how Pruitt would run the agency:
1. Pruitt has significant conflicts of interest.
Several Democratic Senators asked Pruitt about his ties to the oil and gas industry.
Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-OR) asked Pruitt several questions about a letter he sent the EPA in 2011 written almost entirely by Devon Energy. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) sharply questioned Pruitt about his fundraising from oil and gas companies and other fossil fuel interests.
Senator Ed Markey (D-MA) raised a different concern, one that an independent watchdog has already asked the EPA ethics office to examine. As Attorney General, Pruitt has sued the EPA 14 times to block pollution limits, and several of those cases remain pending. If confirmed as EPA administrator, Pruitt will become the defendant in these suits and also would have authority to modify the rules at issue in the litigation. As Markey said, Pruitt would become “plaintiff, defendant, judge, and jury.” He repeatedly pressed Pruitt to recuse himself in these cases. Pruitt only committed to recusing himself if directed by the EPA ethics office.
2. Pruitt approaches regulation from the perspective of a polluter.
In his opening line of questioning, Chairman John Barrasso (R-WY) asked Pruitt to describe his “environmental philosophy.” Pruitt responded: “The role of a regulator…is to make things regular.” He said that those who are regulated often don’t know what is expected of them under environmental law. He came back to this theme several times during his back and forth with senators.
By focusing on regulatory certainty as a key priority, Pruitt appears to view the role of EPA administrator through the lens of the regulated entity — the polluter — rather than the environment or public health. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) appeared to become frustrated with Pruitt’s process-focused approach during her questioning. She eventually urged: “I need you also to be worried about human health….I need you feel it….I need you to know it.”
Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) also asked Pruitt tough questions about his lack of focus on public health. Booker reminded him of the Devon Energy letter and listed the industry-supported lawsuits against EPA that Pruitt has joined. Then, noting that more than 100,000 children in Oklahoma suffer from asthma, he asked pointedly: “How many letters did you write to the EPA about this health crisis?…Did you even file one lawsuit on behalf of those kids to reduce the air pollution in your state and help them have a healthy life?”
3. Pruitt does not see climate change mitigation as a priority.
Pruitt did not mention climate change in his written remarks. That alone reflects where Pruitt ranks climate change on his list of priority issues to tackle during his possible tenure as EPA administrator.
In his oral statement, Pruitt briefly mentioned climate change, but said the debate over “what to do about” it is unresolved. “Science tells us the climate is changing and that human activity in some manner impacts that change,” he said. “The ability to measure with precision the degree and extent of that impact and what to do about it are subject to continuing debate and dialogue.”
This debate is not unresolved. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has stated with “high confidence” that delaying efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions will make it difficult if not impossible to keep warming below catastrophic levels. In a later tense exchange with Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Pruitt acknowledged that EPA has a role in regulating carbon dioxide, but he did not actually commit to reducing carbon pollution.
4. Pruitt lacks experience in environmental protection.
Pruitt has built his career on using litigation to fight federal environmental regulation but has little experience fighting for environmental protection. The Environmental Integrity Project searched the Oklahoma Attorney General’s website in vain for announcements of environmental enforcement actions.
Pruitt held up one environmental achievement during his testimony that appears to lack much basis. In his opening statement, Pruitt claimed that he helped reach a “historic agreement” to clean up the Illinois River, which was plagued by pollution from poultry farms. In reality, Pruitt’s predecessor filed the case in 2005 and took it to federal court in 2009. The trial ended in February 2010 — months before Pruitt even became Oklahoma Attorney General. Pruitt never took further action on the case. Instead, as the New York Times reported, Pruitt chose a path that delayed full compliance with pollution limits and demonstrated his eagerness to “put cooperation with industry before confrontation.”
Sen. Booker further questioned Pruitt on the Illinois River case and concluded that his priority is not federalism and states’ rights, as he claimed, but rather “deregulation and siding with polluters against the environment and public health standards.”
Taken together, Pruitt’s antipathy for federal environmental regulation, close relationships with industry actors, and lack of experience in and focus on environmental and public health protection promise to take the EPA in a starkly different direction in the future.
Alison Cassady is the Director of Domestic Energy at the Center for American Progress. ThinkProgress is an editorially independent news site housed at the Center for American Progress.