CREDO says: Deny the ‘Denier’ Scott Pruitt at EPA

No Climate Change Deniers at EPA, Please!

Dear Friends of the Environment:

Scott Pruitt, Donald Trump’s nominee for Environmental Protection Agency administrator, is literally one of the last people on Earth who should be put in charge of protecting the environment. He’s a radical climate-change denier who has repeatedly sued the EPA to block the Obama administration’s life-saving clear air and climate rules.

Pruitt’s confirmation vote in the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee is scheduled for today. Please make a call now to urge key members of the committee to oppose Pruitt’s confirmation.

Make a call: Block Scott Pruitt’s confirmation.

Confirming Pruitt as EPA administrator would be a nightmare scenario for the people and the planet. Throughout his six years as Oklahoma attorney general, Pruitt has repeatedly used his role to do the bidding of Big Oil and other major polluters. Here are just a few of the reasons Pruitt is unqualified to run the EPA:

• Pruitt sued the EPA to block environmental rules: Pruitt has repeatedly sued the Environmental Protection Agency to stop environmental regulations that are at the core of the EPA’s mission from taking effect, including rules to slash carbon pollution from power plants, protect children from toxic mercury pollution, reduce air pollution near our national parks and clean up America’s polluted waterways.¹
• Pruitt sent letters to the EPA on behalf of big polluters: In 2011, just after he entered office as Oklahoma attorney general, Pruitt sent a letter to the EPA that was actually written by lawyers for Devon Energy, one of the biggest oil and gas companies in Oklahoma. In the letter, Pruitt protested EPA’s plans to study the impact of fracking – just as fracking induced earthquakes were rocking Oklahoma.² The letter was personally given to Pruitt by Devon’s top lobbyist, and Pruitt reportedly “copied it onto state government stationery with only a few word changes, and sent it to Washington with the attorney general’s signature.”³
• Pruitt’s campaigns were funded by the fossil fuel industry: Pruitt has received hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions from the fossil fuel industry. In fact, his list of campaign contributors is essentially a “who’s who” of big polluters, including Koch Industries, PACs connected to Exxon Mobil, Alpha Natural Resources, the Oklahoma Independent Petroleum Association, the American Gas Association, oil magnate Harold Hamm, Peabody Energy and Southern Company.⁴
• Pruitt falsely claimed climate science is “far from settled”: In a May 2016 op-ed for National Review, Pruitt claimed that the “debate” over climate science is “far from settled.” He went on to write that “scientists continue to disagree about the degree and extent of global warming and its connection to the actions of mankind.”⁵ This is a lie.⁶

Confirming Scott Pruitt as EPA administrator would likely lead to the dismantling of more than four decades of environmental and public health protections. In his Jan. 18 confirmation hearing, Pruitt made it clear that he’s unqualified to lead the EPA. He displayed indifference to many of the agency’s top priorities, claimed not to know the answer to basic questions central to EPA’s mission and refused to clarify his personal opinions about climate change.⁷ We must ramp up pressure on key members of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee in opposition to Pruitt’s confirmation.

Thanks for everything you do.

Josh Nelson, Deputy Political Director
CREDO Action from Working Assets

1. Chris Mooney, Brady Dennis and Steven Mufson, “Trump names Scott Pruitt, Oklahoma attorney general suing EPA on climate change, to head the EPA,” The Washington Post, Dec. 8, 2016.
2. Ziva Branstetter and Randy Krehbiel, “Pruitt lobbies EPA for Devon,” Tulsa World, Dec. 9, 2014.
3. Eric Lipton, “Energy Firms in Secretive Alliance With Attorneys General,” The New York Times, Dec. 6, 2014.
4. Alex Guillén and Andrew Restuccia, “Trump picks oil ally Pruitt to head EPA ,” POLITICO, Dec. 7, 2016.
5. Ryan Schleeter, “3 Things Scott Pruitt Has Actually Said About Climate Change,” Greenpeace, Dec. 7, 2016.
6. “Scientific consensus: Earth’s climate is warming,” NASA.

7.  Andrew Seifter, “Media Matters”, January 24, 2017

8. Things We Learned From Scott Pruitt’s EPA Confirmation Hearing,” The National Memo, Jan. 21, 2017.

Tagged as: climate change denier, CREDO, fossil fuels, OK attorney general, proposed administrator, public interest group, US EPA