Free Market Coalition Supports Scott Pruitt for EPA Administrator

Today more than 20 nonprofit advocacy organizations, in a public letter to members of the Senate, urged confirmation of Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt as the next Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The signatories pointed out Pruitt’s commitment to federalism, the rule of law, and sensible environmental policy:

Mr. Pruitt led a multi-state effort opposing the EPA’s unlawful attempt to take over the nation’s electricity grid under section 111(d) of the Clean Air Act. The EPA’s plan would shutter an estimated 40 GW of reliable and affordable energy, unnecessarily harming American families for little to no environmental benefit.

In recent years, the EPA has been chronically late on complying with deadlines. In a study assessing 1,000 deadlines across the four major stationary source programs, the Competitive Enterprise Institute found that the EPA missed 84 percent of their Clean Air Act deadlines and was late by an average of 4.3 years. Mr. Pruitt will work to get the EPA back on track and in compliance with its statutory Clean Air Act responsibilities.

Attorney General Pruitt has stood up for states, families, and the Constitution by opposing the Administration’s unconstitutional regulatory overreach through the re-definition of the “waters of the United States.” This rule was so invasive that small ditches on family farms or near businesses could have been subject to federal regulation.

CEI also issued an earlier statement in December when Pruitt was first nominated, quoting Senior Fellow Marlo Lewis:

The Obama administration has turned EPA into a green revolving door. Former eco-activists working at EPA provide grants to their former employers and allies. Those groups, in turn, mount lobbying campaigns on behalf of EPA. They even provide policy direction to the agency. The Clean Power Plan, for example, was basically authored by the Natural Resources Defense Council.

Green pressure groups have come to think of EPA as their hereditary fiefdom. That could end if someone like Scott Pruitt becomes the administrator. Pruitt has been a leader in the pushback against EPA’s unlawful regulatory overreach and destructive war on coal. His nomination means that when it comes to environmental and energy policy, President-elect Trump not only talks the talk, he walks the walk.

Marlo and fellow Senior Fellow William Yeatman have more analysis on Pruitt’s nomination and the dishonest attacks on his record in recent blog posts below: