“He’s being sent there to hobble the agency we depend on to protect our health and environment”.
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The Senate continued powering through its Cabinet confirmation march on Friday, approving the nomination of Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt to lead the Environmental Protection Agency, despite questions surrounding the appropriateness of his contact with the fossil fuel industry. He said President Donald Trump should be given the opportunity to put his administrative team in place. But does Scott Pruitt deny global warming? “He is an excellent addition to the Trump Administration”.
Maureen Drouin, executive director of Maine Conservation Voters, says having Pruitt leading the EPA will hurt efforts to protect the environment, both in Maine and across the nation.
On Thursday, an Oklahoma judge ordered Pruitt’s office to turn over the bulk of those emails by next Tuesday, finding they had not complied with the open records request in a reasonable amount of time.
Scott Pruitt was approved Friday by a vote of 52-46.
“In the area of regulation, he’s very much subject to oversight by the courts”, Farber said, noting there are other ways, however, that Pruitt can scale back the EPA’s reach.
Jones said he was “especially disappointed” that Colorado’s Republican senator, Cory Gardner, voted to confirm Pruitt, who regularly sued the EPA to block regulations when he was attorney general.
Pruitt’s office did not return our calls for comment.
However, for Democrats tired of an administration that cares very little about climate change, any rallying point they can get behind is good enough for them. According to TIME, Pruitt said “the climate is changing and human activity contributes to that in some manner”.
Republicans opposed most of those measures. The Los Angeles Times settled for calling Pruitt a “climate-change skeptic”. Those calls, however, went unanswered.
Alabama’s newest senator, and Pruitt’s former AG colleague, Luther Strange, praised the new EPA Administrator saying Pruitt has seen “first-hand the devastation that rivers of red-tape can create” and is excited about the work he will do in the position.
The records could reveal details of his relationship with the fossil fuel industry, which he will be in charge of regulating nationwide once confirmed as head of the Environmental Protection Agency.
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Jones was named deputy minority leader for conservation, clean energy and climate change late a year ago by Senate Minority Leader Lucia Guzman, D-Denver. “They want to have Pruitt out there over the recess so all their supporters can express themselves”.
