Last week Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo., chairman of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, wrote Pruitt a stern letter asking him to account for the four different email addresses he uses at EPA. Will the embattled EPA chief apologize?
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Pruitt is likely to face more sharp questions, like those coming from Ruiz, about his spending decisions, and his answers could prove crucial in determining whether he stays atop EPA, lawmakers say.
“I have high, high, high confidence in your personal integrity and ability”, Cole told Pruitt, “and certainly, if a mistake was made, I’m sure it will be acknowledged and corrected because I’ve seen you do it over and over again over the course of a long and very distinguished career of service”. “This is clearly a case of politics interfering with science”.
A defiant Scott Pruitt dismissed the ethics investigations into his leadership of the Environmental Protection Agency as “half-truths” and falsehoods generated by critics who want to damage the Trump administration.
Earlier in April, Democrats on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee wrote Pruitt and the White House about a series of ethical questions raised by Pruitt’s former deputy chief of staff for operations at EPA, Kevin Chmielewski. Because he doesn’t drink the kool-aid of climate change.
Pruitt said he was “not aware of the amount” of the raises and would not give a straight “yes” or “no” answer to whether he authorized the raises, saying his chief of staff, Ryan Jackson, was given the authority to sign off on the raises. Reporters weren’t allowed in the room to ask questions.
Tom Burke, EPA science chief during the Barack Obama administration, called the new policy “an invitation to endless delay”. In so doing, he has broken laws, flouted ethics rules, ignored congressional intent and requests, and sought the trappings of power and prestige.
Under questioning, Pruitt appeared to acknowledge that Hupp helped him find accommodations in the capital but said her search apparently did not cost taxpayers.
Such studies include the Harvard School of Public Health’s landmark Six Cities study of 1993, which established links between death rates and dirty air in major USA cities.
Their findings were alarming. And since burning fossil fuels also release PM2.5, the folks who went from defending smoking to defending fossil fuels, like Steve Milloy, count this move as “Unbelievably YUGE WINNING!”
The study opened the way to some of the most aggressive federal smog and soot rules in history.
Rep. Diana Degette, D-Colo., asked about a New York Times report last weekend that found Pruitt used a shell company to purchase an Oklahoma City home in 2003, while he was a state senator.
As a cabinet-level official, Scott Pruitt is supposed to set an example for public servants.
Many important studies, scientists warn, can not be easily reproduced because they involve tracking large numbers of people over lengthy periods of time.
Some isn’t “reproducible” because it’s derived from one-time events such as the 2010 Deepwater Horizon explosion and oil spill, or from conditions that one wouldn’t want to replicate.
Most concerning is the regulatory capture of the EPA that has occurred under Pruitt’s watch.
Almost 1,000 scientists sent Pruitt a letter Monday urging that he not adopt the ban.
These implications for American health are not incidental, but are rather by design.
Pruitt, testifying before a House Energy and Commerce subcommittee, said he had delegated authority for the raises. In unanimous decisions in 2002 and 2010, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit said the EPA is not legally obligated to obtain and publicize the data underlying the research it considers in crafting regulations.
Pruitt likes to travel in style.
Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt has read aloud from two written threats against him, including a tweet about a plan to shoot him.
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His efforts to roll back rules limiting carbon emissions, regulating bodies of water, and auto emissions have earned him the enmity of environmental groups and public health advocates. “They’re just that, they’re allegations, and I think we need to hear what he has to say, and I think there will be good explanations”.
