Thousands of Emails Prove the New EPA Head Loves the Fossil Fuel Industry
Scott Pruitt is the last person who should be in charge of an agency he long sought to destroy
Former Oklahoma Attorney General and current head of the Environmental Protection Agency Scott Pruitt made his career suing the EPA. The Okie lawyer made his career pushing the belief that the Obama-era EPA was bad for business and bad for America. So he was, of course, Trump’s first pick to head the department he’d long fought.
Thanks to a huge infodump courtesy of The Center for Media and Democracy, we now know why. Observers long speculated that Pruitt had a cozy relationship with oil and gas companies in Oklahoma during his tenure as AG. They didn’t know the half of it.
During Pruitt’s confirmation hearings in the U.S. Congress, the Trump team successfully kept he and his staff’s communication records out of the hearing. The emails were privileged information, Oklahoma argued, and not pertinent to Pruitt’s confirmation as head of the office that protects the environment.
That was bullshit.
CMD filed an Open Records Act request and started a lawsuit to shake loose the former AG’s communications. Oklahoma relented. CMD just published more than 7,500 emails from Pruitt’s office and they paint a damning picture of a man who loved business and fossil fuels at the expensive of the earth.
“Despite repeated attempts by Pruitt and the Oklahoma AG’s office to stonewall CMD and the public, we’ve won a major breakthrough in obtaining access to public records that shine a light on Pruitt’s emails with polluters and their proxies,” Nick Surgey, research director at CMD said.
“The newly released emails reveal a close and friendly relationship between Scott Pruitt’s office and the fossil fuel industry, with frequent meetings, calls, dinners and other events. And our work doesn’t stop here — we will keep fighting until all of the public records involving Pruitt’s dealings with energy corporations are released — both those for which his office is now asserting some sort of privilege against public disclosure and the documents relevant to our eight other Open Records Act requests.”
Arn Pearson, CMD’s general counsel, pointed out that the court’s reasoning was bullshit. Worse, she explained there was no reason for Oklahoma to hold back this info during Pruitt’s confirmation hearings.
“There is no valid legal justification for the emails we received last night not being released prior to Pruitt’s confirmation vote other than to evade public scrutiny,” she said. “There are hundreds of emails between the AG’s office, Devon Energy, and other polluters that Senators should have been permitted to review prior to their vote to assess Pruitt’s ties to the fossil fuel industry.”
So how bad is it? Well, just take a look yourself here. The links to the documents are the bottom of this press release. Defiant is still looking through the data, but here’s one choice moment from the Summer of 2013.
Back then, Pruitt’s solicitor general took advice from the American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers lobby regarding upcoming clean air legislation. The lobby slipped his Solicitor General specific language to use when fighting against the bill and allowed the man to fill in the blanks.
“Copied on this email are the AFPM staff experts on the RFS issue,” the lobby’s email helpfully explained. “If you need any additional information to prepare for your briefing with General Pruitt, please don’t hesitate to contact us. I hope you and your family have a great 4th of July holiday.”
The Solicitor General replied to the documents with some questions. “You mentioned using Oklahoma (and other states?) to highlight the severe economic and environmental harm to the State by the RFS,” he wrote back. “Is this the role you envision for Oklahoma? How does that work specifically?”
Ever helpful, the lobby walked the Solicitor General through the process. It would file its own appeal against the new legislation, but explained that something from the state would really help out its case.
“We think it would be most effective for Oklahoma to file a separate waiver petition that emphasizes ‘severe environmental harm,’ as this argument is more credible coming from a State with primary responsibility for achieving and maintaining attainment,” the lobby explained.
“At this point we are not planning on including the environmental arguments in our waiver petition. Oklahoma has standing under section 211(o)(7) to file its own waiver petition and I can walk you through the procedural aspects of this filing.”
That’s just the tip of the rapidly melting iceberg. Over and over again, the emails reveal how energy companies such as Devon crafted specific arguments for Pruitt use. During his tenure as AG of Oklahoma, energy companies and their lobbies crafted much of the judicial sticks he used to beat the EPA.
With more than 7,500 documents available to the public now and more on the way, it’ll take journalists time to sort through the depths of Pruitt’s collusion. One thing’s for sure though — this is the exact opposite of Trump’s campaign promise to drain the swamp. Hell, at this rate we’ll be lucky if there’s enough wetlands left to drain after Pruitt’s finished.
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