Scott Pruitt sweeps out Obama-era science advisers. The agency needs truly independent ones.
The EPA’s Obama -era “war on coal” rules and its standards for ground-level ozone—possibly the most expensive EPA rule ever issued—depend on the same scientifically unsupported notion that the fine particles of soot emitted by smokestacks and tailpipes are lethal. The EPA claims that such particles kill hundreds of thousands of Americans annually.
Name Your Pick for TrumpWorld’s Worst Cabinet Member
Who do you think is Donald Trump’s worst cabinet member?
In a normal world we would never be asking this question because, of course, you would have no idea. In a normal world, an American who could come up with two cabinet names besides the secretary of state’s would be regarded as an unusually dedicated citizen.
.. Under normal circumstances we do not talk a whole lot about, say, the secretary of housing and urban development. You would be forgiven for forgetting that this one is Ben Carson. Until you heard that the new head of the department’s massive New York-New Jersey office is going to be the woman who planned Eric Trump’s wedding.
.. Tom Price, secretary of health and human services — he of the “Mr. President, what an incredible honor …” quote. This is the guy who’s got a woman who doesn’t believe in contraception in charge of a government program on family planning.
Price also has a sleazy history of advocating legislation that could boost profits for health care companies whose stocks he was betting on. And I haven’t even mentioned that he’s supposed to be the administration’s titan of Trumpcare.
.. she froze Obama-era reforms aimed at protecting students who enroll in for-profit schools, an area in which her family happens to have significant investments... You have to give extra attention to the people who actually appear capable of getting a load of terrible things done, like Scott Pruitt of the Environmental Protection Agency. “The problem is that Pruitt knows what he’s doing,”.. [Budget Director Mick] Mulvaney by a nose.” You may remember that when Mulvaney introduced his first budget, observers discovered he had counted the same $2 trillion twice... Jeff Sessions. (“Racist on voting rights and more, bringing back mandatory minimum sentences for drug offenses, promoting the cancer of private prisons.”)
Scott Pruitt’s Back-to-Basics Agenda for the EPA
The new administrator plans to follow his statutory mandate—clean air and water—and to respect states’ rights.
Scott Pruitt, whom the Senate confirmed Friday, 52-46, doesn’t fit either mold. His focus is neither expanding nor reducing regulation. “There is no reason why EPA’s role should ebb or flow based on a particular administration, or a particular administrator,” he says.
“Agencies exist to administer the law. Congress passes statutes, and those statutes are very clear on the job EPA has to do. We’re going to do that job.” You might call him an EPA originalist.
.. he spent most of the time waxing enthusiastic about all the good his agency can accomplish once he refocuses it on its statutorily defined mission: working cooperatively with the states to improve water and air quality.
.. “But there is real work to be done.” What kind of work? Hitting air-quality targets, for one: “Under current measurements, some 40% of the country is still in nonattainment.”
.. “This past administration didn’t bother with statutes,” he says. “They displaced Congress, disregarded the law, and in general said they would act in their own way. That now ends.”
.. Will the EPA regulate carbon dioxide?
.. “And part of that process is a very careful review of a fundamental question: Does EPA even possess the tools, under the Clean Air Act, to address this? It’s a fair question to ask if we do, or whether there in fact needs to be a congressional response to the climate issue.”
.. His focus on jobs and the economy sets him apart from some past EPA administrators. “I reject this paradigm that says we can’t be both pro-environment and pro-energy,”
.. Leading the EPA will be a role reversal for the former attorney general
.. he plans to end the practice known as “sue and settle.” That’s when a federal agency invites a lawsuit from an ideologically sympathetic group, with the intent to immediately settle. The goal is to hand the litigators a policy victory through the courts—thereby avoiding the rule-making process, transparency and public criticism.
.. “Regulation through litigation is simply wrong.”
Dismantling Climate Rules Isn’t So Easy
As partisan advocates, Mr. Pruitt and his allies could exaggerate regulatory costs, ignore clean energy employment trends and disregard the health risks of burning coal. The E.P.A. can’t.
.. An E.P.A. led by an anti-regulatory zealot will benefit from deference from the courts, especially when he slows new initiatives, adopts lax enforcement policies, engages in collusive settlements or proposes reconsideration of past actions. Foot-dragging is hard to remedy. However, science, data, statutory requirements, Supreme Court precedents, existing regulations, state progress and the huge clean energy industrial sector will constrain regulatory rollbacks or the wholesale loss of progress to slow climate change. Under the Constitution and rule of law, change by presidential fiat is not an option.