Scott Pruitt
Guest Blogger Gregory Dotson: Is Scott Pruitt Calling for an Amendment to the Clean Air Act?
EPA Administrator Resorts to Misleading Rhetoric in Possible Prelude to Revisiting Massachusetts v. EPA
Since he was confirmed to lead the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency six months ago, Administrator Scott Pruitt has relied on three points when discussing the issue of climate change. He has cast doubt on the science by claiming it’s difficult to know the human role “with precision.” He has questioned the ability of the agency …
CONTINUE READINGA Case of Administrative Bad Faith
The D.C. Circuit slaps down an abuse of power by Trump’s EPA.
On Monday, the D.C. Circuit dealt a setback to Scott Pruitt’s deregulation efforts in Clean Air Council v. EPA. The case involved a tricky procedural issue. But the substance was simple: EPA, under Pruitt, had abused a reconsideration procedure under the Clean Air Act to stay a regulation for 90 days, when it had no …
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CONTINUE READINGThe Truth About Environmental Originalism
Scott Pruitt advocates environmental originalism. It means the direct opposite of what he thinks.
Scott Pruitt has taken to talking about environmental originalism – going back to the original intent of our environmental laws. But he’s got the original intent completely backwards. The statutes weren’t intended to protect jobs or grow the economy. They were intended to protect the environment, with cost at best a secondary consideration. This is exactly …
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CONTINUE READINGTrump’s Radical Anti-Environmentalism
Trump’s target isn’t just Obama. His rejection of environmental protection goes much deeper.
We often hear about the Trump Administrations’s plans to “roll back Obama’s regulations.” But the Administration’s goals go much deeper. Hyperbole is always a risk when discussing opposing policy views, but to call this Administration a profound threat to environmental regulation is only to echo their own words. When he announced the executive order directing EPA to …
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CONTINUE READINGThe War on Science Continues
With the enthusiastic support of the House Science Committee, Trump is out to shackle scientific inquiry.
Trump’s anti-science views, on topics ranging from climate change to vaccines, got a lot of attention during the campaign. His budget puts these attitudes into operational form, and he has also left the White House science office empty, without replacing the presidential science advisor or other scientific staff. But he’s certainly not alone in his …
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CONTINUE READINGA Lame Soundbite From a Flailing Administration
Pruitt’s statement yesterday exemplifies why the Trump Administration is in trouble.
Everything that’s wrong with the Trump Administration was on display yesterday, thanks to Scott Pruitt. He told “Fox and Friends” that the U.S. should get out of the Paris Agreement because China and India have no obligations until 2030. The fact that he made this comment, and made it on Fox, vividly exemplifies many of the Administration’s …
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CONTINUE READINGGuest Blogger Ben Levitan: The Tenth Anniversary of Massachusetts v. EPA
The opinion stands for EPA’s responsibility to address climate change based on law and science, and to safeguard public health and the environment under adverse political conditions
If it feels like we’re being inundated with bad news about federal climate policy, here’s a cause for hope: this month marks the tenth anniversary of the Supreme Court’s decision in Massachusetts v. EPA, one of the most important environmental cases in our nation’s history. The Supreme Court’s landmark decision in Massachusetts came when the …
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CONTINUE READINGClimate Change is the new He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named
And Scott Pruitt is the new High Inquisitor at EPA
Last week, after saying that he did not believe that carbon dioxide is the primary cause of climate change, EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt reminded me for the second time since he took office of someone I met at age fifteen: Dolores Umbridge. Yes, that Dolores Umbridge, the one that functions as the main villain of the …
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CONTINUE READINGThe Trump Administration’s False Stories About the Environmental Protection Agency Are Meant to Take the Agency Down
Donald Trump and Scott Pruitt Distort the Facts About EPA’s Mission, History, and Success
The Trump Administration has made clear its plans to systematically dismantle the Environmental Protection Agency. Destroying the EPA will be a key element of the administration’s fight, in the words of White House policy advisor Steve Bannon, to achieve the “deconstruction of the administrative state.” [Update 8/22/17: Bannon is out, but that doesn’t change the Administration’s …
CONTINUE READINGPruitt Shows His True Colors
Still skeptical of climate science, EPA’s regulatory authority, and the Paris Agreement.
Pruitt made conciliatory noises when he arrived at EPA. I suspect the honeymoon is over. On Thursday, he was asked on CNBC whether CO2 is the main cause of climate change. His answer? ““I think that measuring with precision human activity on the climate is something very challenging to do and there’s tremendous disagreement about …
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