The Environmental Protection Agency plans to reconsider parts of an Obama-era effort to regulate potentially toxic waste known as coal ash, again siding with energy-industry efforts to slow or reverse standards put in place in recent years.
The Environmental Protection Agency’s inspector general will investigate Administrator Scott Pruitt’s recent taxpayer-funded travels to Oklahoma.
Scott Pruitt, the Environmental Protection Agency administrator who has aggressively pushed to dismantle regulations and downsize the organization, is threatening to reach outside his agency and undermine the Justice Department’s work enforcing antipollution laws, documents and interviews show.
People who have questioned aspects of mainstream climate research appear on a list of 132 possible candidates for positions on EPA’s influential Science Advisory Board, which the agency has opened for public comment until September 28. The board currently has 47 members, but 15 have terms ending in September and could be replaced by some of the candidates.
When career employees of the Environmental Protection Agency are summoned to a meeting with the agency’s administrator, Scott Pruitt, at agency headquarters, they no longer can count on easy access to the floor where his office is, according to interviews with employees of the federal agency.
Doors to the floor are now frequently locked, and employees have to have an escort to gain entrance.
The mission of the Environmental Protection Agency is “to protect human health and the environment.” Disgraced EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt tried his best to undermine this vital mission by choosing to slash critical health protections and let corporate polluters off the hook. Now that Pruitt’s been booted, we need an EPA administrator dedicated to undoing his toxic agenda and restoring the agency to its core mission. Progress is possible and necessary – but another corporate crony or climate skeptic will not get us there.
Scott Pruitt is gone, but the fight is just beginning. We need an EPA administrator who puts our health and environment first, period. Any alternative is unacceptable.
