Climate, oil and lawsuits likely to come up at Pruitt hearing

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt) and his Democratic colleagues on the Senate Environment and Public Works committee dug into Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) nominee Scott Pruitt on Wednesday, blasting his record of suing the very agency he’s been selected to lead, and putting his fossil fuel industry ties front and center.

Pruitt, 48, also chaired the Rule of Law Defense Fund, a group of conservative attorneys general that vehemently opposed a number of EPA regulations, and filed lawsuits to try and roll them back.

As EPA administrator, Pruitt would oversee the most important federal programs to reduce USA greenhouse gas emissions, including regulations of carbon dioxide from power plants and methane emissions from natural gas well sites and pipelines.

The nominee went on to further delineate his vision for state and federal cooperation on environmental regulation, taking not-so-subtle swipes at the more top-heavy approach the EPA has taken under the Obama administration.

“Environmental regulations should not occur in an economic vacuum”, Pruitt told the committee.

“Ninety-seven percent of the scientists who wrote articles in peer-reviewed journals believe that human activity is the fundamental reason we are seeing climate change”.

Pruitt’s main argument during the start of his hearing has been that the states should have more power within the EPA, but on this issue, he argued that the federal government agency should have had more power to respond. “I would be concerned about any level of lead going into the drinking water”. It’s not unprecedented for an EPA administrator to have tangled with the same agency prior to leading it. “I think the attitude with the EPA and certain environmental groups is that fossil fuels are bad – period”, Pruitt has said. Tom Carper (D-Del.), the committee’s ranking Democrat. Several senators brought visuals aids to express their concern over aspects of the nomination.

Those donors include Koch Industries, Exxon Mobil, Devon Energy and Americans for Prosperity, to name a few. Among those who gave the maximum contribution of $5,000 to Pruitt’s campaign was Continental Resources Chairman and CEO Harold Hamm, an Oklahoma oil tycoon who has been advising the president-elect. “Obviously, you have stood up and said you will do everything you can to stop future earthquakes as a result of fracking”. Critics are using targeted advertising, a barrage of phone calls to Senate offices and even a singing sit-in to try and derail the nomination by persuading Democrats and Republicans to vote against Pruitt.

Becoming nearly predictable as the more than four hour long hearing continued, each time a criticism of a controversial piece of Pruitt’s history was levied, committee chairman Sen. “Putting Mr. Pruitt at the helm of the EPA just as the agency is set to finalize new rules to make polluters pay to clean up their own messes will put millions more people at risk from toxic pollution”. James Inhofe, a Republican from Oklahoma.

Markey said that was not enough, adding that Pruitt should commit to a blanket recusal before his confirmation.