Scott Pruitt facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Scott Pruitt
Official portrait, 2017
14th Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency
In office February 17, 2017 – July 9, 2018
President	Donald Trump
Deputy	Andrew Wheeler
Preceded by	Gina McCarthy
Succeeded by	Andrew Wheeler
17th Attorney General of Oklahoma
In office January 10, 2011 – February 17, 2017
Governor	Mary Fallin
Preceded by	Drew Edmondson
Succeeded by	Michael J. Hunter
Member of the Oklahoma Senate
In office January 5, 1999 – January 2, 2007
Preceded by	Gerald Wright
Succeeded by	Bill Brown
Constituency	54th district (1999–2003) 36th district (2003–2007)
Personal details
Born	Edward Scott Pruitt (1968-05-09) May 9, 1968 (age 57) Danville, Kentucky, U.S.
Political party	Republican
Spouse	Marlyn Pruitt ​ (m. 1990)​
Children	2
Education	University of Kentucky Georgetown College (BA) University of Tulsa (JD)

Edward Scott Pruitt (born May 9, 1968) is an American attorney, lobbyist and Republican politician from the state of Oklahoma. He served as the 14th Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) from February 17, 2017, to July 9, 2018, during the Donald Trump presidency, resigning while under at least 14 federal investigations. Pruitt denies the scientific consensus on climate change.

Pruitt represented Tulsa and Wagoner counties in the Oklahoma Senate from 1998 until 2006. In 2010, Pruitt was elected Attorney General of Oklahoma. In that role, he opposed same-sex marriage, the Affordable Care Act, and environmental regulations as a self-described "leading advocate against the EPA's activist agenda." He sued the EPA at least 14 times in the role. Pruitt was elected as chairman of the Republican Attorneys General Association in 2012 and was re-elected for a second term in February 2013. He received major corporate and employee campaign contributions from the fossil fuel industry, taking in at least $215,574 between 2010 and 2014 despite running unopposed in the latter year.

Pruitt was nominated to lead the EPA by President Donald Trump after the 2016 election, and was confirmed by the United States Senate in February 2017 in a 52–46 vote. By July 2018, Pruitt was under at least 14 separate federal investigations by the Government Accountability Office, the EPA inspector general, the White House Office of Management and Budget, the U.S. Office of Special Counsel, and two House committees over his spending habits, conflicts of interest, extreme secrecy, and management practices. Pruitt made frequent use of first-class travel as well as frequent charter and military flights. He leased a condo in Washington, D.C., at a deeply discounted rate from a lobbyist whose clients were regulated by the EPA. Pruitt further caused ethics concerns by circumventing the White House and using a narrow provision of the Safe Drinking Water Act to autonomously give raises to his two closest aides of approximately $28,000 and $57,000 each, which were substantially higher than salaries paid to those in similar positions in the Obama administration, and which allowed both to avoid signing conflicts of interest pledges. Some conservatives joined a growing chorus suggesting that Pruitt should resign. On July 5, 2018, Pruitt announced he would resign from office on July 9, leaving Andrew R. Wheeler as the acting head of the agency.

In April 2022, Pruitt filed to run for the United States Senate to represent Oklahoma in that state's special election to replace Senator Jim Inhofe, who retired. He lost in the Republican primary, garnering 5% of the vote.

Early life

Pruitt was born in 1968 in Danville, Kentucky, the eldest of three siblings, and moved to Lexington as a boy. There, his father, Edward, owned steak houses and his mother, Linda Pruitt Warner, was a homemaker. He was a football and baseball player at Lafayette High School, earning a baseball scholarship to the University of Kentucky, where he played second base. After a year, he transferred to Georgetown College in Kentucky and graduated in 1990 with bachelor's degrees in political science and communications. He then moved to Tulsa, Oklahoma, where he attended the University of Tulsa College of Law and earned a Juris Doctor in 1993.

Legal experience

After law school Pruitt started a solo legal practice in Tulsa that he named "Christian Legal Services," which focused on defending Christians in religious liberty cases. Pruitt worked as a lawyer for five years before running for state senate.

Early career

Pruitt was elected to the Oklahoma Senate in 1998, representing Tulsa and Wagoner counties. After two years in the Senate, Pruitt was selected to serve as the Republican whip from 2001 to 2003. He was then selected to serve as the Republican Assistant Floor Leader, a position he held until he left the Senate in 2006. During that time he also sat as the chair of a task force for the American Legislative Exchange Council. There, he worked to put limits on workers' compensation.

In 2001, while a freshman state legislator, Pruitt sought his party's nomination to succeed Steve Largent as the representative for Oklahoma's 1st congressional district but was unsuccessful. In 2003, after his unsuccessful congressional campaign, Pruitt bought a share in a Triple-A baseball team, the Oklahoma City RedHawks, partnering with major Republican donor Robert A. Funk (reportedly for $11.5 million). Pruitt, whose annual salary as a state senator was $38,400, financed his part of the purchase with a loan from SpiritBank. In 2010, they sold the team for an undisclosed profit.

In October 2003, while a state senator, Pruitt purchased a home in Oklahoma City through a shell company, Capitol House L.L.C., in which six partners held equal shares. The buyers included lobbyist Justin Whitefield, healthcare executive Jon Jiles, Robert Funk (who was Pruitt's PAC chairman), and attorney Ken Wagner. The home was purchased at about a $100,000 discount from its purchase price of a year earlier and included its furnishings. The seller was Marsha Lindsey, a lobbyist who advocated on behalf of a telecommunications company. Lindsey's loss was partly offset by her employer's retirement package. Pruitt and Whitefield both lived at the home while on business in the state capital. At the time, Whitefield was a registered lobbyist for industry-aligned groups that sought legislative changes to Oklahoma's workers' compensation laws; Pruitt was the major legislative supporter of these efforts. The home was sold by the L.L.C. in 2005, for $470,000. Pruitt failed to publicly disclose his financial relationships with Whitefield and the others, which were revealed by the press in 2018. In 2017, Wagner was hired by Pruitt as the EPA's state and regional affairs adviser.

Oklahoma Attorney General

In 2006 Pruitt sought the Republican nomination to replace outgoing Republican Mary Fallin as Lieutenant Governor of Oklahoma. He was unsuccessful; Fallin later won the gubernatorial election. In 2010, Pruitt again ran for the position of Attorney General of Oklahoma. He won the Republican primary on July 27, 2010, with 56.05% of the vote, defeating Ryan Leonard. Pruitt went on to defeat the Democratic nominee, Oklahoma City defense attorney Jim Priest, in the November 2, 2010, general election with 65.11% of the vote. In 2014 Pruitt ran unopposed in both the primary and general elections.

Tenure

After winning election in 2010, Pruitt dissolved the Environmental Protection Unit in the Attorney General's office. He stated a desire to increase operational efficiency and shifted the attorneys responsible for environmental protection to the Attorney General's Public Protection Unit and the Solicitor General's Unit. Pruitt stated that "the Oklahoma Department of Environmental Quality – not the Office of Attorney General – has primary responsibility for implementing and enforcing environmental laws in Oklahoma".

Pruitt instead created a "Federalism Unit" in the Attorney General's office dedicated to fighting President Barack Obama's regulatory agenda and suing the administration over its immigration policy, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, and the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act.

Pruitt was successful in raising campaign contributions from the energy industry, helping him to become chairman of the Republican Attorneys General Association. The oil and gas industry contributed over $300,000 to Pruitt's campaigns over the years.

In 2012, Pruitt kept Oklahoma out of the mortgage settlement reached by 49 other states with five national lenders (Ally Financial/GMAC, Bank of America, Citi, JPMorgan Chase, and Wells Fargo), with Pruitt citing differing philosophies of government.

In 2013, Pruitt brought a lawsuit targeting the Affordable Care Act, Oklahoma ex rel. E. Scott Pruitt v. Burwell, alleging that federal cost-sharing subsidies were not authorized by the Act. In King v. Burwell (2015), a decision addressing identical claims brought by other Republican attorneys general, the Supreme Court upheld the federal subsidies, holding that they were authorized under the Act.

In 2013, Harold Hamm, CEO of Continental Resources, co-chaired Pruitt's reelection campaign. Pruitt ran unopposed in the 2014 primary election and won the November 2014 election for a new term as Attorney General. Pruitt then jointly filed a lawsuit against a federal regulation alongside the Oklahoma Gas & Electric and an energy industry group funded by Hamm.

Pruitt's office sued the EPA to block its Clean Power Plan and Waters of the United States rule. Pruitt also sued the EPA on behalf of Oklahoma utilities unwilling to take on the burdens of additional regulation of their coal-fired plants, and criticized the agency in a congressional hearing. As of June 2014, all of Pruitt's lawsuits against the EPA had failed. By January 2017, Pruitt had sued the EPA 13 times.

In June 2013, Pruitt maintained that the Supreme Court's decision to strike down a provision of DOMA, a federal law that denied federal benefits to homosexual married couples did not affect Oklahoma's laws on the subject.

The Washington D.C. watchdog organization Campaign for Accountability sued Pruitt's successor as Oklahoma Attorney General for the failure of the office to release documentation that had been withheld from the public concerning corruption allegations involving the management of the Tar Creek Reclamation Superfund lead-contaminated waste site near Miami, Oklahoma. In 2014, Pruitt asked Oklahoma's State Auditor and Inspector Gary Jones to audit the financial corruption by contractors performing the cleanup. Pruitt blocked Jones from following his intention to release the audit results.

On March 6, 2014, Pruitt joined a lawsuit targeting California's prohibition on the sale of eggs laid by caged hens kept in conditions more restrictive than those approved by California voters. Less than a week later, Pruitt announced that he would investigate the Humane Society of the United States, one of the principal proponents of the California law. In October 2014, a California judge dismissed the lawsuit, rejecting the arguments of Pruitt and the other attorneys-general concerning California's Proposition 2, a 2008 ballot initiative. Judge Kimberly Mueller ruled that Oklahoma and the other states lacked legal standing to sue on behalf of their residents and that Pruitt and other plaintiffs were representing the interests of egg farmers, rather than "a substantial statement of their populations".

Pruitt expressed his dissatisfaction when a federal court ruled that Oklahoma's voter-approved amendment in 2004 to the Oklahoma State Constitution that defined marriage as only the union of one man and one woman was a violation of the U.S. Constitution in 2014. In October 2014, Pruitt criticized the Supreme Court's refusal to hear Oklahoma's appeal in the definition of marriage case.

On December 7, 2014, The New York Times published a front-page story highlighting that Pruitt had used his office's stationery to send form letters written by energy industry lobbyists to federal agencies during public comment.

In April 2015, Pruitt wrote a letter to school superintendents stating that schools can lawfully allow the dissemination of religious literature on campus.

In 2015, the Oklahoma Supreme Court rejected Pruitt's defense of the new Ten Commandments Monument on the Oklahoma State Capitol grounds.

In the Op-Ed co-written with Luther Strange in May 2016, Pruitt contended, "...our job is to hold the EPA accountable to the laws that created it and to fulfill our statutory duties ...", "We will continue to pursue those goals and to present our arguments in the courts and in the public square, treating our opponents with the respect they deserve. But we call upon them to press those beliefs through debate, not through governmental intimidation of those who disagree with them. Few things could be more un-American."

Pruitt was an advisor to the Jeb Bush presidential campaign, 2016. In February 2016, he said that Donald Trump would be "more abusive to the Constitution than Barack Obama".

Pruitt at the CPAC in February 2017

In February 2017, Pruitt was ordered by the Oklahoma District Court to release thousands of emails of communication with fossil fuel industries in order to comply with Freedom of Information Act requests filed over a two-year period by the liberal watchdog group Center for Media and Democracy.

The Guardian reported in July 2017 that emails and other records released by the Oklahoma attorney general's office showed a close relationship between Pruitt and various Koch brothers-backed advocacy groups, including the American Legislative Exchange Council. The documents showed that while serving as Oklahoma attorney general, Pruitt "acted in close concert with oil and gas companies to challenge environmental regulations, even putting his letterhead to a complaint filed by one firm, Devon Energy". Devon has since benefited from policies implemented by Pruitt. Emails showed that American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers "provided Pruitt's office with template language to oppose ozone limits and the renewable fuel standard program in 2013".

Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency

Nomination and confirmation

Stop Pruitt sign, at a rally to oppose his nomination

On December 7, 2016, President-elect Donald Trump announced his intention to nominate Pruitt as the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency. President-elect Trump said that the EPA had an "anti-energy agenda that has destroyed millions of jobs" and that Pruitt, "the highly respected Attorney General from the state of Oklahoma, will reverse this trend and restore the EPA's essential mission of keeping our air and our water clean and safe." In response to the nomination, Pruitt said, "I intend to run this agency in a way that fosters both responsible protection of the environment and freedom for American businesses."

Pruitt was endorsed by the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). Following Pruitt's nomination hearing, Republican Senator John Barrasso stated that "Pruitt ... has demonstrated his qualifications to lead the EPA." West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey, who worked with Pruitt on multiple cases, said of Pruitt that "He cares passionately about the rule of law" and that "All the actions he's been involved in are rooted in the firm belief that what the [Obama] administration was doing was unlawful."

Many science advocates and environmentalists voiced concerns about Pruitt's nomination. Gene Karpinski, the president of the League of Conservation Voters said that Pruitt's past actions as Oklahoma AG made the nomination "like the fox guarding the henhouse ... Time and again, he has fought to pad the profits of Big Polluters at the expense of public health." Ken Kimmell, president of the Union of Concerned Scientists, has said, "Pruitt's record gives us no reason to believe that he will vigorously hold polluters accountable or enforce the law ... everything we do know makes it clear that he can't and won't do the job." Saying that Pruitt had deliberately given misleading information about his position on the regulation of mercury emissions, a spokesperson from the Natural Resources Defense Council said, "It is a serious matter to give misleading testimony to Senators during a confirmation hearing." 447 former EPA employees penned a joint letter to oppose Pruitt's nomination, arguing that his lawsuits against the EPA "strongly suggest that he does not share the vision or agree with the underlying principles of our environmental laws" and that they believed that he had not "put the public's welfare ahead of private interests".

Senate Democrats unsuccessfully attempted to delay a vote until after the release of a batch of emails ordered by an Oklahoma judge. On February 17, 2017, the Senate confirmed Pruitt, by a vote of 52–46, to be the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency. The vote was mostly along party lines, with Republican Susan Collins voting against, and Democrats Joe Manchin and Heidi Heitkamp voting in favor (Republican John McCain and Democrat Joe Donnelly did not vote). Pruitt was sworn in the same day by Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito.

Tenure as EPA Administrator

At the end of 2017, The Washington Post summarized Pruitt's leadership of the EPA in 2017 as follows:

In legal maneuvers and executive actions, in public speeches and closed-door meetings with industry groups, he has moved to shrink the agency's reach, alter its focus, and pause or reverse numerous environmental rules. The effect has been to steer the EPA in the direction sought by those being regulated. Along the way, Pruitt has begun to dismantle former president Barack Obama's environmental legacy, halting the agency's efforts to combat climate change and to shift the nation away from its reliance on fossil fuels.

A 2018 study in the American Journal of Public Health found that in the first six months of Pruitt's tenure as EPA head that the agency had adopted a pro-business attitude unlike that of any previous administration. The study argued "that the Pruitt-led EPA has moved away from the public interest and explicitly favored the interests of the regulated industries." The study found that the agency was vulnerable to regulatory capture and that the consequences for public and environmental health could be far-reaching. According to a 2018 Harvard University analysis, the Trump administration's rollbacks and proposed reversals of environmental rules under Pruitt would under the most conservative estimate likely "cost the lives of over 80 000 US residents per decade and lead to respiratory problems for many more than 1 million people."

In April 2018, Politico disputed the narrative that Pruitt had been effective in overturning Obama's environmental legacy. According to Politico, "Pruitt has yet to create new regulations that would outlast his tenure or Trump's, or to rescind any of the regulations Obama created. He's only been able to delay a few that were already on hold before he took office because they were mired in litigation." The New York Times and The Washington Post noted that while Pruitt was prolific in undoing government regulations, legal experts said that Pruitt did so hastily and through poorly crafted legal arguments that lacked legal, scientific and technical data. As a result, legal experts considered it likely that some of the rollbacks may be reversed in the courts. Legal experts described the legal arguments made by Pruitt's EPA as unprecedented and a departure from previous Republican and Democratic administrations. Rutgers University professor Stuart Shapiro said that while Pruitt had weakened enforcement of existing regulations, he had not been successful at repealing regulations. By April 2018, six of Pruitt's rollbacks had been struck down by courts, and Pruitt had withdrawn two of his proposed rollbacks. Pruitt's legal document outlining the rationale to roll back a regulation on greenhouse emissions from vehicle tailpipes was 38 pages long, lacked the kind of data that courts expect in cases involving environmental regulations, and was mostly direct quotes from public comments made by automaker lobbyists. In contrast, the Obama administration's rationale for implementing the regulation in the first place was 1,217 pages long.

On March 9, 2017, in an interview on CNBC's Squawk Box, Pruitt stated that he "would not agree that" carbon dioxide is "a primary contributor to the global warming that we see" backing up his claim by stating that "measuring with precision human activity on the climate is something very challenging to do and there's tremendous disagreement about the degree of impact." This was in direct contradiction with EPA's public stance that was published on their official website which stated: "Carbon dioxide is the primary greenhouse gas that is contributing to recent climate change". By April 28—the day before the climate change mass protests—EPA announced that the website "would be 'undergoing changes' to better represent the new direction the agency is taking" which included "the removal of several agency websites containing detailed climate data and scientific information" including the site that "had been cited to challenge Pruitt's Squawk Box statements." A March 9 analysis by fact-checking website Snopes.com found that "Pruitt's statements to CNBC are misrepresentative of the scientific consensus on carbon dioxide's role as a greenhouse gas—a consensus that has essentially existed for more than a century." The Atlantic published an article on the same day, pointing out that in 2007, the United States Supreme Court had acknowledged the link between carbon dioxide and global warming—in 2013 the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change stated the probability of carbon dioxide causing global warming was at least 95%.

Pruitt's chosen deputy, chief of staff, and deputy chief of staff are all former members of Senator Jim Inhofe's (R-OK) staff. Pruitt picked Washington State senators Don Benton and Doug Ericksen to be, respectively, a White House liaison and a regional administrator. Andrew R. Wheeler was nominated to be Pruitt's deputy administrator. Pruitt's principal deputy at the EPA's Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention was previously an executive at the American Chemistry Council. In December 2017, Michael Dourson withdrew his nomination to be Pruitt's assistant administrator.

The President's first budget instructs Pruitt to cut the agency's budget by 24% and reduce its 15,000 employees by 20%. Pruitt has sought to end EPA funding for the United States Department of Justice Environment and Natural Resources Division, which relies on $20 million a year from the EPA for 27% of its budget. Pruitt has issued a directive to stop litigants from pressuring the EPA to regulate, referring to the practice as "sue and settle". In response, 57 former EPA counsels signed a letter criticizing Pruitt's directive. Pruitt has offered himself as a replacement of U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions.

On April 28, 2017, Pruitt fired scientists from the agency's 18-member Board of Scientific Counselors (BOSC), indicating he intended to replace them with industry representatives. Ryan Jackson, Pruitt's chief of staff, asked the BOSC's chair to change testimony she had submitted before a May 23 hearing of the House Science Committee, causing her to complain she felt "bullied."

In October 2017, Pruitt removed several scientists from EPA advisory panels and forbade any scientist who receives a grant from the EPA from then serving those panels. By December 2017, 700 staff had left EPA during Pruitt's tenure, including over 200 scientists. During that time, Pruitt hired 129 people, including 7 scientists. In March 2018, Pruitt proposed to restrict the EPA from considering research that relies on confidential information, such as medical data. The proposal was modeled on a stalled Congressional bill. It was expected that by August 2017, 47 of 58 serving scientists would have been removed from their positions, though they typically serve three year terms and which are renewed after they first expire. In April 2020, Pruitt's directive was found to have been arbitrary and capricious by the unanimous United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.

On June 29, 2017, Pruitt attended a board meeting of the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity, and told them that he will have researchers publicly debate the human role in climate change, adopting Steven E. Koonin's suggestion to hold a "red team blue team" exercise. In December 2017, White House Chief of Staff John F. Kelly rejected the debate idea. Pruitt has met with industry representatives almost daily while rarely meeting with environmentalists.

Pruitt and other agency heads delayed the public release of the Climate Change Report within the National Climate Assessment. The report was ultimately released in November 2017.

In August 2017, the Environmental Integrity Project determined that the administration was collecting 60% less money in civil environmental penalties than prior administrations. Pruitt has sought injunctive relief valued at 12% of that sought by the prior administration. As of January 2018, the administration had removed, relaxed, or delayed 67 environmental rules.

In March 2018, Time magazine reviewed the status of the EPA's website after a year of Pruitt's tenure. The magazine reported that the website's Climate Change section was taken down in April 2017 after existing in various forms for more than twenty years. The message, "This page is being updated", was left in its place. In addition, searching for "climate change" produced 5,000 results compared to the previous 12,000. Resources on how local communities could combat climate change were cut from 380 to 170 pages, and a 50-page resource on "a Student's Guide to Global Climate Change" was not archived. On some pages, edits have been made to remove terms like "climate change", "air pollutant", "greenhouse gas", while "carbon footprint" and "carbon accounting" were replaced with "environmental footprint" and "sustainability accounting".

Calling Pruitt on March 2, 2018, President Trump assured him, "we've got your back," urging him to "keep fighting," according to administration officials who remained anonymous. However, two additional officials confirmed that presidential Chief of Staff John F. Kelly had expressed the administration's displeasure over being caught unaware by some of the ethical problems Pruitt's conduct raised. Senate Environment Committee Chair John Barrasso of Wyoming, supported Pruitt, as did Senators Rand Paul and Ted Cruz.

Former coal lobbyist Andrew Wheeler's nomination as Deputy Administrator was submitted to become Pruitt's deputy in 2017, but was not confirmed. It was resubmitted in 2018. He was confirmed as Deputy Administrator of the EPA on April 12, 2018, by a mostly party line vote of 53–45, which included three Democratic Senators, Joe Manchin, Heidi Heitkamp, and Joe Donnelly.

Secrecy

In contrast to prior EPA administrators since its founding in 1973, Pruitt neither provided lists of scheduled public speaking events nor disclosed most trips until afterward. He avoided news conferences. On one occasion journalists who became aware of an event beforehand were ejected from a venue after an EPA official threatened to call law enforcement. Looking at a recent batch of documents released through a Sierra Club FOI request, the New York Times commented that it appeared that the Pruitt schedulers divided people into "friendly" and "unfriendly" camps and noted one case where a meeting was kept so secret that even the meeting hosts were confused about it. Commenting on Pruitt's claim that his unusually extensive security expenses were related to his need for security, the New York Times said, "[The documents] show that the agency's close control of Mr. Pruitt's events is driven more by a desire to avoid tough questions from the public than by concerns about security, contradicting Mr. Pruitt's longstanding defense of his secretiveness."

A Freedom of Information Act request from the Sierra Club showed that between February and December 2017, Pruitt had only sent one e-mail to anyone outside EPA from his government e-mail account, leading to questions of whether Pruitt was using a private account to conduct government business.

An EPA official said that Pruitt and his top aides kept "secret" schedules and calendars to hide controversial meetings with industry representatives, destroying or altering records that might reflect poorly on Pruitt. A review by CNN of internal EPA emails and the official EPA calendar found discrepancies in Pruitt's official EPA calendar with more than two dozen meetings and calls omitted. Legal experts said that the practices of keeping a secret calendar and destroying or altering records with the intent to deceive the public could be considered a violation of federal law.

Resignation

Following the assorted ethics and management scandals, Pruitt announced on July 5, 2018, he would be resigning effective July 9. Following Pruitt's resignation, EPA Deputy Administrator Andrew R. Wheeler became acting administrator. The EPA Office of Inspector General continued its probes of Pruitt after the resignation, but in November 2018 the EPA Inspector General's Office closed two probes as inconclusive because it could not interview Pruitt after his resignation. (The office lacks the ability to subpoena officials who have resigned.)

Post-EPA career

After resigning from the EPA, Pruitt has sought to establish an energy consulting business. He promoted overseas coal sales for coal baron Joseph Craft III. The Washington Post reported that Pruitt had meetings with officials from the same industries that he regulated while EPA head. Pruitt's lawyer said that Pruitt had not and would not violate the five-year ban on lobbying the EPA. On April 18, 2019, Pruitt registered as a compensated lobbyist with the Indiana Lobby Registration Commission specifying that he anticipates his lobbying efforts would relate to energy and natural resources. His sole client listed is connected to Sunrise Coal, which operates four coal mines in the state at the time of the filing.

U.S. Senate candidacy

In April 2022, Pruitt announced his candidacy for the U.S. Senate in the special election to replace retiring Senator Jim Inhofe. He received 18,052 votes (5.0%) in the Republican primary, coming fifth out of 13 candidates, as Markwayne Mullin and T. W. Shannon advanced to a runoff election.

Pruitt's environmental views

Resist Trump Rally, NYC, 2017

Rejection of scientific consensus on climate change

Pruitt rejects the scientific consensus on climate change. During his January 18, 2017, confirmation hearing to be EPA Administrator, he said that "the climate is changing, and human activity contributes to that in some manner". In March 2017, Pruitt said that he does not believe that human activities, specifically carbon dioxide emissions, are a primary contributor to climate change, a view which is in contradiction with the scientific consensus. On June 2, 2017, Pruitt acknowledged that global warming is occurring, and that "human activity contributes to it in some manner." However he added "Measuring with precision, from my perspective, the degree of human contribution is very challenging."

In May 2016, Pruitt and Luther Strange authored an op-ed in the National Review criticizing a group of Democratic attorneys general for investigating ExxonMobil in connection with the ExxonMobil climate change controversy. In part, Pruitt and Strange wrote:

[The global warming] debate is far from settled. Scientists continue to disagree about the degree and extent of global warming and its connection to the actions of mankind. That debate should be encouraged — in classrooms, public forums, and the halls of Congress. It should not be silenced with threats of prosecution. Dissent is not a crime.

Additionally, Pruitt joined 12 other Republican attorneys general in writing a letter that stated that "If it is possible to minimize the risks of climate change, then the same goes for exaggeration. If minimization is fraud, exaggeration is fraud."

According to one person, Pruitt suggested debates to President Trump, stating to him, "We can show that most scientists don't even believe in global warming." Trump was said to have liked the idea, but the concept was rejected by White House Chief of Staff John F. Kelly, according to several officials involved in the discussions.

A May 2017 study in Scientific Reports examined Pruitt's claim that "over the past two decades satellite data indicates there has been a leveling off of warming." The study found that the claim was false: "Satellite temperature measurements do not support the claim of a "leveling off of warming" over the past two decades".

In an interview with Las Vegas television station KSNV, Pruitt, in contradiction to the EPA's own scientific position, argued that an increase in global temperate might not be "a bad thing" and that it is "arrogant" to say what "the ideal surface temperature should be in the year 2100."

Pruitt opposes the Paris Agreement. He has incorrectly asserted that China and India have "no obligations" until 2030 under the Paris Agreement.

Rulemaking

On March 28, 2017, President Trump signed an executive order directing Pruitt to rescind the Clean Power Plan. Pruitt has refused to rescind EPA's endangerment finding which determined that carbon dioxide emissions threaten public health, prompting criticism from some Trump supporters. Pruitt has stated that a move to rescind would almost certainly be overturned by the courts. On October 10, 2017, Pruitt issued a notice of proposed rulemaking to repeal the Clean Power Plan.

On June 27, 2017, Pruitt released a proposal to rescind the Clean Water Rule. On January 31, 2018, Pruitt finalized repeal of the Clean Water Rule.

On March 1, 2018, Pruitt issued a proposed rule to relax regulation of coal ash. Pruitt has finalized a rule postponing new effluent guidelines on power plants. Pruitt has rejected a proposed rule to require hard rock miners to guarantee they can pay mine reclamation costs. Pruitt has agreed to allow permitting to proceed for the Pebble Mine on Bristol Bay.

In June 2017, Pruitt announced that he would delay designating which areas met new National Ambient Air Quality Standards for ozone. In August 2017, Pruitt said he would reverse that decision after being sued by 16 state Attorneys General. In March 2018, Pruitt was finally ordered to do so by U.S. District Judge Haywood Stirling Gilliam Jr.

In August 2017, Pruitt began reconsidering new car emissions standards. Pruitt has been planning to reduce federally mandated corporate average fuel economy. Pruitt has proposed to repeal heightened emissions standards on "glider trucks", which are semi-trailer trucks that have new bodies but old engines. Pruitt had requested public comment on reductions to the Renewable Fuel Standard after being encouraged to do so by Carl Icahn. Pruitt has since traveled to Iowa twice to promote the repeal of the Clean Water Rule and to promise support of corn ethanol production.

Pruitt has indefinitely postponed regulations of methylene chloride, N-methylpyrrolidone, and trichloroethylene that had been called for by the Frank R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act.

According to the EPA, lead poisoning is the number one environmental health threat in the U.S. for children ages 6 and younger. No new standards have been set since 2001, though it is agreed that the old standards need to be updated. In December 2017, after Pruitt requested six more years to regulate lead levels, a divided federal appeals court issued a writ of mandamus ordering Pruitt to regulate lead within the next 90 days. The Court called the lead paint risks for children "severe".

Chlorpyrifos ban

Chlorpyrifos is a pesticide that is used to kill a number of pests on crops, animals, and in buildings. In a 2016 report, EPA scientists were not able to find any level of exposure to chlorpyrifos that was safe. The EPA 2016 report states in part "...this assessment indicates that dietary risks from food alone are of concern ..." The report also states that previous published risk assessments for "chlorpyrifos may not provide a [sufficient] ... human health risk assessment given the potential for neurodevelopmental outcomes."

On March 29, 2017, Pruitt denied an administrative petition by the Natural Resources Defense Council and the Pesticide Action Network North America to ban chlorpyrifos, explaining "we are returning to using sound science in decision-making – rather than predetermined results". On April 5, 2017, Earthjustice sued the EPA, again demanding that the pesticide be banned.

The American Academy of Pediatrics responded to the administration's decision, saying they were "deeply alarmed" by Pruitt's decision to allow the pesticide's continued use.

Asked in April whether he had met with Dow Chemical Company (who manufactures chlorpyrifos) executives or lobbyists before his decision, an EPA spokesman replied: "We have had no meetings with Dow on this topic." In June, after several Freedom of Information Act requests, the EPA released a copy of Pruitt's March meeting schedule which showed that a meeting had been scheduled with Dow CEO Andrew Liveris at a hotel in Houston, Texas, on March 9, 2017. Internal documents show Pruitt worked closely with the American Farm Bureau Federation to permit continuation of the pesticide's use.

Methane rule

On March 22, 2017, Pruitt had dinner at the Washington Trump International Hotel with 45 board members of the American Petroleum Institute, where they asked for relief on new regulation of methane leaks from wells, which the industry estimates could cost it over $170 million. On June 13, Pruitt ordered the rule delayed for two years. On July 3, Judges David S. Tatel and Robert L. Wilkins of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit vacated that delay, finding Pruitt's order was "arbitrary" and "capricious" and in violation of the Clean Air Act, over the dissent of Judge Janice Rogers Brown. In October 2017, a federal magistrate judge ordered the administration to reimpose regulations it had repealed on methane gas flares.

PFOS and PFOA study publication withheld

January 2018 emails between the EPA, the White House, and the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) made public following a Freedom of Information Act request showed that the White House and EPA under Pruitt decided to halt the publication of a study done by the DHHS Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR). The study, an assessment of the chemical pollutants PFOS and PFOA, showed that the substances present dangers to human health at far lower levels than the EPA previously deemed safe. An email from a White House official said that the administration feared a "potential public relations nightmare."

The withholding of the study prompted widespread criticism from congressional Democrats, as well as at least three congressional Republicans. These critics called upon the EPA to provide answers to questions about suppression of scientific assessments on chemical pollution of water.

Pruitt conceded that his agency should take "concrete action" related to chemicals like PFAS, but testified that he was unaware of any delay in the release of the study. At a May 2018 "leadership summit" on PFOA, PFOS and related chemicals attended by Pruitt, some reporters were barred from attending, including those from Politico (which first reported on the release of the emails), CNN, and E&E News (which writes on environmental issues). An Associated Press correspondent, Ellen Knickmeyer, was physically ejected from the meeting room, and U.S. Representative Dan Kildee of Michigan, who represents a district dealing with the Flint water crisis, said that a member of his staff was barred from the meeting. Kildee wrote to the EPA's inspector general to ask whether any open meetings laws were violated. An EPA spokesman asserted that the summit was not subject to the Federal Advisory Committee Act. Senator Tom Udall, in response, wrote a letter to Pruitt stating, "This intimidation of journalists seeking to cover a federal official presiding over important policy-making is un-American and unacceptable. ... Clean drinking water is a public health issue that does not belong behind closed doors."

Personal life

Pruitt married Marlyn Lloyd in 1990 at Southeast Christian Church in Louisville, Kentucky. They have two children: daughter McKenna and son Cade.

Pruitt is Southern Baptist. According to the Oklahoma Office of Attorney General, the Pruitts are members of the First Baptist Church of Broken Arrow, where Pruitt served as a deacon. Pruitt was a trustee at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. He expressed his views regularly on the radio in Tulsa, including advocating for the passage of constitutional amendments to ban gay marriage and objecting to what he feels is the suppression of majority religious beliefs. In 2005, Pruitt told a radio interviewer that there are not "sufficient scientific facts to establish the theory of evolution."

Electoral history

November 4, 2014, general election results for Attorney General

November 2, 2010, general election results for Attorney General

July 27, 2010, Republican primary election results for Attorney General

November 5, 2002, general election results for Oklahoma Senate, District 54

November 3, 1998, general election results for Oklahoma Senate, District 54

See also

In Spanish: Scott Pruitt para niños