You’ll need a drink after reading Scott Pruitt’s interview in the Washington Post.
In an apparent public relations counterpunch against a run of bad stories, EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt just gave an up-is-down, 2 + 2 = 5 interview to the Washington Post. It sometimes seems like Pruitt lives in an alternate universe, where doing whatever polluting industries say will lead to clean air, clean water, and a prosperous economy.
The interview is an ominous sign because it means Pruitt has no intention of changing his behavior or slowing his attack on environmental protection.
Here are five things to know about the interview.
1. Pruitt vs. EPA on the Facts
In the interview, Mr. Pruitt tries to claim that his approach will lead to better environmental outcomes. But the rules he has cancelled at the behest of industry will cost lives and endanger our health, even by the estimates of his own agency.
He’s canceling the Clean Power Plan and repealing new fuel efficiency standards for bigger trucks, which the agency acknowledges will increase concentrations of particulate matter pollution and harm children. He’s delaying emissions standards for oil and gas operations, which will have a “disproportionate effect on children.” And he’s reconsidering limits on toxic mercury and on dumping coal ash, which damage brain development in babies and increase the risk of childhood cancer, respectively.
2. Surrender
Pruitt claims he works closely with polluters because EPA doesn’t have “enough resources” to rely on enforcement of anti-pollution rules. It is a hollow claim from an administration that has proposed cutting EPA’s budget 30%, including cuts to the enforcement office. It’s even more laughable from Pruitt, who as Oklahoma Attorney General abolished his office’s environmental enforcement unit.
EPA has always worked with cooperative companies to make progress, but that’s no substitute for tough enforcement against those that illegally pollute the air and water. For an administration that likes to be seen as tough on crime, Pruitt is signaling surrender to polluters everywhere.
3. Know Him by His Friends
Like a teenager on the wrong track, you can tell a lot about Pruitt from who he hangs out with. In the interview, he defensively says, “I don’t hang with polluters.” But as the interviewer notes, he has traveled extensively to meet with top executives from “chemical, agricultural and fossil fuel companies,” and has appointed their lobbyists to key agency positions.
The problem isn’t just that Pruitt spends a disproportionate amount of his time with those he’s supposed to regulate, it’s that he seems to do whatever they want. For instance, after meeting with the company that makes super-polluting “glider” trucks, he created a loophole that will lead to tens of thousands of lost lives from increased air pollution.
It’s a pattern that has been repeated again and again, with industries from chemicals to coal.
4. Picking Losers
Pruitt says he’s been moving away from clean energy because he’s against “picking winners and losers.” But his policies are really a politically driven attempt to prop up his allies in the coal industry, which has been losing out in the marketplace. Pruitt’s policies ignore the huge cost imposed on taxpayers from coal pollution–in healthcare expenses, lost productivity, and climate impacts.
There is real economic pain in coal country, but the solution isn’t giving coal companies a free pass and workers false hope. There are far more jobs in wind and solar than coal, and creating a level playing field for clean energy industries by recognizing the true cost of pollution is the way to create more prosperity.
5. Pruitt Loves Trump
Sounding a bit like Dwight Schrute, Pruitt says of his boss, “I love spending time around these issues with him because he’s got tremendous ideas.”
Trump’s ideas aside, it is true that the President and his EPA administrator are in lock-step. Pruitt was influential in Trump’s decisions to isolate the United States as the only country on the planet to reject the Paris climate agreement, and the two have a mutual vision for dismantling EPA from within. That’s probably why Trump’s approval rating on the environment is one his three lowest, along with Russian relations and healthcare.
There is so much Pruitt skates by in his interview, it’s hard to pick only five points. He has suppressed scientists, packed EPA advisory boards with advocates for industry, appointed lobbyists for the coal and chemical industries to key jobs, skirted ethics and openness rules, and rejected the basic facts of climate change.
In Scott Pruitt’s world, nothing is as it seems.
On Twitter @RealKeithGaby