In seeking to ensure that EPA’s mission is indeed the mission of its next Administrator, FCNL voices deep concerns about the nomination of Scott Pruitt.
The EPA’s mission is to protect the health of the American people and the environment upon which we depend for our continued well-being. Since its creation in 1970 under the Nixon Administration, the EPA helped make our nation’s air cleaner to breathe, our water cleaner to drink, and our ecosystems less subject to pollution. The EPA, as a federal agency, is guided by laws created by Congress and signed by the President. Thus, for example, it regulates toxic chemicals and harmful pollutants under the direction of the executive and legislative branches, which have first been deemed by law to harm our health and the environment. Such actions are “activist” in the sense that EPA acts with the permission and boundaries of such laws to protect human health and the environment.
The US Supreme Court in Massachusetts v. EPA upheld the EPA’s interpretation of existing laws that greenhouse gases endanger the public health and welfare. However, Pruitt has publicly stated that he does not accept the scientific consensus that human caused greenhouse gas emissions cause climate change, which is perhaps the greatest endangerment of human health and the environment of present and future generations.
As Attorney General of Oklahoma, Mr. Pruitt has worked to dismantle the EPA regulations abiding by existing law and the Massachusetts v. EPA decision. He joined with other states in suing the EPA over the Clean Power Plan, which is the Executive branch’s primary method to reduce U.S. greenhouse gas emissions from the electricity sector. He has also sued the EPA over the rule to reduce methane emissions from the oil and gas sector.
Mr. Pruitt also sued unsuccessfully against EPA limits on toxic mercury and arsenic from power plants, though mercury is scientifically proven – and affirmed by laws put into place by Congress and the President – to be dangerous to human health. Exposure to mercury, much of which can be traced to emissions from coal fired power plants and can travel thousands of miles, is particularly harmful for pregnant women and their fetuses. The metal is an endocrine disruptor and neurotoxin known to concentrate in the fetal brain and can interfere with brain development.
We are deeply concerned that Mr. Pruitt is being considered as the next Administrator of the EPA when his past actions and statements indicate that he is fundamentally opposed to its mission to protect human health and the environment, and its mission to implement the laws Congress and the President have directed it carry out. We hope, pray, and will work for the realization of an EPA Administrator committed and not opposed to the mission of the Agency in which she or he is appointed to lead.