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Report: Pruitt dines w/ industries, lobbyists EPA is supposed to regulate frequently

...while doing nothing to meet with actual environmental advocates, groups etc (sorry rant to of pace in title)

Came across this in NYT, they reported on 320 page account of his meetings over a 4 month period and it being full of meetings with the types of people the EPA should be working on regulating — while doing almost nothing for those who are actually aligned with the intended purpose of the EPA.

WASHINGTON — For lunch on April 26, Scott Pruitt, the new administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, dined with top executives from Southern Company, one of the nation's largest coal-burning electric utilities, at Equinox, a white-tablecloth favorite of Washington power brokers.

That evening, it was on to BLT Prime, a steakhouse inside the Trump International Hotel in Washington, for a meal with the board of directors of Alliance Resource Partners, a coal-mining giant whose chief executive donated nearly $2 million to help elect President Trump.

Before those two agenda items, Mr. Pruitt met privately with top executives and lobbyists from General Motors to talk about their request to block an Obama administration move to curb emissions that contribute to climate change.

It was just a typical day for Mr. Pruitt, the former Oklahoma attorney general. Since taking office in February, Mr. Trump's E.P.A. chief has held back-to-back meetings, briefing sessions and speaking engagements almost daily with top corporate executives and lobbyists from all the major economic sectors that he regulates — and almost no meetings with environmental groups or consumer or public health advocates, according to a 320-page accounting of his daily schedule from February through May, the most detailed look yet at what Mr. Pruitt has been up to since he took over the agency.

Many of those players have high-profile matters pending before the agency, with potentially hundreds of millions of dollars in regulatory costs at stake. Some of these same companies and trade associations were allies of Mr. Pruitt when, as Oklahoma's attorney general, he sued the E.P.A. at least 14 times to try to block rules Mr. Pruitt is now in charge of enforcing.

[...]

E.P.A. officials defended Mr. Pruitt's industry-heavy appointment book.
”As E.P.A. has been the poster child for regulatory overreach, the agency is now meeting with those ignored by the Obama administration," an emailed statement from the agency said, adding that the agency believed that The New York Times was making an ”attempt to sensationalize for clicks" the administrator's detailed calendar.

But William K. Reilly, the E.P.A. administrator under the first President George Bush, described the level of meetings between Mr. Pruitt and industry executives as unusual.

”My sense is there is almost nothing about this administration that is traditional," Mr. Reilly said. He said Mr. Pruitt's history of suing the E.P.A. should have prompted him to meet regularly with public health advocates and environmentalists.

”I would think he would feel a responsibility to bend over backward to show a sense of judicious impartiality," Mr. Reilly said.

It continues to disgust me that people like Pruitt, Pai & Devos etc can not only pursue the paths that they do, but actually be rewarded with power and influence over the very things they are utterly the worst people to be responsible for. How the fuck do we have a guy who sued the Environmental Protection agency 14 times as the head guy of enforcing those protections? Is america ready to do anything to rectify that come 2018 / 2020?

More at the link., But put me in a hen house protection agency run by-foxes-for-foxes if old.
 

Majine

Banned
sQpiQIs.jpg
 
To borrow a few comments from the article

A reader Ohio 9 minutes ago
E.P.A. now stands for Enabling Pollution Agency.

Rufus Rhode Island 28 minutes ago
The EPA Mission Statement begins:

The mission of EPA is to protect human health and the environment.
EPA's purpose is to ensure that:
all Americans are protected from significant risks to human health and the environment where they live, learn and work;
national efforts to reduce environmental risk are based on the best available scientific information;

Can the litigious Mr. Pruitt not be sued - at the least - for so willfully neglecting and even obstructing his own duties?

marlashaivitz Baltimore, Maryland 19 minutes ago
Lunches with lobbyists and industries he regulates.
Long weekends home using tax-payer dollars.
Speaking engagements to partisan groups at luxury resorts.

Sounds swampy to me.
 

Hagi

Member
Why are all these people in his administration cartoon villains? Everything they do is so obvious in it's intentions it's quite ridiculous they have gotten so far already with next to no repercussions.
 
Can't do anything about it. It's exactly what I would expect from Pruitt, and Republicans will look the other way if they don't outright encourage it. Pure scum.

If the Democrats manage to gain control of the House and/or Senate, they really need to put this fucker under a microscope, and there needs to be public pressure for them to do so.
 

Blader

Member
This is a guy who would copy/paste oil company directives and release them as official memos when he was Oklahoma's AG. He's the real-life caricature of government in bed with oil.
 
Can't do anything about it. It's exactly what I would expect from Pruitt, and Republicans will look the other way if they don't outright encourage it. Pure scum.

If the Democrats manage to gain control of the House and/or Senate, they really need to put this fucker under a microscope, and there needs to be public pressure for them to do so.

This is the thing though, democrats need to gain in 2018 to start making that happen. How likely is America to make that a reality? I can only hope a lot of people who have been moderate on trump or were reluctant to vote in 2016 come out in force next year.
 
...while doing nothing to meet with actual environmental advocates, groups etc (sorry rant to of pace in title)

Came across this in NYT, they reported on 320 page account of his meetings over a 4 month period and it being full of meetings with the types of people the EPA should be working on regulating — while doing almost nothing for those who are actually aligned with the intended purpose of the EPA.



[…]



It continues to disgust me that people like Pruitt, Pai & Devos etc can not only pursue the paths that they do, but actually be rewarded with power and influence over the very things they are utterly the worst people to be responsible for. How the fuck do we have a guy who sued the Environmental Protection agency 14 times as the head guy of enforcing those protections? Is america ready to do anything to rectify that come 2018 / 2020?

More at the link., But put me in a hen house protection agency run by-foxes-for-foxes if old.

They're already his friends. This is a 'why he shouldn't have been put in the job in the first place' thing, rather than some shocking 'can you believe he's doing this' thing.
 

sangreal

Member
He would easily be the worst cabinet member in the administration if Sessions didn't have more power

You could hire anyone off the street and they would be terrible at running the EPA but at least they would understand that its role is to protect the environment. In all of his public comments, this clown never talks about the environment. Just about jobs or doubting climate science. If he wants to worry about the economy he should find another fucking job

He actually (incorrectly) says the EPA has no role outside of managing superfund sites, which he is also bad at.
 
The wolves are in charge of the hen house. It’s so much worse than I could have imagined a Trump presidency would be a year ago.
 
They're already his friends. This is a 'why he shouldn't have been put in the job in the first place' thing, rather than some shocking 'can you believe he's doing this' thing.

you misunderstand - my disgust is for the precise reason you've stated. People like Pai, Pruitt, Sessions, Devos and others in Trump's kakistocracy should never have been allowed to be anywhere near where they are now — this report is just one more example of why.
 

Snaku

Banned
Well I mean we know this, Bannon said all of the political appointments were done to dismantle the department they were put in charge of. They basically want the Eco-Villains from Captain Planet running the EPA.
 

liquidtmd

Banned
I can't imagine how deeply, bitterly sad ex-EPA staff must feel at this point

Most who genuinely gave a shit probably left or were fired by now
 
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