EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt Resigns Under A Mountain Of Scandals
Supreme Court associate justice Samuel Alito, right, swears in Scott Pruitt as the Environmental Protection Agency Administrator in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building in the White House complex in Washington, Friday, Feb. 17, 2017. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)
EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt has been the personification of the swamp Donald Trump falsely claimed he was headed to Washington to drain. The last few months have been plagued with reports revealing new examples of the stunning corruption of Scott Pruitt. The White House has stood by Pruitt throughout these scandals…until now.
I have accepted the resignation of Scott Pruitt as the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency. Within the Agency Scott has done an outstanding job, and I will always be thankful to him for this. The Senate confirmed Deputy at EPA, Andrew Wheeler, will…
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 5, 2018
…on Monday assume duties as the acting Administrator of the EPA. I have no doubt that Andy will continue on with our great and lasting EPA agenda. We have made tremendous progress and the future of the EPA is very bright!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 5, 2018
Pruitt was taking more heat this week as more stories of corruption were revealed and Kristin Mink’s video calling for Pruitt to resign went viral.
Schoolteacher Kristin Mink told the EPA Administrator to quit for dismantling environmental protections and cozying up to big business. pic.twitter.com/7ymNBtY1Ta
— HuffPost (@HuffPost) July 3, 2018
As Oklahoma Attorney General, Pruitt repeatedly sued the EPA in an attempt to block environmental regulations. He ran the EPA as you’d expect someone with deep ties to the fossil fuel industry would. Not only was Pruitt very effective in his rollback of meaningful environmental regulations, he’s been very effective in his ability to create such a mountain of ethical scandals it was seemingly impossible to keep up with them.
Pruitt has been grilled on Capitol Hill by the House Energy and Commerce Committee and the House Appropriations Committee about these issues and faces at least a dozen federal inquiries.
- Renting a $50 a night luxury condo linked to fossil fuel industry lobbying firm Williams & Jensen, who won approval for a project while Pruitt was staying there.
- A six-figure trip to Morroco which involved Pruitt reportedly promoting issues that benefit his past donors and Williams & Jensen.
- Unauthorized raises for his favorite staffers.
- Ordering an EPA aide to make calls to get his wife a Chick-fil-A franchise.
I asked Scott Pruitt a quick question about the reports he tried to help his wife become a Chick-fil-A franchisee.
“With great change comes, I think, opposition…I love, she loves [Chick-fil-A]” pic.twitter.com/gND2tdMq1e
— Jessica Smith (@JessicaASmith8) June 6, 2018
- More wastes of taxpayer money.
(E)xpensive (P)ruitt (A)gency:
Condo Deal: $50/night
12 Pens: $1,560
Journals: $1,670
Trump Hotel Mattress: $1,750
Private 40-min flight: $5,719
PR: $6,500
Chik fil A Franchise: $10K
Phone Booth: $43K
2 Desks: $70K
Friends’ Pay Raises: $85K
Italy Trip: $120K
Security: $3.5M pic.twitter.com/VbSWS56sJq— Fox News Research (@FoxNewsResearch) June 6, 2018
Here they are in graphic form.
Source: MSNBC
Although scandal-plagued Scott Pruitt is gone, this administration’s EPA under Pruitt’s deputy Andrew Wheeler (former fossil fuel lobbyist) will continue to deregulate the industries this agency is meant to keep in check. And without the consistent stream of negative news stories Pruitt brought to the agency, Wheeler might be able to continue this deregulation with less scrutiny…
