Scott Pruitt never was qualified to protect the enviornment

Echo editorial from The Virginia Pilot

EPA's Pruitt a terrible choice ~ He must be fired:

"..made a career out of genuflecting at the altar of oil and gas, industries..."

By The Virginian-Pilot Editorial Board

NOT ~ Scott Pruitt

SHORT OF nominating an actual oil derrick or a landfill to the post, Donald Trump couldn’t have done worse than tapping Scott Pruitt to lead the Environmental Protection Agency.

Scratch that: Neither an oil derrick nor a landfill possesses the administrative skills needed to undermine those federal laws and programs established to protect Americans’ soil, air and water, all of which Pruitt has done.

Here’s someone who made a career out of genuflecting at the altar of oil and gas, industries for whom he eagerly carried water while serving as attorney general of Oklahoma.

He once received a letter from Devon Energy, one of the state’s largest energy companies, in opposition to federal limits on methane leaks, and forwarded it to the EPA — replacing little more than the company’s letterhead with that of his office.

It was also in that office that he demonstrated his contempt for carbon emissions limits, among the many other environmental laws he considered an unlawful imposition on the states such as his.

And it was in that office that he made it his mission to dismantle the Clean Power Plan advanced under President Barack Obama, believing it harmful to the economic aspirations of energy companies … er, American workers.

It was therefore an unwelcome, and wholly distressing, development when Trump tapped Pruitt, not simply for a job in Washington, but to lead the nation’s most important environmental watchdog agency.

The president has made a habit of picking as department heads those individuals most committed to sabotaging the very agencies they’ve been asked to lead. Pruitt is arguably the most egregious — the highest-profile rogue in a gallery of them.

Closer to home, his elevation to that influential role posed a particularly ominous menace to this region, home to the second-largest population in the United States facing the threat posed by rising sea levels.

Though land subsidence contributes to that problem, the climate is changing for the worse as a result of human activity — a position that is indisputable by anyone other than the willfully ignorant. Loosening laws meant to curb emissions and lessen climate change is akin to pouring salt in a self-inflicted wound, and Pruitt was all too eager to do so.

And yet, it’s unlikely that his sinister approach to managing the EPA will be Pruitt’s undoing. Rather, it’s almost certain to be a comparatively banal brand of corruption that is infuriatingly commonplace in the highest echelons of the Trump administration.

Since taking the EPA helm, Pruitt has compiled a rather impressive roster of misdeeds.

He ordered construction of a $43,000 soundproof phone booth in his office for no discernible reason. He has racked up hundreds of thousands of dollars in costs for his personal security detail and air travel, which he demands be exclusively first class.

He took a trip to Morocco on the taxpayers’ dime, using it to pitch that country’s government on the benefits of natural gas. 

Pruitt used a little-known provision in the Safe Water Drinking Act to increase the salaries of two political aides by more than $80,000 combined.

And then there’s his housing situation. Pruitt has been renting a room in a townhome for $50 a day, which anyone familiar with District rental prices would identify as a sweetheart deal. The co-owner of said townhome? The wife of an energy lobbyist.

Now, citizens shouldn’t expect Pruitt to really have to account for these actions.

A Congress led by Republicans has shown little interest in looking into the rampant corruption by members of the Trump administration. And when he’s relieved of his duties — a time that is almost inevitable given the proclivities of this president — he’ll probably land quite comfortably in the corner office of some energy lobbying firm.

But that moment really cannot come soon enough. Having a director of the Environmental Protection Agency wholly uninterested in protecting the environment is a national embarrassment, and Americans deserve much better than the worst option available.

Scott Pruitt has never been qualified to protect the environment. His goal is to create profit margins for rich industrial polluters.

Scott Pruitt needs an emergency "EXIT" lesson ~ STAT

An echo opinion letter published in the Delaware County Daily Times newspaper:

Scott Pruitt probably can't read the word "Exit" so, to assist, he needs to have somebody kick him out of the White House door and bolt it as he leaves.

The recent exodus of staffers and high-ranking officials in the Trump Administration has been well-publicized. Yet the man responsible for the most long-lasting damage to our landscapes, air, water and planet remains firmly planted.

According to some press reports, Scott Pruitt, Environmental Protection Agency administrator and climate change denier, may have his eye on the White House in the near future. (MaineWriter~ OMG ~ another illiterate in the White House? Nhet!)

In addition to pulling the United States out of the landmark Paris climate agreement and tearing up the Clean Power Plan, Pruitt has padded a polluter-friendly track record over the last 15 months:

Cancelled EPA directive requiring drillers to report on methane, a greenhouse gas 30 times more potent than carbon dioxide. 

Here in Pennsylvania, the Environmental Defense Fund says methane emissions from natural gas production could be up to five times higher than what industry has reported.

Withdrew an EPA policy that imposed limits on 200 pollutants, such as arsenic, mercury and lead, from industrial polluters.

Withdrew an EPA policy that imposed limits on 200 pollutants, such as arsenic, mercury and lead, from industrial polluters.

More than 800 career civil servants have left the agency, harming morale and institutional knowledge.

Pruitt held 217 meetings last year with industry representatives that the EPA is supposed to regulate, while meeting with public health and environmental groups just 12 times, according to The Washington Post.

Scott Pruitt is a corporation mole who is determined to ruin the environment for the sake of profit

Pruitt is a hero to the very corporations he is supposed to watch over. The New York Times reported that he copied and pasted a letter that Devon Energy drafted in opposition to an Obama directive to limit methane emissions. After making a few small changes, Pruitt signed on to join the fight against limiting methane.

“You are so amazingly helpful!” read an email from Pruitt’s chief of staff to Devon Energy, as reported in Mother Jones.

No, Pruitt is the opposite of a public servant – taking a government salary and perks to do the bidding of polluters that harm the public and destroy the planet. He should resign.

Mike Hays, Ardmore Pennsylvania

New Hampshire Union Leader - Save science and the environment: echo letter

It was a delight to read this letter to the editor on the opinion page of the conservative newspaper the New Hampshire Union Leader - "let's hear it for science!"  An echo letter to the editor.

To the Editor: 

Growing up in Hollis, I recall the many drives on Route 111 across the Nashua River, which was many shades of purple and green, depending on the pollution from upstream paper mills. 

In summer, the Nashua River and Souhegan River smelled like open sewers, because they were! 

Rivers in Ohio were catching fire, and acid rain from power plants was killing our lakes. We humans were collectively exploiting Mother Earth with little regard for the consequences.

Fortunately, the general public became very alarmed, both Republican and Democratic representatives responded, and President Nixon, a Republican, in 1970 signed legislation creating the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) along with the Clean Air and Water Acts. 

Although critics claimed such legislative mandates would cause financial ruin, the EPA has largely been a win for the environment, a win for human health, and a win economically. 

Fortunately, the various benefits have clearly outweighed the costs.

While some businessmen just want to maximize profits, and hate regulations and being socially responsible, everyone needs to be accountable. Whether it is the apparent carelessness of OK Tool in Milford or the criminal behavior on Gilsom Road in Nashua, greedy and shoddy business practices create the need for regulations.

For 47 years, the EPA has been guided by science. Unfortunately, with Scott Pruitt now in charge, the EPA is being stripped of its power to protect our health, our environment, and our economy.

An environmental impact study of the Trump era has yet to be written. But it won’t be pretty.

MIKE BEEBE  Lyndeborough New Hampshire

Scott Pruitt must respond to the environment

Our earth is under attack ~ Cincinnati Enquirer

Not from malicious invaders from outer space. Not from provocative North Koreans. But from narrow-minded economic interests and their political allies who are threatening our planet’s very existence by their shortsighted (environmental) actions. 

A sense of environmental awareness was a long time coming in the United States. As America expanded across the continent in the 19th century, the Robber Barons of the Gilded Age built an economic empire, but always with an eye on personal gain.

And in the process, they paid little attention to maintaining the natural beauty of the nation. 

In fact, the millions of buffalo on the Plains were in the way, and so gave way to the crops that were planted and the cattle and sheep that grazed on the land.

Theodore Roosevelt, a Republican, was the first President concerned with conservation. An amateur naturalist who loved the outdoors, he used his executive authority in the early years of the 20th century to more than triple the land allocated for natural forests. He also used what he called the “bully pulpit” to raise public consciousness about the need to save natural resources and appointed a National Conservation Commission to inventory natural resources. And in the process, he angered those interests who simply wanted to use the land for their own ends.

Franklin D. Roosevelt, a Democrat, shared Theodore’s sense of environmental consciousness. 

During the Great Depression of the 1930s, he created the Civilian Conservation Corps which both put people back to work and helped tend to the natural environment in long-overdue ways.

He also embarked on policies to deal with the ravages of the dust storms that attacked the heartland of the country. And he pushed through the huge federal project to harness water power for the public good through the Tennessee Valley Authority.

There was no time for environmental activity during World War II, and little interest in the 1950s, as big business boomed once again. Then, in 1962, naturalist Rachel Carson published Silent Spring alerting the public to the consequences of DDT, and in 1964, architect Peter Blake wrote God’s Own Junkyard: The Planned Deterioration of America’s Landscape, recording the ravages of unbridled capitalism. Those books and others began to foster a renewed sense of environmental awareness.

By 1970, 53 percent of the population considered air and water pollution to be major national problems.

Responding to that growing consciousness, Republican Richard Nixon oversaw the passage of the Clean Air Act in 1963 and the Water Quality Improvement Act in 1970, and the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), also in 1970. There was a clear sense of the need to protect the environment that governed for almost 50 years.

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Environmentalists must continue to petition Scott Pruitt to fulfill his obligation to care for clean air and water. In fact, the public health is at risk for increased respiratory illnesses and water borne bacteria (not to mention the danger of lead poisoning),

Instead, the current Secretary of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Pruitt is intent on breaking down safeguards that have protected clean water, and air quality, by ignoring or recalling pubic health regulations.

In the Cincinnati Inquirer, this "encore", a letter to the editor re-blogged, questions the EPA process for supporting a clean environment:

Letter to the Editor ~In contributor Allan Winkler’s article “Threats to Earth grow Intense” (Oct. 23), he concludes with a call for us to respond to the Trump’s dismantling of environmental protections before it’s too late. This raises the obvious question of, “Well, what can we do?”

Trump and EPA head Scott Pruitt seem to be making these choices — which will have long-term consequences — without oversight or input from the American people.

The environmentalists of the past inspired change by opening people’s eyes to the devastating exploitation of Earth’s resources happening around them; today, it’s hard to find that kind of voice. 

But when facing this kind of reality, there doesn't seem to be many other options than to try.

Lauren Godfrey, Maineville ~ Scott Pruitt alert!