Scott Pruitt Can Relax, He’s Probably Not Friday’s News Dump

Trump still cherishes Scott Pruitt for his “good work.”

Shealah Craighead/Planet Pix via ZUMA

EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt has allies in high places who are not willing to give up on him after weeks of damaging stories. On Friday, President Trump took to Twitter to deny reports that he would replace Attorney General Jeff Sessions with Pruitt, and said that Pruitt is “under siege” by the media.

Despite Trump’s current backing, it’s unclear whether Pruitt will survive the storm. But Pruitt also has a safety net unlike Trump’s other embattled cabinet members: He’s a trusted partner in carrying out Trump’s campaign vision to reduce the EPA to “little tidbits.”

Pruitt’s allies have rushed to his defense as he faces mounting problems over his first 13 months at the EPA—controversies that have included lavish spending on his office furniture and expenses, reassigning and forcing out staff who criticize him, renting a condo from an energy lobbyist, and using a loophole in a clean water law to dole out pay raises to his staff.

Wall Street Journal editorial published Thursday night called Pruitt the most consequential member of Trump’s cabinet, arguing “Mr. Pruitt’s real sin is that he is one of Mr. Trump’s most aggressive reformers, taking on green idols that others would bow before.” A similar line has been picked up by other conservative media and used by Rush Limbaugh and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas). And the White House, including Trump, is certainly still happy with the bulk of what Pruitt has done at the EPA: “The president thinks that he’s done a good job, particularly on the deregulation front,” White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders told reporters earlier this week.

Pruitt has delivered a long set of easy wins for Trump. The EPA chief has rolled back dozens of regulations, curtailed environmental enforcement, and limited the role and quality of science in the agency’s decisions. There’s still more for Trump to celebrate this week: Pruitt rolled back Obama-era fuel efficiency standards and has adopted House Science Chair Lamar Smith’s (R-Texas) push to ban air pollution studies that rely on confidential data from being used in EPA regulation.

As I wrote in my profile of Pruitt earlier this year:

In an administration full of deregulators, Pruitt stands out, bringing to the EPA the anti-Washington playbook he developed with industry in Oklahoma. In December 2017, the White House trumpeted presidential accomplishments from Trump’s first year—a list dominated by handouts to the energy industry. Pruitt’s fingerprints were everywhere, from “exiting the Paris climate agreement” to “ending the war on coal.” It’s an agenda that taps directly into the right-wing populism that was integral to Trump’s success—and a corporate donor base that will be vital to Pruitt’s future.

Pruitt built his national reputation by advancing industry interests and setting himself up as a primary opponent to the Obama administration. And he has picked up powerful benefactors along the way, such as Oklahoman oilman Harold Hamm, who was Pruitt’s chair of his reelection campaign for state attorney general. Hamm, an oil-and-gas billionaire who made his fortune in hydraulic fracturing, is a donor to Trump. 

“I think he’s made the bet that the fossil fuel industry will take care of him one way or another,” Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), a member of the committee that conducts oversight of the EPA, told me for my profile of Pruitt. “They reward obedience, and nobody has been more obedient than Scott Pruitt.”

More Mother Jones reporting on Climate Desk

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate