Back in 2017, the new EPA Director Scott Pruitt -- a fantastically pampered shill for corporations whose income is proportional to the noxious effluvia they eject into our air, soil, and water -- passed a policy barring scientists from participating on the EPA’s Scientific Advisory Board if they had ever received a grant from the EPA.

This sneaky-clever move was clearly designed to create the illusion that it was “draining the swamp” by preventing any potential conflicts of interest between scientists and money. Except that most academic scientists rely on EPA (and other) grants. Which limited the pot of scientific advisors on the scientific advisory board to scientists who worked for corporations. Who … somehow … didn’t have any conflicts of interest between their money and their science?

It was, as the NRDC put it, a “pernicious scheme to stack the deck in favor of big polluters by trying to shut out the voices of scientists—all to pump more pollution into our lives.” They added:

Pruitt claimed that his 2017 directive reduced bias on the EPA’s nearly two dozen advisory panels, which offer scientific expertise that then guide policy decisions on environmental pollutants, such as industrial chemicals or airborne particles from power plants. But unsurprisingly, Pruitt’s rule was not extended to scientists and consultants with ties to chemical or fossil fuel companies, allowing the agency to soon fill some open seats with industry insiders who disputed the known harm of pollutants, like ozone and PFOA.

Fortunately, Judge Denise Cote of the U.S. Read the rest

In the Federal Register, EPA said “critical questions remained regarding the significance of the data” that show chlorpyrifos causes neurological harm to young children.

Trump's initial appointee to run the EPA was Scott Pruitt, who resigned in disgrace in 2018 amid a massive corruption scandal in which he was found to have spent lavishly and assigned improper personal duties to government employees. Read the rest

President Trump's corrupt EPA chief is out. The resignation letter is nuts, and mentions God's divine providence and other creepy surreal stuff that doesn't belong. Read the rest

A startling and quite wonderful ... article? ... at the Washington Post today, wherein Alexandra Petri lenses EPA chief Scott Pruit's corruption through a mockingly science-fictional eye and perfectly distills the surreal horror of his administration.

Have you seen what happens when you leave an earthworm in the sun on hot asphalt? Have you seen what happens to the things that live in a wetland when that swamp dries up? Have you seen a salamander who has been too long in a hot car? Have you seen a lobster without its shell?

Unrelatedly, we must find Scott Pruitt his lotion.

Scott Pruitt must be seated at the front of the plane, behind the little curtain. Perhaps a private jet would be better, all things considered. It would be safer. None must see what happens when he reaches 30,000 feet.

What will happen?

Nothing, nothing! Naturally.

I hope you like my GIF; they gave me my Wacom back on the express condition I not make any more of these but, well, here we are, in 2018, and all.

Update: he resigned. Read the rest

Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Scott Pruitt -- the target of over a dozen ongoing investigations into improper behavior -- was having lunch at a restaurant yesterday with his security detail in tow when a woman holding her two-year-old approached him and told him that he was an awful protector of the environment and urged him to resign, "before your scandals push you out." Pruitt had nothing to say. He just got up and left.

EPA head Scott Pruitt was 3 tables away as I ate lunch with my child. I had to say something," Kristin Mink posted on Facebook with an accompanying video of her encounter with Pruitt.

Mink, who is a schoolteacher according to her Facebook profile, lists off multiple scandals Pruitt has been ensnared in since becoming EPA chief, including the rental of a Capitol Hill condo owned by the wife of an influential lobbyist. "We deserve to have somebody at the EPA who actually does protect our environment, someone who believes in climate change and takes it seriously for the benefit of all us, including our children," Mink said.

"I would urge you to resign before your scandals push you out."

Read the rest

Scandal-haunted EPA chairman Scott Pruitt has billed the American public for $4.6 million for his "security," a roster of expenses than includes a supply of "tactical pants" purchased for the low price of $1,500 (he also spent about $900 on matching "tactical polos"). Read the rest

Most politicians are smart enough to stick their snouts in the trough when no one is looking. EPA head Scott Pruitt is one of the dumb ones. His pea-sized brain would rattle in his skull if it wasn't cushioned by an enormous ego, one that causes him to think he's a famous and important person who needs to be protected from all the little people out to get him. Hence the first class and chartered flights, the luxury hotels, the soundproof offices, and the 24/7 security detail. It's gross overreach for a man whose only job is to hand over the department he runs to companies that want the freedom to eject pollutants into the air and water.

I barely had time to get over being squicked out by the news that Pruitt ordered a staffer to procure for him a used mattress from one of Trump's hotels, when I learned that Pruitt used his expensive security detail to drive him to different hotels in a desperate search for a certain kind of special moisturizer he is fond of and is available at Ritz-Carltons.

I'll bet the manufacturer of the lotion is terrified over being outed. Sales would tank. It might even spell the death of the company.

From CNN:

The Daily Beast reported on Thursday that Pruitt has also tasked subordinates during work hours with getting snacks for him, including Greek yogurt and cookies, citing four sources familiar with the work environment at EPA.

One individual told the Daily Beast, "I can't tell you how many times I was sent out to get protein bars" at Pruitt's request.

Read the rest

The video below makes it clear that EPA head Scott Pruitt has learned from his boss how to defend himself when people call him out for breaking laws and wasting extravagant sums of taxpayer money -- make no apology, make no sense, attack the accusers, and hide behind religion and patriotism.

Here's Pruitt's response after reporter Jessica Smith asked him about the revelation that he ordered one of his staffers to set up a meeting with the head of Chick-fil-A with the intention of securing a franchise for his wife:

“With great change comes, you know, I think, opposition. I mean, there’s significant change that’s happening across — not only at the EPA but across this administration, and it’s needed. Look, my wife is an entrepreneur herself. I love, she loves, we love — Chick-fil-A is a franchise of faith, and it’s one of the best in the country, and so that’s something we were very excited about. So — we need more of them in Tulsa, and we need more of them across the country.”

No matter what Pruitt is saying here, his actions were in violation of at least two federal laws:

Federal ethics laws bar public officials from using their position or staff for private gain. A Cabinet-level official using his perch to contact a company CEO about a job for his wife “raises the specter of misuse of public office,” said Don Fox, who was head of the federal Office of Government Ethics during the Obama administration.

Read the rest

Embattled EPA Director Scott Pruitt went on national TV to announce on behalf of the US government that "I would not agree [CO2 is] a primary contributor to the global warming that we see... There’s a tremendous disagreement about the degree of the impact [of] human activity on the climate." Read the rest

Last year, one of EPA administrator Scott Pruitt's aides ordered a dozen $130 fountain pens paid for with taxpayer money, according to new documents that the Sierra Club retrieved through a Freedom of Information Act request. The pens were emblazoned with the EPA seal and Pruitt's signature. From CNN:

The order from the Washington shop Tiny Jewel Box also included a set of journals that cost $1,670.

An agency spokesman did not respond to a request for comment from CNN. But spokesman Jahan Wilcox told The Washington Post, which first reported the pen purchase, they were similar to purchases made by Pruitt's predecessors "for the purpose of serving as gifts to the Administrator's foreign counterparts and dignitaries upon his meeting with them."

The purchase stands out not only for the cost but also because it was approved by a close aide who Pruitt described in congressional testimony last month as "longtime friend."

Read the rest

The Environmental Defense Fund and the Southern Environmental Law Center sued the EPA to force it to comply with a Freedom of Information Act request for access to emails to and from thinktanks associated with the climate denial industry like the Heartland Institute, Plants Need CO2, The Right Climate Stuff, and Junk Science. Read the rest

Even by Trump administration standards, Scott Pruitt is a fucking mess, and as his day of reckoning looms, his staff are doing everything they can to take the heat off their boss, which is why Pruitt press-staffer Michael Abboud approached multiple reporters to give them dirt on Pruitt archrival Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke. Read the rest

Scott Pruitt is Trump's scandal-haunted EPA administrator; yesterday, he was called before a Congressional hearing to account for himself and his lavish, tax-funded spending, as well as the paranoid culture of retaliatory firings and demotions at the EPA. Read the rest

Scott Pruitt, an asshole, was Donald Trump's pick to head the EPA. Read the rest

When Nixon formed the EPA in 1970, the agency had the prescience to send photographers across America to photograph the kinds of environmental catastrophes that triggered its formation: chemical factories belching smoke; smog over cities; burning barges in the middle of waterways; clearcuts, litter and filthy lakes and rivers. Read the rest

A state judge today ordered the office of Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt to release thousands of documents, including emails, related to Pruitt’s conversations with energy industry executives. Tomorrow, the United States Senate votes on Pruitt’s nomination to run the Environmental Protection Agency, for the administration of Donald Trump. Read the rest