U.S. agency boss quits amid scandal
WASHINGTON — U.S. Environmental Protection Agency administrator Scott Pruitt resigned Thursday amid ethics investigations of outsized security spending, first-class flights and a sweetheart condo lease.
With Pruitt’s departure, U.S. President Donald Trump loses an administrator many conservatives regarded as one of the more effective members of his cabinet.
But Pruitt had also been dogged for months by a seemingly unending string of scandals that spawned more than a dozen federal and congressional investigations.
In a resignation letter released to media outlets, Pruitt expressed no regret for any actions he had taken since being tapped by Trump to lead EPA last year.
“It is extremely difficult for me to cease serving you in this role first because I count it a blessing to be serving you in any capacity, but also, because of the transformative work that is occurring,” Pruitt wrote.
“However, the unrelenting attacks on me personally, my family, are unprecedented and have taken a sizable toll on all of us.”
Pruitt had appeared Wednesday at a White House picnic for Independence Day, wearing a redchecked shirt and loafers with gold trim. Trump gave him and other officials a brief shoutout, offering no sign of any immediate change in his job.
Trump said in a tweet that Deputy Administrator Andrew Wheeler, a former coal industry executive, will assume the acting administrator position Monday.
Pruitt’s resignation came days after two of his former senior staffers spoke to House oversight committee investigators and revealed new, embarrassing details in ethics allegations against Pruitt.
Samantha Dravis, Pruitt’s former policy chief at EPA, told the investigators last week that Pruitt had made clear to her before and after he became EPA administrator that he would like the attorney general’s job, held then and now by Jeff Sessions.
Pruitt “had hinted at that [sic] some sort of conversation had taken place between he and the president,” Dravis told congressional investigators, according to a transcript obtained Thursday by the Associated Press. “That was the position he was originally interested in.”
A former Oklahoma attorney general close to the oil and gas industry, Pruitt had filed more than a dozen lawsuits against the agency he was picked to lead. Arriving in Washington, he worked relentlessly to dismantle Obama-era environmental regulations that aimed to reduce toxic pollution and planetwarming carbon emissions.
During his one-year tenure, Pruitt crisscrossed the U.S. at taxpayer expense to speak with industry groups and hobnob with GOP donors, but he showed little interest in listening to advocates he derided as “the environmental left.” Those groups applauded his departure.
“Despite his brief tenure, Pruitt was the worst EPA chief in history,” said Kieran Suckling, executive director of the Center for Biological Diversity.
“His corruption was his downfall, but his pro-polluter policies will have our kids breathing dirtier air long after his many scandals are forgotten.”
Like Trump, Pruitt voiced skepticism about mainstream climate science and was a fierce critic of the Paris climate agreement. The president cheered his EPA chief’s moves to boost fossil fuel production and roll back regulations opposed by corporate interests.
But despite boasts of slashing red tape and promoting job creation, Pruitt had a mixed record of producing real-world results. Many of the EPA regulations Pruitt scraped or delayed had not yet taken effect, and the tens of thousands of lost coal-mining jobs the president pledged to bring back never materialized.
Pruitt was forced out following a series of revelations involving pricey trips with first-class airline seats and unusual security spending, including a $43,000 soundproof booth for making private phone calls.
He demanded 24-hour-a-day protection from armed officers, resulting in a swollen 20-member security detail that blew through overtime budgets and racked up expenses of more than $3 million.
Pruitt ordered his EPA staff to do personal chores for him, picking up dry cleaning and trying to obtain a used Trump hotel mattress for his apartment. He enlisted his staff to contact conservative groups and companies to find a lucrative job for his wife, including emails seeking a Chick-fil-A franchise from a senior executive at the fast-food chain.