Embattled EPA boss Pruitt quits
Scandals led to more than a dozen federal and congressional probes
WASHINGTON » 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, President Donald Trump loses an administrator many conservatives regarded as one of the more effective members of his Cabinet. But Pruitt also had been dogged for months by a seemingly unending string of scandals that spawned more than a dozen federal and congressional investigations.
Talking to reporters Thursday on Air Force One, Trump continued to praise Pruitt, saying there was “no final straw” and he had not asked for the resignation.
“Scott is a terrific guy,” Trump said. “He came to me and said I have such great confidence in the administration, I don’t want to be a distraction . ... He’ll go and do great things and have a wonderful life,
I hope.”
In his resignation letter to Trump, obtained by The Associated Press, Pruitt expressed no regrets.
“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.”
Trump said EPA Deputy Administrator Andrew Wheeler will become acting administrator Monday.
Wheeler is a former coal industry lobbyist who helped lead an industry fight against regulations that protect Americans’ health and address climate change.
Republicans say Wheeler, 53, is well-qualified to lead the EPA, having worked at the agency early in his career. He also was a top aide at the Senate Environment Committee before becoming a lobbyist nine years ago.
But Sen. Tom Udall, DN.M., called Wheeler a “climate denier” who “has spent much of his political career lobbying for the big polluters EPA regulates.”
Widespread disgust for Pruitt “should serve as a blaring red siren for the Trump administration,” Udall said. “Americans will not tolerate another EPA administrator whose primary goal is to fight the core mission of the EPA.”
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 planet-warming carbon emissions.
During his one-year tenure, Pruitt crisscrossed the country 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 also 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 also had 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 had also enlisted his staff to contact conservative groups and companies to find a lucrative job for his unemployed wife, including emails seeking a Chick-fil-A franchise from a senior executive at the fast-food chain.
Pruitt’s job had been in jeopardy since the end of March, when ABC News first reported that he leased a Capitol Hill condo last year for just $50 a night. It was co-owned by the wife of a veteran fossil fuels lobbyist whose firm had sought regulatory rollbacks from EPA.
Both Pruitt and the lobbyist, Steven Hart, denied he had conducted any recent business with EPA. But Hart was later forced to admit he had met with Pruitt at EPA headquarters last summer after his firm, Williams & Jensen, revealed he had lobbied the agency on a required federal disclosure form.
Pruitt also publicly denied any knowledge of massive raises awarded to two close aides he had brought with him to EPA from Oklahoma. Documents later showed Pruitt’s chief of staff had signed off on the pay hikes, indicating he had the administrator’s consent.