EPA chief: Rollbacks help firms in Nevada, elsewhere
WASHINGTON — The Environmental Protection Agency rolled back 22 regulations last year that saved $1 billion, including one that will benefit hard-rock mining companies that operate in states like Nevada, Administrator Scott Pruitt said Monday.
While Pruitt touted a reversal of many Obama-era regulations, conservation groups like the Environmental Defense Fund said the Trump administration’s reduction in spending on EPA programs could hurt Nevada’s economy and environment “for years to come.”
Pruitt, though, said he has used the first year of his term as EPA administrator to try “to restore order in the rule-making process.”
A former Oklahoma attorney general who opposed EPA regulations, Pruitt has led an agency makeover to focus on a “back-to-basics agenda.”
Pruitt told a roundtable with regional reporters that when he arrived at the agency, “there wasn’t an urgency in getting things done.”
Democrats in Congress have criticized the Trump administration and Pruitt for cuts to EPA programs and efforts to dismantle regulatory protections that have been implemented since the agency was created in 1970.
But Pruitt said that in states like Nevada, regulatory rollbacks or actions were sought locally and helped economically. Pruitt said a decision not to implement the “financial assistance rule” relieved mining companies of duplicate bond requirements. He also touted a decision that kept the Anaconda Mine near Yerington, Nevada, off the EPA Superfund list, allowing an accelerated privately funded cleanup of the old copper mine.
Contact Gary Martin at gmartin@ reviewjournal.com or 202-662-7390. Follow @garymartindc on Twitter.