Former Environmental Protection Agency head Scott Pruitt is joining a crowded race for the seat of retiring Oklahoma Sen. Jim Inhofe, a fellow Republican. The move represents a political comeback attempt for Pruitt, who left the EPA post under investigation by several federal agencies over his spending habits, conflicts of interest, and management practices.
Pruitt, a former Oklahoma attorney general, filed to run for Senate on Friday, according to the state’s candidate filing database.
Pruitt headed the EPA in former President Donald Trump‘s administration from February 2017 to July 2018. In the role, Pruitt largely sided with businesses in fights against environmental regulations and questioned whether human activity contributes to climate change.
Pruitt was a member of the state Senate in Oklahoma from 1998 to 2006, when he lost a Republican House race primary. Pruitt was elected state attorney general in 2010 and reelected in 2014, before joining the Trump administration.
OPPOSITION TO ‘WOKE AGENDA’ DRAWS T.W. SHANNON INTO CROWDED OKLAHOMA SENATE FIELD
In the Trump Cabinet, Pruitt drew as much attention for his policy proposals as questions of his ethics. From Pruitt’s early months in office, he faced questions about alleged spending abuses, including insisting on staying in luxury hotels that were costlier than allowed by government standards, first-class travel at taxpayer expense, and alleged cozy relationships with lobbyists, among other things.
Pruitt’s application adds another wrinkle to the already crowded Senate race for Inhofe’s seat, with the all-important Republican primary on June 28. Inhofe said in February he would retire from the Senate on Jan. 3, 2023, with four years left on his six-year term.
The open Senate seat is a rarity in Oklahoma. Inhofe is closing in on 28 years as a senator, after eight in the House and an up-and-down political career that included stints as a state senator and Tulsa mayor and several unsuccessful bids for higher office.
Inhofe endorsed his chief of staff, Luke Holland, to replace him in the Senate, and he plans to campaign for him ahead of the primary.
Other Republican primary candidates include Rep. Markwayne Mullin, state Sen. Nathan Dahm, and T.W. Shannon, a former state House speaker who lost a primary race against Oklahoma’s other senator, James Lankford, in 2014.
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The Democratic nominee is likely to be former Rep. Kendra Horn. She won an Oklahoma City-based House seat in the party’s 2018 wave but lost reelection two years later as Trump beat President Joe Biden in Oklahoma by a nearly 2-to-1 margin.
