President-elect Trump’s choice to head the Environmental Protection Agency visited Capitol Hill Tuesday to meet with the incoming and outgoing chairmen of the Senate environment committee to discuss his confirmation.
Outgoing Environment and Public Works Committee Chairman Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla, who is retiring, escorted Scott Pruitt, Trump’s EPA nominee and Oklahoma attorney general, to meet with the new chairman, Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo. It was the first time Pruitt visited Capitol Hill after being nominated to lead the agency. The committee will be key to confirming Pruitt as EPA administrator. The Senate controls approval of all Cabinet nominations.
With Inhofe’s retirement, Barrasso will be taking his place as the head of the key oversight panel covering all things related to the EPA and climate change. Barrasso is a staunch opponent of the Obama administration’s climate agenda and has fought against the U.S. joining the Paris climate change agreement.
The senators allowed for photos but no questions were permitted by reporters who accompanied cameramen into Barrasso’s office. That didn’t stop some from trying to get them to answer a few questions over concerns about the confirmation process and when the committee will hold its first formal hearing with Pruitt. “We are going to discuss that in the next couple of minutes,” Barrasso said when asked about a date for Pruitt’s hearing.
Later, he issued a formal statement saying they discussed “policy and reforms that are necessary at the agency.” Barrasso was impressed by Pruitt’s “excellent insights on how to help the EPA better meet its mission of protecting the environment while growing the American economy.”
He added that he looks “forward to continuing these conversations at his confirmation hearings.”
Democrats have been lining up to oppose Pruitt’s nomination, which they see as an affront to protecting the public health and the environment.
Pruitt is a principal backer of litigation opposing the centerpiece of the EPA’s climate rules, the Clean Power Plan. The plan is central to President Obama’s environmental agenda and meeting the Paris climate change agreement. Pruitt, with nearly 30 other attorneys general, sued the EPA over the plan, and the case is being reviewed by a 10-judge panel of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals.
The incoming top Democrat on the environment committee, Sen. Tom Carper of Delaware, said that while he is “committed to a full and fair confirmation process,” he is troubled by reports of Pruitt’s aggressive stance against the EPA during his tenure as attorney general.
“Any individual charged with leading the EPA who wants to ignore science or look out for special interests at the expense of public health can expect a fight with me,” Carper said in a statement he issued last month. “I look forward to the upcoming confirmation process and hearing from Mr. Pruitt directly on these incredibly important issues.”
Carper takes the place of Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., who was known as being an environmental stalwart. Boxer retired from Congress at the end of last month, but not before sending a letter to the EPA, urging employees not to give in to the new administration’s agenda.
“And remember this — the public stands with you,” Boxer said in the letter sent to EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy and agency employees. “In poll after poll, American voters are clear that they favor EPA’s efforts to address climate change, clean up the air, and protect the waterways that provide drinking water to 117 million Americans.”
Trump has pledged to roll back the Clean Power Plan and several other EPA rules that he says have cost thousands of jobs in coal country and are stalling economic growth. Pruitt is seen as key to accomplishing those goals.
