Embattled Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt heaped praise on President Trump Tuesday as he officially announced his rejection of former President Barack Obama’s strict fuel-efficiency standards.
While Pruitt did not address the recent controversies — including a Tuesday report that he gave two aides big pay raises after the White House said no, his use of a condo owned by the wife of an energy lobbyist, and his frequent first-class travel — he seemed to direct his messaging at the president.
“This is another step in the president’s deregulatory agenda,” Pruitt said during a press conference at EPA headquarters, noting his agency has taken 22 “significant” actions to delay or revisit prior agency rules. “This president has shown tremendous courage to say to the American people that America is going to be put first.”
Pruitt also tried to project optimism about his future and the EPA’s direction, using his favorite sport, baseball, as an analogy.
“It’s a time of hope and optimism,” Pruitt said. “As we start the baseball season, all teams across baseball are very optimistic about winning the World Series. So that hope and optimism that has driven baseball is driving the economy across the country as well. Largely because of the decisions we are making in the executive branch to get back to common-sense regulations and certainty with respect to how we do business.”
Pruitt canceled his original plans to announce his decision on the auto rules at a Chevy dealership in Virginia, after auto dealers were upset about being linked to the announcement, according to a report in the New York Times.
Trump reportedly called Pruitt Monday night and told him “we got your back.” Pruitt is seen as one of the most effective Cabinet secretaries in advancing the president’s agenda and rolling back regulations, as the EPA administrator was eager to point out Tuesday.
At the press conference, he celebrated the agency’s decision Monday to scrap Obama’s strict new fuel-efficiency and greenhouse gas rules for cars and light trucks.
Pruitt said the Obama administration’s rules that set a 54-mile per gallon standard by 2025, up from the current average of 38.3 mpg, were “not appropriate” in light of lower oil prices and soaring popularity of pickup trucks and sport-utility vehicles, a trend that he says has reduced demand for more-efficient cars.
Obama set the 2022-2025 efficiency standards in 2011 with the support of automakers, which were involved in the negotiations. But the rules required the EPA to conduct a midterm evaluation of whether the auto market could meet the standards.
It did so in 2016, before the Trump administration took over, and determined that the standards remained “feasible, practical and appropriate.”
But automobile trade associations complained the comment period for the midterm review had been rushed and that the requirements were too strict.
Pruitt’s decision sets up a fight with California and 12 other states that have adopted the tougher Obama standards as a way of reducing man-made greenhouse emissions that most climate scientists say contribute to climate change.
Pruitt expressed confidence Tuesday about his, and Trump’s, position.
“[Trump] made a commitment to the people in Detroit and a commitment to people in this country that we were going to return to due order and due process in making a decision about the midterm evaluation [vehicle standards],” Pruitt said. “The president again is saying America is going to be put first, and we have nothing to be apologetic about.”
