Protesters forced the Senate environment committee to temporarily cease introductions at a hearing Wednesday for President-elect Trump’s nominee to lead the Environment Protection Agency.
Protesters began chanting and yelling as Sen. Jim Inhofe, R-Okla., was introducing Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt, who is facing a tough confirmation hearing in the Environment and Public Works Committee Wednesday.
The chairman of the committee, Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo., asked Inhofe to stop his remarks until the protesters were ushered by Capitol Police from the hearing room.
Once they were ushered out, Inhofe quipped, “They obviously don’t like scenic rivers but we do in Oklahoma.”
Inhofe, before he was interrupted, was lauding Pruitt as a “hero of the scenic rivers” of his state, which he said has some of the most freshwater ways of any state in the West. The former chairman of the committee said Pruitt ended 100-year litigation over water rights in his state.
He also sued the Fish and Wildlife Service over endangered species rules that weren’t needed and “he won” — “He wins.” And he has managed to counter “overzealous and activist executive agencies” under the Obama administration. Obama “has worked to disrupt industry,” Inhofe said.
Pruitt is an expert in balancing economic goals with environmental protections, and will return EPA to its “proper role as a steward,” he said.
Protests continued through Pruitt’s prepared remarks. The top Democrat on the committee, Sen. Tom Carper, of Delaware, said the number of interruptions was “extraordinary” although “not unprecedented.”
The protesters are angry because Trump called the EPA “a disgrace” during the campaign and vowed to eliminate its regulatory authority.
“One of the concerns I have … do all of the things he said in the campaign just go away,” Carper asked.
