A top Democrat isn’t taking the weekends off in prodding Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt over his environmental enforcement record, sending him a laundry list of demands Saturday that reveals fears about forthcoming EPA budget cuts.
Sen. Tom Carper, the top Democrat on the Environment and Public Works Committee, sent Pruitt a letter while President Trump was in Saudi Arabia, asking him to explain a May 20 article in the New York Times about drilling company Devon Energy walking back its plans to clean up its operations under his watch.
“According to the article, Devon Energy had been in discussions to install technology that would address claims made by the Obama administration EPA’s Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assistance (OECA) that a site in Wyoming was ‘illegally emitting 80 tons each year of hazardous chemicals, like benzene, a known carcinogen,'” Carper said in the letter.
The Delaware senator noted that Devon “was also discussing the payment of a ‘six-figure penalty’ to settle these claims.” Yet, “five days after you became administrator, Devon Energy sent a letter stating that it would no longer install the technology and was now ‘willing to pay closer to $25,000 to end the three-year-old federal investigation,'” Carper wrote.
Carper wants Pruitt to show evidence that he is living up to his word, citing what the administrator had told the committee that “the mission of the EPA … [is] to protect our natural resources, protecting our water quality, improving our air, … and, where enforcement is necessary, vigorous enforcement.”
But the top Democrat quickly moved from Devon’s violations and Pruitt’s testimony to the forthcoming EPA budget proposal for fiscal 2018 to be released Tuesday.
Carper said allowing Devon to back out of its previous obligations would be inconsistent with what Pruitt told the committee, as would “the 24 percent proposed cut to the 2018 [office of enforcement] budget that is expected to be submitted to Congress next week,” according to the letter.
Carper provided a long list of items that he wants Pruitt to fulfill, including a rolling list of all enforcement actions Pruitt has taken since becoming EPA chief.
Carper also wants a detailed analysis from Pruitt that shows the “impact of the proposed budget cuts” on the office of enforcement and compliance. He wants the analysis to show the number of people employed by the office as well as its projected number of enforcement actions expected to be carried out in 2018 and beyond.
Carper, with all Democrats on the environment committee, had tried to stall Pruitt’s confirmation, including boycotting a committee vote to move his nomination to the floor. Democrats continue to prod Pruitt over claims of conflict of interest given his role as attorney general of Oklahoma and other issues regarding his stance on climate change.
