WILL PRUITT LAST THROUGH THE WEEKEND? Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt as of Friday morning still has President Trump’s confidence despite a growing series of controversies. But will that last?

Trump wants you to think so.

Trump Friday morning decried the media “siege” facing the EPA chief and rejected other reports that have suggested he is considering replacing Attorney General Jeff Sessions with Pruitt.

“Do you believe that the Fake News Media is pushing hard on a story that I am going to replace A.G. Jeff Sessions with EPA Chief Scott Pruitt, who is doing a great job but is TOTALLY under siege?” Trump said in a Twitter post. “Do people really believe this stuff? So much of the media is dishonest and corrupt!”

Trump lauded Pruitt Thursday night for doing “a fantastic job” in his role as EPA chief.

• Coal country love: “I think he’s done a fantastic job. I think he’s done an incredible job. He’s been very courageous,” Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One after an event in West Virginia. “It hasn’t been easy, but I think he’s done a fantastic job.”

“I just left coal and energy country, they love Scott Pruitt. They feel strongly and love him,” he said.

• Ding, ding, ding: And that gets to the key factor why Pruitt supporters say Trump will have a much harder time deposing of him than other troubled Cabinet heads.

Pruitt is rolling back many of former President Barack Obama’s regulations on the coal industry as part of Trump’s “energy dominance” agenda, and the president — and his base — love it.

For the time being, Trump appears to not be convinced by the bad press Pruitt is receiving over outrageous spending on travel, his condo rental from the wife of an energy lobbyist, and firing and demoting staff who called him out on his travel decisions.   

• ‘Attack’ on Trump’: “I am confident that the White House and President Trump understand that Pruitt is not being attacked for minor personal lapses, but rather because he is in charge of accomplishing a key part of the president’s agenda,” Myron Ebell, the director of the Center for Energy and Environment who led Trump’s EPA transition team, told Josh. “This is really an attack on President Trump’s policies by his opponents.”

• Life without Pruitt: Other plugged-in sources tell Josh that Trump recognizes how difficult it would be for the Senate to confirm anyone as conservative as Pruitt, and worry he would be forced to choose a moderate in the mold of Christine Todd Whitman, an EPA administrator in the George W. Bush administration.

Pruitt’s expected deputy, Andrew Wheeler, hasn’t even been confirmed by the Senate, although the chamber is expected to vote on his nomination next week, after Congress returns from Easter recess.

• Mercurial Trump: Yet Trump can be fickle, as everyone knows, and for a president obsessed with media coverage, he could not have been too happy with the latest revelations involving Pruitt’s ethics and judgment reported on Thursday.

Indeed, the Washington Post and others reported that Trump was upset with a lengthy interview Pruitt gave Wednesday to Fox News, in which the EPA administrator struggled to defend heated questions about his controversies.

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HERE’S A RUNDOWN OF PRUITT’S GROWING PROBLEMS: In case you can’t keep up.

• Pruitt demoted EPA officials who questioned him on spending: Pruitt reassigned or demoted at least five officials, four of them high-ranking, after they reportedly raised concerns about his spending, including on travel, added security, and requests for bulletproof vehicles and a soundproof booth.

The New York Times reported that Pruitt was enraged after four career EPA employees and one Trump administration political appointee confronted him.

A report from CBS, meanwhile, said Pruitt took a security guard off his detail after he was told they could not use a siren to cut through traffic in Washington.

• He ‘endorsed’ massive raises for close aides: Pruitt endorsed giving massive raises to two close aides who joined him at the EPA from Oklahoma, senior counsel Sarah Greenwalt and scheduling and advance director Millan Hupp, although he did not carry out the payraise himself, according to the Washington Post.

That contradicts Pruitt’s assertion on Wednesday that he did not know his agency had given the raises after the White House rejected them.

• Condo lease initially listed energy lobbyist as landlord:Pruitt’s condo lease with an energy lobbyist originally included the name of the lobbyist, J. Steven Hart, as the landlord, even though he doesn’t own the condo. Hart’s wife, Vicki, does.

But, on Pruitt’s lease, which the Washington Examiner obtained, J. Steven Hart’s name was originally typed as “landlord” but was scratched out. Vicki Hart’s name was scribbled over his name in pen.

• Pruitt fell behind on condo payments: Pruitt fell behind on his $50-per-night payments for a bedroom in the condo. The Harts had to “pester” Pruitt for rent payments, Politico reported.

Pruitt, from late February to early August of last year, paid $50 per night for a single bedroom in the Capitol Hill condo. He was charged only for the nights he stayed there. If he had stayed there for 30 consecutive days, the monthly rent would have been $1,500. But canceled checks reviewed by Bloomberg show Pruitt made a payment of $1,700 on Sept. 1, suggesting he paid back rent.

• And one more … D.C. government hits condo owner: The D.C. government issued citation to the owners of the condo Pruitt rented because they did not have proper license to rent out the unit, local TV station NBC4 reported Thursday night. The owner could be fined $2,034, the network said.

CALLS FOR HEARINGS: The top Democrat on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, Rep. Elijah Cummings of Maryland, is urging Chairman Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., to call on Pruitt and his top aides to testify next week to explain the controversies.

“In light of a string of very troubling new allegations, I request that the Oversight Committee hold a hearing next week with sworn testimony from Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt and his aides,” Cummings wrote to Gowdy on Thursday.

Gowdy already is investigating Pruitt’s expenses.

FREEDOMWORKS LAUNCHES CAMPAIGN TO SAVE PRUITT: The conservative free-market group FreedomWorks has started what could become a last-ditch effort to defend Pruitt from the throngs of what it calls a liberal attack to oust him.

• ‘Smear campaign:’ “The radical left is running a smear campaign against @EPAScottPruitt in an attempt to force him out of the EPA,” the group tweeted late Thursday, before urging its followers to call the White House.  

“Call @realDonaldTrump at 202-849-7922 right now. Tell him you support Scott Pruitt as EPA Administrator! #StandWithScottPruitt #ampFW.”

“Scott Pruitt has worked hard to return the EPA to its core mission: protecting the environment as directed by Congress; instead of the rogue assault on the rule of law, freedom, and the economy that we saw in the prior administration,” said Adam Brandon, the group’s president.  

• What the ‘radical Left’ says: David Doniger, climate chief for the Natural Resources Defense Council, saw a lot of bad for Pruitt Thursday.

Take, for instance, the news about the energy lobbyist’s name being scratched out on Pruitt’s condo lease and the name of his wife placed above it. “It suggests they were trying to hide the direct nature of the sweetheart relationship between Pruitt and a lobbyist for energy industry polluters,” Doniger told John.

Hart, the lobbyist, has active ties to a prominent natural gas export firm, Cheniere Energy. Media reports speculate that Pruitt’s trip to Morocco last year to promote energy exports may have been to the benefit of the client.  

PRUITT BECOMES A JOKE AROUND TOWN: Doniger was busy tweeting Thursday, observing that cafes around Washington were offering what they called Scott Pruitt $50-per-night breakfast specials, poking fun at the embattled administrator.

New York Times reporter Eric Lipton posted a picture of a flyer on a Washington light pole Friday that said “live luxurious and cheap just like Scott.”

• Call EPA for rental ideas: The flyers had with “little pieces of paper you can tear off that have the EPA Office of Public Affairs office telephone number. As if they have not gotten enough calls this week,” he tweeted.

PRUITT INVOKES BASEBALL GREAT TO PLAY UP ACHIEVEMENTS AMID SCANDALS: “I think we’re batting at a Ted Williams level at least with respect to getting things done,” Pruitt said in an interview with Washington Examiner columnist Paul Bedard.

• Heavy hitter reference: Williams was often referred to as the “greatest hitter that ever lived.” Pruitt, as Bedard pointed out, tried out twice for the Cincinnati Reds then eventually went on to own the Oklahoma City AAA farm team for the Los Angeles Dodgers.

“Naturally, he likes to use baseball lingo when addressing bigger issues, like his controversial stewardship of the agency,” Bedard wrote.

The EPA under Pruitt has surpassed Trump’s demands to take environmental policy back from Obama-era liberals, Bedard writes.

TRUMP WHITE HOUSE HARDER TO READ THAN THE KREMLIN: The climate skeptics at the Heartland Institute are, of course, backing Pruitt, but the group admits it’s getting harder to read the tea leaves when it comes to the administration.

• Quote of the day: “Kremlinology easier to figure out than Trumpology,” Jim Lakely, the group’s spokesman, told John, referring to the Cold War-era tea leaf reading of the former Soviet Union.

Take, for instance, the news about the climate red teams. White House chief of staff John Kelly supposedly “put the brakes” on that idea a long time ago, but Pruit is still talking about it, Lakely said. “So who knows? … Who’s right?”

“I think if it happens or doesn’t happen” it’s “up to Trump,” Lakely said.

• Pruitt has guts: “Scott Pruitt is under attack because he and President Trump have the guts to reverse years of bureaucratic overreach and misconduct at EPA – nearly all of it improper and much of it illegal,” said Heartland Institute President Tim Huelskamp.

“Elections have consequences, and one of them is a new EPA administrator implementing the Trump energy freedom agenda.”

IN ACTUAL POLICY NEWS, PRUITT PREPS EXECUTIVE ORDER ON AIR POLLUTION: Meanwhile, Pruitt is continuing his deregulation agenda, as Trump on Friday plans to sign an executive order prepared by Pruitt expediting air-quality permits.

The order, which Pruitt foreshadowed in a recent interview with the Washington Times, would impose “additional changes’” to the National Ambient Air Quality Standards, the EPA program regulating air pollution such as ozone and particulate matter. It would change the way the federal government evaluates if states are meeting national air pollution standards.

Pruitt visited Kentucky Thursday to preview his plans with the Association of Air Pollution Control Agencies.

AND NOW FOR SOME NON-PRUITT NEWS … TRUMP ‘TRYING’ TO SAVE COAL, NUCLEAR PLANTS WITH EMERGENCY POWERS: Trump on Thursday said his administration is considering granting a request for an emergency order to save nuclear and coal power plants across the Midwest.

“We’ll be looking at that 202, you know what a 202 is, we’ll be looking at that, we’re trying,” Trump said during off-the-cuff remarks at roundtable event on tax reform in West Virginia.

“About nine of your people just came up to me outside, could you talk about 202, and we’ll be looking at that as soon as we get back.”

• Translating Trump: Trump is referring to section 202 of the Federal Power Act, which gives Energy Secretary Rick Perry the authority to direct the “temporary” continued use of power plants in circumstances that include war, energy shortages, or sudden surges in demand.

Ohio utility First Energy late last month asked Perry to use that provision, soon after it announced it would close three of its nuclear plants in Ohio and Pennsylvania.

MOODY’S SAYS LET FIRST ENERGY BURN TO HELP COAL: A credit analysis issued by credit rating giant Moody’s says First Energy’s planned nuclear plant closures is an all-around positive for other power plant operators in the PJM energy market.

Its analysis suggests that letting the plants close as scheduled will raise prices for other power plants looking to bid into the PJM auction next month. And that is a good thing for other power plants, such as coal-powered ones, that are facing economic hurdles.

• Let ‘em close: “The closures likely will raise prices in the next PJM capacity auction in late May, a material upside for other generators and project finance transactions with exposure to the PJM market,” the analysis read.

• Don’t bet on federal and state subsidies: “Although federal or state subsidies could ultimately rescue these plants, repeated efforts to gain state-sponsored financial support in the past two years have failed.”

First Energy’s electric marketing arm filed for bankruptcy recently in asking the Trump administration for emergency help. Opponents of the request say going through bankruptcy restructuring will do more to help the company’s align power plants than an Energy Department emergency order.

RENEWABLES OUTGROW ALL OTHER ENERGY SOURCES IN 2017: More renewable energy sources came online globally than power generated from fossil fuels, the United Nations Environment Program said in a report Thursday.

The report found that 157 gigawatts of renewable power went onto the grid in 2017, more than double the 70 gigawatts generated from new fossil fuel sources.

• Sun shines on China: China led the development, with the country accounting for nearly half of all renewable energy investments worldwide.

It spent $86.5 billion on solar energy in 2017 in what the report hailed as “an extraordinary solar boom.”

The cost of electricity from large-scale solar projects globally has dropped by 72 percent since 2009, the study said.

• Ways to go: Renewables still represent just 12 percent of global electricity generation.

US SPENT $60 MILLION ON FAULTY POWER LINES IN AFGHANISTAN: The U.S. military spent $60 million to build a new section of the Afghanistan power grid that doesn’t work properly and could put nearby residents at risk, the Pentagon’s reconstruction watchdog said Thursday.

Mismanagement by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers was responsible for the troubled power line project, which has resulted in a system that is not operational and may be structurally unsound and unsafe, according to the report by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, or SIGAR.

It was one part of a larger projects aimed at providing more electricity to Afghans, and one the U.S. military said would help stabilize the country after years of war.

RUNDOWN

New York Times Quietly, Trump officials and California seek deal on car emissions

Bloomberg Coal generator’s bankruptcy threatens solar farm in Maryland

Reuters Russia says wider cooperation arrangement with OPEC could be indefinite

Washington Post Shell foresaw climate dangers in 1988 and understood Big Oil’s role

Bloomberg Hidden by Model 3 mess, Tesla’s other problem is about to emerge

NPR In March, Portugal made enough renewable energy to power the whole country