President-elect Donald Trump has selected Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt to head the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
Pruitt has been a vocal critic of the EPA since being elected in the 2010 Tea Party wave. He has filed numerous lawsuits against the environmental policies of the Obama administration, winning big victories against the administration’s Clean Power Plan to combat climate change and the Waters of the United States rule to prevent pollution of America's waterways. Critics called the Waters of the United States rule charged that the rule constituted a land grab by the US government.
Pruitt called the Clean Power Plan an act of federal "coercion and commandeering" in an interview with Reuters in September.
“The left is going to hate him in the EPA. What they want is a bureaucrat they can push around, or a liberal governor like Christie Todd Whitman. They definitely don’t want Pruitt, a rule-of-law guy who relishes a fight,” a source close to Pruitt said.
Nevertheless, the source insisted that Pruitt only sought to reform the EPA. “He wants to mend it, not end it.” he said. “Pruitt is the nominee most likely to bring the EPA back within the legal limits that Congress and the Constitution impose upon it,”
Environmental groups criticized the appointment.
“Having Scott Pruitt in charge of the US Environmental Protection Agency is like putting an arsonist in charge of fighting fires,” said Michael Brune, the executive director of the Sierra Club environmental organization.
“He is a climate science denier who, as attorney general for the state of Oklahoma, regularly conspired with the fossil fuel industry to attack EPA regulations. Nothing less than our children’s health is at stake," added Brune.