Vox - Scott Pruitt resigns as EPA administratorhttps://cdn.vox-cdn.com/community_logos/52517/voxv.png2019-02-28T14:35:26-05:00http://www.vox.com/rss/stream/173021252019-02-28T14:35:26-05:002019-02-28T14:35:26-05:00The Senate just confirmed a former coal lobbyist to lead the EPA
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<img alt="Acting EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler Addresses Staff At EPA Headquarters" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/6njn39WxT58yR8DMP9GXGP1pEtc=/8x0:3000x2244/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/60277393/996382144.jpg.1547060071.jpg" />
<figcaption>Andrew Wheeler | Mark Wilson/Getty Images</figcaption>
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<p>Three things to know about Andrew Wheeler.</p> <p id="IrPhdz">The Senate has officially confirmed former coal lobbyist Andrew Wheeler for the role of EPA administrator, a position he had taken over in an acting capacity <a href="https://www.vox.com/2018/7/5/17192716/scott-pruitt-resigns-epa-administrator-andrew-wheeler">following Scott Pruitt’s resignation last July</a>.</p>
<p id="VG8Omz">Wheeler, who was confirmed for the EPA deputy administrator role in April 2018, appears to be cut from much of the same cloth as his former boss when it comes to <a href="https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2018/1/29/16684952/epa-scott-pruitt-director-regulations">rolling back environmental regulations</a>. Here are three key facts to know about the person who will continue overseeing the Environmental Protection Agency.</p>
<h3 id="2pLKZd">1) He’s worked for the coal industry </h3>
<p id="6uoIJV">Wheeler is a former lobbyist who represented Murray Energy, a massive mining company, as one of his chief clients. Murray Energy was <a href="https://www.law.com/nationallawjournal/2018/07/05/meet-andrew-wheeler-the-ex-washington-lobbyist-now-at-epas-helm/?slreturn=20180605175142">among the companies</a> Wheeler listed on his <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/4387529-Andrew-Wheeler-Financial-Disclosure.html">financial disclosures</a> while he was being considered for the deputy administrator position. Others included Xcel Energy and General Mills. </p>
<p id="CpyqSV">Murray Energy CEO Robert Murray is also a well-known Trump adviser and supporter, who Wheeler worked with closely.</p>
<p id="8eNuKB"><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/09/climate/coal-murray-trump-memo.html">As a New York Times story lays out</a>, Murray was the architect of a so-called environmental regulations wish list, which detailed a list of policies aimed at reinvigorating the coal industry such as curbing restrictions on greenhouse gases and slashing staff at the EPA. Wheeler and Murray were photographed at a March 2017 meeting with Energy Secretary Rick Perry, where many of these policies were purportedly discussed. </p>
<p id="efdxer">All this suggests that Wheeler won’t be particularly aggressive toward the coal industry while in office.<strong> </strong>“Andrew Wheeler’s coal credentials are without equal,” Sen. Edward Markey has said, according to <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/andrew-wheeler-acting-epa-administrator-former-number-two-before-scott-pruitt-resignation/">CBS News</a>. “He is, without question, a member of the coal industry’s Hall of Fame.”</p>
<h3 id="xRTWFJ">2) He doesn’t think climate change is the “greatest crisis”</h3>
<p id="CMc3Qx">Wheeler was also a longtime staffer for Sen. Jim Inhofe, serving as chief counsel for the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee while the lawmaker was chair, according to <a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/news/12042018/epa-andrew-wheeler-senate-confirmation-vote-murray-energy-coal-lobbyist-climate-denial-inhofe-pruitt">Inside Climate News</a>. All told, Wheeler spent 14 years working with Inhofe on the Hill. </p>
<p id="WlZtlJ">Inhofe was among Pruitt’s biggest fans, although the barrage of scandals ultimately began to <a href="https://www.vox.com/2018/6/13/17460550/scott-pruitt-epa-dark-money-republicans">dim his enthusiasm</a>. Inhofe is known for denying that climate change is affected by human activity, <a href="http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/234026-sen-inhofe-throws-snowball-to-disprove-climate-change">once throwing a snowball</a> onto the Senate floor to counter arguments about climate change and prove that it was “very, very cold” outside. (His former staffers have become nicknamed by some as the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/05/climate/wheeler-epa-pruitt.html">“Inhofe mafia.”</a>) </p>
<p id="sihLht"><a href="https://www.vox.com/2019/1/16/18185306/andrew-wheeler-epa-confirmation-senate">During a congressional hearing earlier this year</a>, Wheeler discussed the threat of climate change, and acknowledged that humans play a role. He stopped short, however, from deeming climate change the “greatest crisis” the world currently faces. “I would not call it the greatest crisis, no sir. I would call it a huge issue that has to be addressed globally,” he said, noting that his concerns come out at an “8 or 9” on a 1 to 10 scale. </p>
<h3 id="Jdhftf">3) He’s got more Washington experience than much of Trump’s Cabinet</h3>
<p id="xohnH3"><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/05/climate/wheeler-epa-pruitt.html">As the New York Times points out</a>, however, there is one crucial way that Wheeler differs from his departing boss. Pruitt was Oklahoma’s attorney general before being named to Trump’s Cabinet, and an outsider who recklessly took advantage of the privileges he obtained. Wheeler is seen as a seasoned political operative who knows how to carefully traverse the system. (He was also at the EPA as a special assistant in the agency’s Office of Pollution Prevention and Toxics for four years before he worked for Inhofe.)</p>
<blockquote><p id="pHVWKT">Unlike Mr. Pruitt — who had come to Washington as an outsider and aspiring politician, only to get caught up in a swirl of controversy over his costly first-class travel and security spending — Mr. Wheeler is viewed as a consummate Washington insider who avoids the limelight and has spent years effectively navigating the rules. </p></blockquote>
<p id="SMYRRg">Pruitt’s goals as EPA administrator have centered on crafting (or destroying) policy in order to establish a friendlier regime for the fossil fuel industry. His efforts have included <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/4/6/17202158/scott-pruitt-epa-scandal-ethics-regulations-water-air">revising emissions standards for cars and trucks</a>, <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/4/6/17202158/scott-pruitt-epa-scandal-ethics-regulations-water-air">increasing his control over the implementation of the Clean Water Act</a> and <a href="https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2018/1/29/16684952/epa-scott-pruitt-director-regulations">weakening standards on hazardous </a><a href="https://www.vox.com/2018/6/9/17441484/scott-pruitt-epa-chemicals-cost-benefit-analysis">chemicals</a><a href="https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2018/1/29/16684952/epa-scott-pruitt-director-regulations">.</a> </p>
<p id="RdSvBT">It appears that Wheeler is on track to do more of the same — and his insider instincts and methodical nature could mean even more effective rollbacks. (A number of Pruitt policies are thought to be <a href="https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/04/07/scott-pruitt-epa-accomplishments-rollback-217834">shoddily constructed</a> and have faced <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/05/climate/wheeler-epa-pruitt.html">significant legal challenges</a>.) </p>
<p id="m1vG1q">As Trump said himself, “I have no doubt that Andy will continue on with our great and lasting EPA agenda.”</p>
https://www.vox.com/2018/7/5/17538160/andrew-wheeler-epa-scott-pruittLi Zhou2018-09-05T09:50:01-04:002018-09-05T09:50:01-04:00EPA watchdog: turns out Scott Pruitt didn’t need 20 security guards
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<img alt="Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Scott Pruitt testifies about the fiscal year 2018 budget during a Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, June 27, 201" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/-tU4JZXVytc9cos4o2IrOs6HKeI=/310x0:5259x3712/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/61147365/scott_pruitt.0.jpg" />
<figcaption>Former Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt didn’t adequately justify his 20-person security detail, according to the inspector general. | Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images</figcaption>
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<p>The former administrator’s bloated security detail was unwarranted, the EPA’s Office of the Inspector General found.</p> <p id="3HoFFT">Scott Pruitt’s stint as head of the Environmental Protection Agency may have come to a conclusively inelegant end, but his blunders continue to haunt the Trump administration.</p>
<p id="TdyrFc">Pruitt was forced to <a href="https://www.vox.com/2018/7/5/17192716/scott-pruitt-resigns-epa-administrator-andrew-wheeler">resign in July</a> after a flood of alleged ethics breaches became too much for his boss, President Trump, to bear. From Pruitt using his motorcade’s lights and sirens to make dinner reservations to asking his scheduler to help secure a Chick-fil-A franchise for his wife, the administrator’s conduct in office left corruption watchdogs scrambling.</p>
<p id="J7JL5Z">By the time he resigned, Pruitt had triggered more than a dozen <a href="https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2018/4/12/17216254/epa-scott-pruitt-investigations-scandal-condo">audits, inquiries, and investigations</a> across the government. Many of the investigations are still underway, and on Tuesday, the EPA’s <a href="https://www.epa.gov/office-inspector-general/report-epa-asserts-statutory-law-enforcement-authority-protect-its">Office of the Inspector General</a> released its report looking at Pruitt’s security detail. Like the investigation into Pruitt’s <a href="https://www.vox.com/2018/4/16/17243048/scott-pruitt-gao-illegal-phone-booth-law">$43,000 phone booth</a>, this one also concluded that the security detail was overkill and was unwarranted.</p>
<p id="31Bplm">You may recall that Pruitt received a full-time security detail with upward of 20 members, an unprecedented ask from an EPA administrator. The team even accompanied Pruitt on personal trips to Disneyland and the Rose Bowl. (You may also recall his security detail had to break down the door of the condo he rented for <a href="https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2018/4/3/17189462/scott-pruitt-condo-epa-ethics-scandal">$50 a night</a> from a lobbyist’s wife. It turned out Pruitt was napping.)</p>
<p id="MzEBmb">Keeping 20 burly security workers on hand around the clock wasn’t just unnecessary; it was also very expensive. The inspector general reported that security costs more than doubled from $1.6 million to $3.5 million during Pruitt’s first 11 months in office, and that the threats Pruitt reported did not justify the increase.</p>
<p id="g3rZ0h">Pruitt said he needed bodyguards because he was facing an increased number of threats, from <a href="https://www.vox.com/2018/2/14/17013568/epa-scott-pruitt-first-class-flights">hostile passengers</a> on aircraft to threatening posts on Twitter and Facebook. But the IG found that Pruitt requested a beefed-up security team even before his <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-05-14/pruitt-got-24-7-armed-security-on-first-day-at-epa">first day in office</a>.</p>
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<cite>EPA Office of the Inspector General</cite>
<figcaption>Protective services detail staffing increased under Scott Pruitt while overall agency staffing decreased.</figcaption>
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<p id="PkUAaO">The audit, it turns out, began in September 2016, well before Pruitt took over the EPA. It was triggered based on complaints that members of the protective services detail for the prior administrator were not properly reporting their hours. </p>
<p id="lQomKr">But due to Pruitt’s increased security demands, the IG expanded the scope of the inquiry to his round-the-clock protection. Prior administrators only received “portal to portal” protection. That means security is present when the official is on the clock and moving from one place to another. Protective details in the past were usually made up of just six agents and didn’t accompany their charge on personal trips. </p>
<p id="A4p2y7">The EPA also used to have the US Marshals Service provide security, but Pruitt’s detail was made up of agents reassigned from the EPA’s Criminal Investigation Division. So the IG probe also looked into whether the EPA had the authority to make this change. </p>
<p id="jp9p5G">As for the legal justification for pulling in criminal investigators for security duty, the IG reported that the EPA stalled for a year before putting out a legal opinion arguing that the change is permitted. The IG’s office said it doesn’t have a position on this argument, but said that the agency doesn’t have adequate policies in place to make sure the agents are spending their time appropriately among their criminal investigation duties. </p>
<p id="ViayJR">The report shows that the EPA’s internal controls are working but that it’s hard to keep up with someone so prolific in his indiscretions as Pruitt. And the scrutiny has led to some changes. </p>
<p id="tPyUwt">Acting Administrator <a href="https://www.vox.com/2018/7/5/17538160/andrew-wheeler-epa-scott-pruitt">Andrew Wheeler</a>, Pruitt’s successor, has downgraded his security team to be more in line with those of previous administrators of the EPA. As for Pruitt himself, he’s been keeping a low profile. But there are rumblings about a potential return to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/08/us/pruitt-oklahoma.html">politics in Oklahoma</a>, where he served as attorney general before his inglorious tenure at the EPA. </p>
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https://www.vox.com/2018/9/5/17819548/epa-scott-pruitt-inspector-security-detailUmair Irfan2018-08-16T10:37:40-04:002018-08-16T10:37:40-04:00The EPA refuted its own bizarre justification for rolling back fuel efficiency standards
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<img alt="A Model S sits on the showroom floor at a Tesla dealership on March 30, 2018 in Chicago, Illinois.&nbsp;" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/zyquqjC_EDViEqiRUbfroWdpF0A=/167x0:2834x2000/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/59243871/Tesla_EPA_Efficiency.0.jpg" />
<figcaption>A Tesla Model S sits on the showroom floor at a dealership. The electric carmaker could lose some of the money it makes selling efficiency credits under the EPA’s new rules. | Scott Olson/Getty Images</figcaption>
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<p>The agency claims it will save lives by making safe cars more affordable. Internal emails showed that the proposal would be more dangerous.</p> <p id="2uBf2m">The Environmental Protection Agency is starting to roll back one of the most important Obama-era policies for fighting climate change: fuel efficiency standards. At the same time, the agency is also picking a knock-down, drag-out legal fight with states that want tougher car emission rules. </p>
<p id="7Zx6Bs">The EPA justified this proposal by invoking safety, arguing that higher efficiency standards make it harder to buy safer cars. But emails revealed this week that the EPA’s strange rationale didn’t hold up under the agency’s own analysis. In fact, the proposed changes would increase fatalities, as Ellen Knickmeyer reported for the <a href="https://apnews.com/1a7551fca3294ec49029b93e994cd7f9">Associated Press</a>:</p>
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<p id="zbiXBo">In announcing the mileage proposal earlier this month, officials with the EPA and Department of Transportation contended the mileage freeze would save about 1,000 lives a year. But in a June email, senior EPA staffers told the Office of Management and Budget — the White House office charged with evaluating regulatory changes — that it would slightly increase highway deaths, by 17 annually.</p>
<p id="Bp5B6f">The “proposed standards are detrimental to safety, rather than beneficial,” William Charmley, director of the assessments and standards division of the EPA’s office of transportation and air quality, said in a June 18 interagency email, released Tuesday.</p>
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<p id="l3ZmBy">This directly contradicts what senior EPA officials said publicly about the <a href="https://www.epa.gov/regulations-emissions-vehicles-and-engines/safer-and-affordable-fuel-efficient-vehicles-proposed">proposed new fuel economy regulations</a> released earlier this month by the EPA and the US Department of Transportation. “More realistic standards can save lives while continuing to improve the environment,” said EPA Acting Administrator <a href="https://www.transportation.gov/briefing-room/dot4818">Andrew Wheeler</a> in a statement.</p>
<p id="reKPMi">The proposal would ramp up fuel economy standards for cars and light-duty trucks until 2021, and then freeze them. The previous Obama-era standard continued to ratchet up fuel efficiency after 2021.<strong> </strong>The change would also revoke California’s waiver to set its own rules under the Clean Air Act, rules that 13 other states and the District of Columbia also follow. </p>
<p id="JMao4I">California is already swinging back:</p>
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<p lang="en" dir="ltr">California will fight this stupidity in every conceivable way possible: <a href="https://t.co/OWqbFIUmUl">https://t.co/OWqbFIUmUl</a> <a href="https://t.co/qrH7gSaWDn">https://t.co/qrH7gSaWDn</a></p>— Jerry Brown (@JerryBrownGov) <a href="https://twitter.com/JerryBrownGov/status/1025021124608835584?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 2, 2018</a>
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<p id="gauWI2">The <a href="https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2018/1/11/16874696/greenhouse-gas-co2-target-2017-paris-trump">transportation sector</a> is now the largest greenhouse gas emitter in the United States. That’s why enforcing strict fuel economy standards — i.e., going further with less fossil fuels — would reduce the country’s contribution to global climate change. Vehicles are also the largest source of <a href="https://www.ucsusa.org/clean-vehicles/vehicles-air-pollution-and-human-health#.WrUyO5PwbUq">air pollution</a>, so reducing what comes out of tailpipes would save lives.<strong> </strong></p>
<p id="MnRuh7">The Obama-era standards would avert 570 million metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions by 2030, equivalent to stopping 140 typical coal-fired power plants for a year, the <a href="https://www.ucsusa.org/clean-vehicles/fuel-efficiency/fuel-economy-basics.html">Union of Concerned Scientists</a> has estimated. </p>
<p id="4EIzuA">They’d save consumers money too.<strong> </strong>According to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/30/opinion/emissions-standards-auto-industry.html">Margo Oge</a>, the former head of the EPA’s Office of Transportation and Air Quality, the fuel savings alone through 2025 would add up to $1.7 trillion. </p>
<p id="BCOq80">The Trump administration, however, has argued that the prior Obama standards would drain society of <a href="https://www.epa.gov/newsreleases/us-epa-and-dot-propose-fuel-economy-standards-my-2021-2026-vehicles">$500 billion</a> over the next 50 years through increased car ownership costs and their ripple effects.</p>
<p id="2Snmrt">Vox’s David Roberts has written about the environmental consequences the <a href="https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2018/5/3/17314000/trump-epa-cars-trucks-fuel-economy-cafe-standards">new regulations</a> could have if they go into effect, but it’s also worth examining the EPA’s safety rationale and how it will affect the auto industry. </p>
<p id="WR7tl4">In particular, the Trump administration<strong> </strong>changes would let companies like Chrysler and GM, which rank the lowest in <a href="https://www.cars.com/articles/corporate-average-fuel-economy-how-automakers-rank-1420683347495/">average fuel economy</a>, breathe easier. They also cut a crucial revenue stream for carmakers like Honda that already beat the current standards and manufacturers like Tesla, which only makes zero-emission electric vehicles. </p>
<p id="eO2Z4H">That means the weaker regulations will simultaneously help the dirtiest, hurt the cleanest, and derail years of tenuous progress in reducing environmental harm from a massive and growing source of pollution.</p>
<h3 id="ZjEE84">The EPA is justifying the fuel economy rollback by invoking safety</h3>
<p id="LYg8ct">New cars are expensive. New cars with more features are even more expensive. Safety is a feature. So is fuel economy. But raising fuel economy standards raises the retail prices of cars. That means people with older death-trap cars will be less inclined to upgrade to newer, safer cars. </p>
<p id="4ZVgrT">Therefore, according to the EPA’s peculiar logic, raising fuel economy standards will kill motorists. Lowering them will save lives. </p>
<p id="30zMtT">“[The new fuel efficiency proposal] is anticipated to prevent thousands of on-road fatalities and injuries as compared to the standards set forth in the 2012 final rule,” the EPA wrote in a press release about the announcement. The EPA said the proposed changes would save <a href="https://www.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2018-08/documents/420f18901.pdf">1,000 lives per year</a>. </p>
<p id="ExoW4K">Wait, what? </p>
<p id="fG7fqj">I asked the EPA for clarification on these points, and they referred me back to their press release.</p>
<p id="Nx6OJw">Here’s the problem, though:</p>
<p id="hGHyTt">Yes, <a href="https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/ViewPublication/812528">newer cars are safer</a>. But efficiency has been advancing in tandem with safety, and average fuel economy reached a <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-autos-emissions/u-s-vehicle-fuel-economy-rises-to-record-24-7-mpg-epa-idUSKBN1F02BX">record high</a> this year. Americans are driving <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/02/21/516512439/record-number-of-miles-driven-in-u-s-last-year">farther than ever</a>, but the fatality rate has fallen drastically over the past four decades:</p>
<figure class="e-image">
<img alt="Traffic deaths compared to vehicle miles traveled." data-mask-text="false" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/rXluo-fqLQU0SHnGWQxmSfF4xA8=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/11913437/Screen_Shot_2018_08_02_at_1.51.27_PM.png">
<cite><a class="ql-link" href="https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/Publication/812456" target="_blank">National Highway Transportation Safety Administration</a></cite>
<figcaption>Traffic deaths compared to vehicle miles traveled (VMT).</figcaption>
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<p id="gCkiI2">The EPA said the Obama rules would add an additional $2,340 to the overall ownership costs of a new vehicle. Given that the <a href="https://newsroom.aaa.com/2015/04/annual-cost-operate-vehicle-falls-8698-finds-aaa-archive/">annual cost to own a car</a> is around $8,000, an additional $468 per year over five years for a more efficient car or truck isn’t a deal breaker for most buyers.</p>
<p id="Mbl4ZU">The other part of the EPA’s safety argument is that more fuel-efficient cars tend to be lighter and therefore more vulnerable in accidents. And people with <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2018/8/2/17617692/trump-administration-epa-dot-lower-vehicle-fuel-efficiency-rules-greenhouse-gas-emissions">fuel sippers</a> would be inclined to drive them more, thereby increasing the likelihood of getting into a wreck. So heavy, dirty cars are good because they use so much gas that people will drive them less, according to the EPA. </p>
<p id="ja3V2h">On the other hand, air pollution from vehicles is responsible for <a href="https://www.ucsusa.org/clean-vehicles/vehicles-air-pollution-and-human-health">30,000 premature deaths</a>. It stands to reason that the lives saved by improving efficiency and reducing air pollution outweigh the lives saved by potential car buyers on the margins upgrading to safer cars. Also, one of the biggest reasons new cars became so safe is because of sweeping <a href="https://www.nhtsa.gov/sites/nhtsa.dot.gov/files/documents/motor_vehicle_safety_unrelated_uncodified_provisions_may2013.pdf">federal regulations</a>, so if saving lives is the goal, this is the better way to do it. </p>
<p id="SgjME7">That’s why state environmental regulators are deeply skeptical.</p>
<p id="5AORtY">“At first glance, this proposal completely misrepresents costs and savings. It also relies on bizarre assumptions about consumer behavior to make its case on safety,” said California Air Resources Board Chair Mary D. Nichols in a statement. “CARB will examine all 978 pages of fine print to figure out how the Administration can possibly justify its absurd conclusion that weakening standards to allow dirtier, less efficient vehicles will actually save lives and money.” </p>
<h3 id="5B5bVU">Fuel economy rules were put in place to save automakers from a crisis</h3>
<p id="zjLpZJ">It’s important to remember why the Obama administration imposed these rules in the first place. Here’s some brief history: After the 2008 financial crash and the ensuing economic crisis, Chrysler and General Motors were on the ropes and came to Congress with their hands out looking for a <a href="http://prospect.org/article/unpopular-successful-auto-bailout">bailout</a>. They received cheap loans and financial assistance under Presidents Bush and Obama totaling almost $80 billion, with a <a href="http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2015/jan/22/barack-obama/obama-says-automakers-have-paid-back-all-loans-it-/">net cost to taxpayers</a> of $9.3 billion. </p>
<p id="azrXC8">A big reason US car companies were foundering was that gas prices suddenly shot up and US automakers, who for years were making bigger, thirstier cars, were suddenly facing a cash-crunched, fuel-abstemious market. </p>
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<img alt=" " data-mask-text="false" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/6DJks_v5cPWyKuOvy6MpZDuDdQc=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/10570999/Screen_Shot_2018_04_02_at_11.19.15_AM.png">
<cite>Energy Information Administration</cite>
<figcaption>Look at the peak on the left.</figcaption>
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<p id="OA71Tj">So the Obama administration told US car companies they needed to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions and improve their efficiency to better compete with foreign automakers, marking the biggest increase in fuel economy regulations in 30 years. </p>
<p id="ggWOYC">This manifested as a combination of rules across the EPA, the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration, and the California Air Resources Board finalized in 2012. </p>
<p id="L0b2Ls">The key target was that automakers would have to reduce their average greenhouse gas emissions from the passenger cars and light trucks they sell to 163 grams per mile by 2025. A subtle point here is the EPA estimated meeting this goal with just fuel efficiency improvements means car companies would have to achieve an average economy of 54.5 miles per gallon across their offerings, assuming more cars than trucks are sold. That doesn’t mean that 54.5 mpg is the actual benchmark for all car companies. </p>
<p id="fXhQcF">Sam Ori, executive director of the Energy Policy Institute at the University of Chicago, explained that the fuel economy standard was designed to adapt to consumer behavior. It’s measured based on the vehicle’s footprint, so larger cars and trucks have to meet less stringent targets.</p>
<p id="it7UeG">So if people buy more SUVs, a car company is allowed to have a lower average fuel economy. On the other hand, this can push carmakers to build larger and larger vehicles (witness the growth of <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/joannmuller/2018/01/10/the-worlds-most-popular-cars-in-2017-included-fewer-cars-more-suvs/#6359a92633e8">crossover SUVs</a>). </p>
<p id="FZZzPj">“Footprint-based standards incentivize automakers to make bigger vehicles,” he said. </p>
<p id="XTMX3m">A car company can also reduce its greenhouse gas emissions with tactics like limiting coolant leaks and by buying credits. Based on current trends and projections, the EPA estimates that the current rules will require a real-world <a href="https://www.epa.gov/fuel-economy-trends/highlights-co2-and-fuel-economy-trends">average fuel economy</a> of 36 miles per gallon by 2025, up from 24.7 miles per gallon in 2016. </p>
<p id="vauKYD">To make sure the rules are working, the EPA is required to conduct a <a href="https://www.epa.gov/regulations-emissions-vehicles-and-engines/midterm-evaluation-light-duty-vehicle-greenhouse-gas#previoussteps">midterm evaluation</a> to make sure manufacturers are doing their best and to see whether the rules are too strict. </p>
<p id="zZg2we">The Obama administration reported in January 2017, shortly before Trump took office, that everything was hunky-dory. Then-EPA Administrator <a href="https://www.vox.com/2018/7/5/17192716/scott-pruitt-resigns-epa-administrator-andrew-wheeler">Scott Pruitt</a> said it wasn’t.</p>
<p id="lg9pyq">“The Obama Administration’s determination was wrong,” Pruitt<a href="https://www.epa.gov/newsreleases/epa-administrator-pruitt-ghg-emissions-standards-cars-and-light-trucks-should-be"> said</a> in a press release. “Obama’s EPA cut the Midterm Evaluation process short with politically charged expediency, made assumptions about the standards that didn’t comport with reality, and set the standards too high.”</p>
<p id="DvtVqM">But the document the EPA links to as background for the rollback announcement reports that the ruling from former EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy was “based on an extensive technical record, created over 8 years of research, review of several hundred published reports, hundreds of stakeholder meetings, and multiple opportunities for the public to provide input.”</p>
<p id="KAL1Y5">Ori said the new proposal is thin on its technical justifications. “It does not rise to the level of what the Obama administration did to put these rules into place,” he said.</p>
<p id="SzFJDE">Now the EPA is on a collision course with California and the 13 states that want stricter rules. The EPA said it wants a harmonized national fuel economy standard rather than a patchwork and said California’s benchmarks are “<a href="https://www.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2018-08/documents/420f18903.pdf">technologically infeasible.</a>”</p>
<p id="TgdSWc">“The Trump Administration has launched a brazen attack, no matter how it is cloaked, on our nation’s Clean Car Standards,” wrote California Attorney General Xavier Becerra in a statement. “The California Department of Justice will use every legal tool at its disposal to defend today’s national standards and reaffirm the facts and science behind them.”</p>
<h3 id="JdaPG6">Here’s how this hurts Tesla</h3>
<p id="C5YDKi">Since Tesla only makes electric cars, it can sell a variety of state and federal credits to other automakers who are having a harder time meeting the Obama-era goals. They come in three mutually exclusive categories: zero-emissions vehicle credits, greenhouse gas emissions credits, and fuel economy credits. </p>
<p id="84NeCL">“They can leverage the same car in multiple categories,” said Benjamin Leard, a research fellow at Resources for the Future. </p>
<p id="frZUcj">Other carmakers like <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-emissions-autos/fiat-chrysler-buys-tesla-toyota-honda-emissions-credits-idUSKBN0TZ2ZN20151216">Honda and Toyota</a> also sell credits since they are beating the current standards.</p>
<p id="hsR7Pg">According to Tesla’s latest <a href="https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1318605/000156459017003118/tsla-10k_20161231.htm">10-K filing</a> with the Securities and Exchange Commission, the company has seen more and more money coming in from selling these credits. “Revenue from the sale of regulatory credits totaled $360.3 million, $302.3 million and $168.7 million for the years ended December 31, 2017, 2016 and 2015, respectively,” according to the filing.</p>
<p id="6Wwnpp">The expectation was that as emissions limits ratchet down, conventional car companies would have to spend more on credits to comply with the rules or invest in cleaning up their cars. But with the emissions and fuel economy standards holding steady, the demand for new credits would shrink.</p>
<p id="hw6FGM">“I would certainly expect the prices of those credits to go down” with the rollback of the standards, Leard said. </p>
<p id="Hygz0H">Tesla is nonetheless gaining market share, though the company still wants tougher efficiency standards. “Fuel economy standards should be strengthened, not weakened,” Tesla spokeswoman Gina Antonini told Vox. “This is overwhelmingly the opinion of the scientific community.”</p>
<div id="zHKzsI">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
<p lang="en" dir="ltr">Model 3 now outsells all other premium mid-sized sedans in the US.....combined <a href="https://t.co/FhjKUGK58N">pic.twitter.com/FhjKUGK58N</a></p>— Tesla (@Tesla) <a href="https://twitter.com/Tesla/status/1024791046100738048?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 1, 2018</a>
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<p id="iNy2P6">After a wave of bad press, Tesla founder <a href="https://www.vox.com/2018/7/18/17576302/elon-musk-thai-cave-rescue-submarine">Elon Musk</a> was contrite on an <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2018/08/02/wall-street-says-elon-musks-contrition-on-tesla-call-could-be-most-v.html">earnings call</a> this month, but is facing new scrutiny from the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/15/business/tesla-musk-sec-subpoena-goldman.html">Securities and Exchange Commission</a> for tweeting about taking the company private. </p>
<p id="LJXwi7">Others in the auto industry are also not enthusiastic about the fuel economy rollback.</p>
<p id="CftxGf">Prior to Thursday’s EPA announcement, Wade Newton, a spokesperson for the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, said in an email that “While we have said that re-opening the midterm review was the right thing to do, the Alliance has long said that we support year-over-year increases in fuel economy.”</p>
<p id="effLZN">After the proposal was published, the Alliance said in a statement that they want the NHTSA, the EPA, and states to start negotiating a deal. “We urge California and the federal government to find a common sense solution that sets continued increases in vehicle efficiency standards while also meeting the needs of America’s drivers,” according to the statement.</p>
<p id="cITLib">The EPA’s fuel economy proposal will now be open to a 60-day review and the agency is taking public comments. The EPA and NHTSA will also hold three public hearings on the revisions. Dates have not been announced yet. </p>
https://www.vox.com/2018/4/2/17181476/epa-fuel-economy-standards-teslaUmair Irfan2018-08-02T11:20:18-04:002018-08-02T11:20:18-04:00Trump is freezing Obama’s fuel economy standards. Here’s what that could do.
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<img alt="traffic" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/MK4VbsjxmVdO3hvZmjJh8wBysXM=/449x0:2701x1689/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/59614049/GettyImages_172944054.0.jpg" />
<figcaption>American traffic. | Getty Images</figcaption>
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<p>Quantifying the damage to our air and pockets. </p> <p id="yFC6nv">The Environmental Protection Agency, along with the the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, formally <a href="https://www.epa.gov/regulations-emissions-vehicles-and-engines/safer-and-affordable-fuel-efficient-vehicles-proposed">announced</a> Thursday that the agencies will abandon the long-term fuel economy standards for passenger cars and light trucks developed by the Obama administration for 2022-2025, declaring, without evidence, that they are “too high.” </p>
<p id="Qi5kd7">It plans to replace Obama’s standards, which required the auto industry to just about double the fuel economy of vehicles to an average of about 54 miles per gallon by 2025, with ... nothing. Instead, it will simply freeze the standard at the 2021 level. </p>
<p id="vs292j">What’s more, the EPA is <a href="http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-na-pol-epa-fuel-standards-20180402-story.html">revoking the Clean Air Act waiver</a> that allows California to set its own air quality standards (and thus its own fuel economy standards). That would force California and the 13 states (and DC) that follow its lead on fuel economy to conform to a federal standard that is certain to be weaker than they’d like.</p>
<div id="6oZsbz">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
<p lang="en" dir="ltr">The <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Trump?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Trump</a> Administration has launched a brazen attack, no matter how it is cloaked, on our nation's <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/CleanCarStandards?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#CleanCarStandards</a>. CA DOJ will use every legal tool at its disposal to defend today's national standards and reaffirm the facts and science behind them <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/EPA?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#EPA</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/CleanerCars?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#CleanerCars</a></p>— Xavier Becerra (@AGBecerra) <a href="https://twitter.com/AGBecerra/status/1025008588408807424?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 2, 2018</a>
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<p id="plsyOJ">It is <a href="https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2018/4/7/17205276/trump-scott-pruitt-tribalism">signature</a> Trump: a crude sledgehammer to regulations, with only desultory gestures at justification.</p>
<p id="DlkLbg">To be sure, many barriers stand between the EPA and its vision of higher tailpipe emissions. The EPA will have to do a whole new rulemaking process, which could take up to a year and be subject to legal challenge. And California has already signaled that it is <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/24/business/energy-environment/california-upholds-emissions-standards-setting-up-face-off-with-trump.html">moving ahead with its own stricter standards</a>, which means it’s headed for a legal showdown with the administration. </p>
<p id="c3G1Oh">A coalition of 17 states and DC <a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/news/01052018/states-lawsuit-epa-vehicle-emissions-standards-fuel-efficiency-rollback-pruitt-climate-change">filed suit against the administration</a> in May when it first announced its intentions to roll back the standards. They charge that it is acting arbitrarily and capriciously in tossing out Obama’s standards, which were the result of years of research, stakeholder meetings, and public engagement. </p>
<p id="AYnfFm">But let’s say Trump gets everything he wants — standards are frozen at 2021 levels and California loses its waiver. What effect would it have?</p>
<p id="S24lPh">The analysts at Rhodium Group in May sent out a short <a href="https://rhg.com/research/sizing-up-a-potential-fuel-economy-standards-freeze">research note</a> on that very question. While acknowledging that enormous uncertainty remains around the fate of the standards, they set out to model a world where Trump gets what he wants. </p>
<figure class="e-image">
<img alt="rolling coal" data-mask-text="false" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/sZe7_v3BY7zck9FsKPHBeOq__1A=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/7070387/rolling-coal.jpg">
<cite>YouTube</cite>
<figcaption>This is the future Trump wants.</figcaption>
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<h3 id="dgq75F">The effects of EPA’s fuel economy freeze</h3>
<p id="1mPwJ7">Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards regulate what kind of cars automakers must make. An automaker must sell so many fuel-efficient cars per so many SUVs, to hit a fleet average target.</p>
<p id="tskhsa">The cost of complying with the regulations depends crucially on the price of oil. If oil (and thus gas) prices are high, consumers will naturally seek fuel-efficient vehicles anyway, so the standard will be easy and cheap to meet. If oil (and thus gas) prices are low, consumers will naturally seek bigger vehicles, and the standards will start to bite. </p>
<p id="Jsxq7m">So Rhodium modeled three scenarios: low, reference, and high oil prices, drawn from International Energy Agency forecasts. </p>
<p id="CuZCIC">Here’s what the freeze would do to the average fuel economy of the fleet:</p>
<figure class="e-image">
<img alt="RHG: fuel economy freeze" data-mask-text="false" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/yZY_Rrv-pjX6yr_je1x_eMgNtEA=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/10772145/rhg_2018_cafe_fuel_efficiency.jpg">
<cite><a href="https://rhg.com/research/sizing-up-a-potential-fuel-economy-standards-freeze">RHG</a></cite>
</figure>
<p id="sXd5R0">“Under Obama-era standards, fleetwide fuel economy rises from 32 mpg today to <strong>between 44 and 46 mpg in 2025,</strong> depending on the price of oil,” Rhodium writes (emphasis mine). “Without updated standards after 2025, fuel economy improvements level off at lower oil prices and grow modestly at higher oil prices. If the Administration proceeds to freeze CAFE standards at 2020 levels, the fleetwide average reaches only about <strong>38 mpg in 2025</strong> under AEO 2018 reference oil prices, 36 mpg in a low oil price environment and 42 mpg under high oil prices.”</p>
<p id="jgTqqi">What does that translate to in terms of demand for oil?</p>
<figure class="e-image">
<img alt="RHG: oil demand" data-mask-text="false" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/6jywUEWqOEQ24L19Qz3W1Mr26m0=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/10772187/rhg_2018_cafe_oildemand.jpg">
<cite><a href="https://rhg.com/research/sizing-up-a-potential-fuel-economy-standards-freeze">RHG</a></cite>
</figure>
<p id="Gy1J3b">By 2025, the freeze would increase US oil consumption between 126,000 and 283,000 barrels a day; by 2030, assuming no change in standards, between 221,000 and 644,000 barrels a day. </p>
<p id="Evd9zV">“Purchasing this oil,” Rhodium writes, “would cost drivers an additional $193 to $236 billion cumulatively between now and 2035, again depending on oil prices.”</p>
<p id="fe9Whe">And finally, what about carbon dioxide emissions? </p>
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<img alt="RHG: emissions" data-mask-text="false" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/mu4tZMedW-Y5EXhyKycFdPriw7w=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/10772183/rhg_2018_cafe_oil_demand.jpg">
<cite><a href="https://rhg.com/research/sizing-up-a-potential-fuel-economy-standards-freeze">RHG</a></cite>
</figure>
<p id="qWKJLR">The emissions impact is modest early on, but it compounds over time, especially if oil prices remain low (again, assuming no change in standards). </p>
<h3 id="oecOsH">Slowing down on fuel economy is goofy</h3>
<p id="FJyjVT">In sum, the EPA’s plan would bequeath America vehicles that guzzle more gas, have higher fuel costs, produce more pollution, and <a href="https://www.vox.com/2018/4/2/17181476/tesla-epa-fuel-economy-standards">profit the dirtiest automakers</a>. </p>
<p id="SJy2hD">The damage would go beyond the numbers, though. As Rhodium notes, even if a future administration returns to these standards, the starting point will be lower. Low-carbon R&D and industry investment will have been delayed at a time when the entire transportation sector is approaching an <a href="https://www.vox.com/a/new-economy-future/transportation">inflection point</a> for which it is scarcely prepared. </p>
<aside id="t2fjmJ"><div data-anthem-component="readmore" data-anthem-component-data='{"stories":[{"title":"Cars and trucks are America’s biggest climate problem for the 2nd year in a row","url":"https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2018/1/11/16874696/greenhouse-gas-co2-target-2017-paris-trump"}]}'></div></aside><p id="GcjcJ8">US fuel economy standards are already among the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/04/03/climate/us-fuel-economy.html">lowest in the world</a>, and have been for a while. While the world’s auto industry <a href="https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2017/9/13/16293258/ev-revolution">stampedes toward electrification</a>, the US auto industry, drunk on <a href="http://www.latimes.com/business/autos/la-fi-hy-2017-auto-sales-overview-20171127-story.html">short-term SUV money</a>, is <a href="https://www.fastcompany.com/40555254/automakers-pushed-rollback-of-efficiency-rules-while-publicly-pledging-their-commitment">betraying the promise</a> it made to Obama (when he <a href="https://www.npr.org/2012/02/29/147616204/obama-reminds-critics-auto-industry-bailout-worked">bailed its ass out</a>) and doubling down on gasoline.</p>
<p id="Sul2wU">Worst of all, the EPA is indulging the worst instincts of the largest incumbents in the industry at a time when transportation has become <a href="https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2018/4/10/17214446/climate-fight-electricity">America’s biggest carbon challenge</a>. </p>
<p id="E4pXZB">If they lose CAFE standards, California and other states that are serious about climate change will have to find creative new ways to limit transportation emissions. There’s no way to decarbonize without taming transportation.</p>
<p id="2sBe0q"></p>
https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2018/5/3/17314000/trump-epa-cars-trucks-fuel-economy-cafe-standardsDavid Roberts2018-07-09T12:33:49-04:002018-07-09T12:33:49-04:00Scott Pruitt is leaving behind a toxic mess at the EPA
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<img alt="Scott Pruitt backed off the EPA’s pursuit of polluters," src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/lQBQTYU7A6VIhpkPsoFYp8fq5WY=/112x0:5104x3744/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/60283217/smokestack.0.0.jpg" />
<figcaption>Scott Pruitt backed off the EPA’s pursuit of polluters, | Shutterstock</figcaption>
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<p>Pruitt did lasting damage to the agency, and his replacement, Andrew Wheeler, will pick up where Pruitt left off.</p> <p id="ukL2bd">Scott Pruitt, the scandal-plagued administrator of the US Environmental Protection Agency, was forced <a href="https://www.vox.com/2018/7/5/17192716/scott-pruitt-resigns-epa-administrator-andrew-wheeler">to resign</a> on Thursday <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/05/climate/scott-pruitt-epa-trump.html">reportedly</a> because President Trump had grown weary of reports of Pruitt’s mounting <a href="https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2018/4/12/17216254/epa-scott-pruitt-investigations-scandal-condo">ethical breaches</a> and allegations this week that he had potentially <a href="https://twitter.com/tedlieu/status/1014004468059287557?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1014004468059287557&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fnewrepublic.com%2Fminutes%2F149618%2Fscott-pruitts-secret-calendars-break-law">broken a federal law</a>. </p>
<p id="MoHRvk">The <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/05/climate/scott-pruitt-epa-trump.html">New York Times</a> reported that Trump was particularly annoyed by reports that Pruitt had wanted the president to fire Attorney General Jeff Sessions and hire Pruitt for the post instead.</p>
<p id="Q41hNR">Pruitt’s deputy, former coal lobbyist <a href="https://www.epa.gov/newsreleases/andrew-wheeler-nominated-epa-deputy-administrator">Andrew Wheeler</a>, will take over the agency on Monday. </p>
<div id="kLBzzH">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
<p lang="en" dir="ltr">I have accepted the resignation of Scott Pruitt as the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency. Within the Agency Scott has done an outstanding job, and I will always be thankful to him for this. The Senate confirmed Deputy at EPA, Andrew Wheeler, will...</p>— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1014956568129892352?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 5, 2018</a>
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<p id="3DGTde">But what kind of legacy will Pruitt leave behind?</p>
<p id="BzAhld">For starters, Pruitt was openly and actively hostile toward the agency he ran. In his previous job as attorney general of Oklahoma, Pruitt had sued the EPA <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/3290872-Pruitt-v-EPA-a-Compilation-of-Oklahoma-14.html">14 times</a> and was a very close friend of the state’s <a href="https://stateimpact.npr.org/oklahoma/2017/05/22/with-pruitt-leading-epa-oklahoma-oil-firm-gains-ground-in-fight-against-regulation/">oil and gas industries</a>, sometimes <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2017/02/22/politics/scott-pruitt-epa-oklahoma/index.html">repeating their talking points verbatim</a>.</p>
<aside id="bThG1x"><div data-anthem-component="readmore" data-anthem-component-data='{"stories":[{"title":"Scott Pruitt gave “super polluting” trucks a gift on his last day at the EPA","url":"https://www.vox.com/2018/7/8/17544380/scott-pruitt-epa-truck-pollution-glider-kit-loophole"}]}'></div></aside><p id="coBRfB">After taking the reins at the EPA, he pushed for <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2018/02/12/trump-budget-seeks-23-percent-cut-at-epa-would-eliminate-dozens-of-programs/?utm_term=.fd668c7f9dec">budget and staff cuts to the agency</a>. He also worked aggressively to <a href="https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2018/1/29/16684952/epa-scott-pruitt-director-regulations">roll back, weaken, or stall environmental regulations</a>. </p>
<p id="zeRIzT">Pruitt frequently described the EPA as having been “<a href="http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/371987-pruitt-the-epa-was-picking-winners-and-losers">weaponized</a>” by past administrations to hamper the coal, oil, and natural gas industries so as to boost renewable energy concerns, and his policies reflected a desire to undo that perceived slight. In particular, Pruitt set his sights on rolling back the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/05/climate/clean-power-plan-replacement.html">Clean Power Plan</a>, the Obama administration’s signature climate change policy that targeted carbon dioxide emissions from power plants. </p>
<p id="QdgS5G">But some of the changes that Pruitt sought at the EPA went beyond industry matters and affect the health of everyday Americans. The administrator began reversing the proposal to ban the neurotoxic pesticide <a href="https://www.epa.gov/ingredients-used-pesticide-products/chlorpyrifos">chlorpyrifos</a>, going against <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/10/21/us/document-EPA-Chlorpyrifos-FOIA-Emails-to-NYT.html">all credible scientific advice</a>. He lifted <a href="http://email.prnewswire.com/wf/click?upn=R3XyahOfRiW9vRgKoRfNltkhNx4bVT909uyZrOA2JrQVckCVFdOgxWI5qHTX1fZYy3sPR7Y0QvZs3vPP2Wp5NvKih-2BHYnx-2F1GvSijnxKlOnulRWz-2BAs47oN-2Fwb4yoFOjb3kxGbjQW9CvRstpZI8Fc02hgNODrNGUxWfFKMy9i0m88-2F-2BhG6BwuL9gLKh6AQAVy7UST2EQgqNqgQfN1Xnc9shCHywndDFcVGerr39i1BqN7Q-2FUv8uWSmhD3PEHK3l1tW67HIAna0RHdLYTgEKiGw-3D-3D_1NgklM4juDN1JSoxSr1fqKxI9eXs4iHsZK1FBn-2BavFJuYwkguc1U8bpHMu-2FsN-2FKdwGTyrqF3OcWvncnBw30365LhukW14XjvZWh5x5iCJGhehyBAyq2gIx22WA5HkBUZmshMw8zL75yM6pmLGcH5hSej8-2B0UgchAnoZAewJTHb0XbuHpohXX9Joja73kaGjab9pK1xl48HLmLN3AIhNO24l-2B17NEYoPl6Q-2Fl55xYsABmNdgldgE8iOd3z7SddSBhOmNhbB09fMKiPDc-2BAXZCPd9MGh5vDEnx8ItGuPMshUgB6mD4uZ1jmxE5iqoLoqlL">key controls on air pollution</a> from major industrial sources across the country. He began rolling back vehicle <a href="https://www.vox.com/2018/4/2/17181476/tesla-epa-fuel-economy-standards">efficiency standards</a>, which provide a key way to cut greenhouse gas emissions. </p>
<p id="nFqMCh">Health researchers have argued that this type of environmental agenda would lead to an additional <a href="https://newsatjama.jama.com/2018/05/10/jama-forum-a-breath-of-bad-air-trump-environmental-agenda-may-lead-to-80%E2%80%85000-extra-deaths-per-decade/">80,000 deaths per decade</a>. </p>
<h3 id="6El5TY">Pruitt attacked environmental regulations from all sides</h3>
<p id="s6bj2m">One of Pruitt’s most impactful strategies at the EPA ultimately was to <a href="https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2018/1/29/16684952/epa-scott-pruitt-director-regulations">slow down or stall</a> its work, seeking years-long delays for some parts of the agency’s ongoing rule development. </p>
<p id="owPGmx">He also backed off the EPA’s pursuit of polluters, issuing far <a href="https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2018/2/22/17036114/pollution-fines-trump-pruitt-epa">fewer fines</a> for infractions than any of the last three administrations in their first year. He <a href="https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2018/2/17/17020194/glider-truck-pollution-loophole-trump-epa">widened loopholes</a> for heavy polluters like diesel trucks. </p>
<p id="BzypZs">And Pruitt didn’t just start the process of repealing the <a href="https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2017/10/10/16450288/epa-rollback-of-the-clean-power-plan-scott-pruitt">Clean Power Plan</a> and other climate policies; he went after the language itself. At his direction, the words “<a href="https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2017/11/9/16619120/trump-administration-removing-climate-change-epa-online-website">climate change</a>” and “global warming” also disappeared from EPA websites. Over the objections of other senior staffers, including the secretary of state, Pruitt helped convince Trump to start withdrawing the United States from the Paris climate accords. </p>
<p id="Nd1r0N">Beyond attacking the regulations, Pruitt aggressively fought the science behind them. He took unprecedented steps to purge members of the EPA’s<a href="https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2017/10/27/16552766/epa-science-advisory-board-scientific-counselors"> science advisory panels</a>, citing conflicts of interest, and replaced these individuals with researchers from industry or states that have sued the EPA to block its rules.</p>
<p id="TM5u03">Pruitt then targeted the studies used to inform the EPA’s creation of regulations. Pruitt planned to block from use in regulations any studies that are not reproducible or whose data is not public. This would eliminate a major suite of research based on one-off disasters like oil spills and rule out health research that contains sensitive patient data that cannot be made public, all in the name of “<a href="https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2018/3/23/17147330/epa-science-regulations-pruitt">transparency</a>.” </p>
<p id="Bnm2kR">The EPA under Pruitt’s watch also instituted major changes in how it measures the <a href="https://www.vox.com/2018/6/9/17441484/scott-pruitt-epa-chemicals-cost-benefit-analysis">costs and benefits</a> of environmental regulations. By restricting what counts as beneficial and giving more weight to the compliance costs borne by industry, the EPA has been tilting the scales in favor of the sectors it regulates, making it harder for the regulations to seem worthwhile in the first place.</p>
<h3 id="qe7dnL">Some of Pruitt’s policy changes at the EPA won’t endure but will still have consequences</h3>
<p id="XupIOv">But the process of undoing a regulation can take years and many of Pruitt’s other proposals like <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/27/us/epa-lead-paint.html">delaying new lead standards</a> have already been overturned in courts. </p>
<p id="Jdcd22">Some of this is just due to sloppiness. New policies that propose things like loosening air quality standards have <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/07/climate/scott-pruitt-epa-rollbacks.html">missed deadlines</a>, and the rollback of vehicle emissions standards was submitted without critical technical documentation. In addition to his agency’s <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/07/climate/scott-pruitt-epa-rollbacks.html">loss of legal challenges</a> in court, some of Pruitt’s endeavors at the EPA could be overturned under another administration. </p>
<p id="YTC7EJ">The EPA’s reputation and institutional strength have also taken a beating. Many staffers with critical knowledge of how to make rules or understanding of the science behind them have left the agency.</p>
<p id="0VqsQv">And some scientists are becoming reluctant to join the agency, in addition to the agency’s advisers losing credibility, according to Christopher Zarba, who retired earlier this year as the manager of the EPA’s Science Advisory Board (SAB); the board reviews scientific findings for the administrator.</p>
<p id="cUuNZJ">“I’ve heard, ‘Over my dead body would I bring anything to the SAB now,’” Zarba told Vox. </p>
<h3 id="LM1Kkg">Andrew Wheeler, the acting administrator, is ready to pick up the baton and run</h3>
<p id="QmT908">The new acting administrator was a former senior aide for Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK), a key patron for Pruitt and a close friend of the administrator. Inhofe famously <a href="https://newrepublic.com/article/148016/james-inhofe-snowballed-epa">derided climate change as a hoax</a> and, like Pruitt, he has been a strong supporter of his state’s oil and gas industries. </p>
<p id="ZqBeTA">After his stint on Capitol Hill, Wheeler worked as a lobbyist for <a href="http://www.murrayenergycorp.com/">Murray Energy</a>, the largest underground coal mining company in the United States. The company’s CEO, Robert E. Murray, has been a close Trump supporter and adviser who has given the president a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/09/climate/coal-murray-trump-memo.html">wish list</a> of energy and environmental policies. </p>
<p id="clAcp8">Yet Wheeler also worked for the EPA in the early 1990s. He received three bronze medals for his work in the agency’s <a href="https://www.epa.gov/aboutepa/epas-deputy-administrator">pollution prevention and toxics office</a>, so he knows the agency from the inside. </p>
<p id="WH7b3C">This combination of inside expertise and fossil fuel loyalty has environmentalists and some lawmakers deeply worried that Wheeler will continue to rapidly advance an industry-friendly agenda — without Pruitt’s high-profile scandals drawing unwanted attention. </p>
<p id="505fx2">“Elevating former coal lobbyist Andrew Wheeler to head the EPA is only trading one fossil fuel friend for another,” said Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA) in a statement. </p>
<p id="F9hlQu">Jeremy Symons, vice president for political affairs at the Environmental Defense Fund, told <a href="https://www.politico.com/story/2018/05/05/scott-pruitt-epa-andrew-wheeler-570641">Politico</a> that Wheeler “should scare anyone who breathes.”</p>
<p id="IlPTqw"><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/05/climate/wheeler-epa-pruitt.html">The New York Times</a> reported that like Pruitt, Wheeler relishes the consternation he causes environmentalists:</p>
<blockquote>
<p id="EWq9Id">Mr. Wheeler has appeared to embrace criticism from the left that he is an ally of fossil fuels, according to email exchanges obtained by the Sierra Club under a Freedom of Information Act request. Last October, soon after Mr. Wheeler was nominated to his position as deputy director, he sent an email to Mr. Pruitt’s chief of staff, Ryan Jackson, a longtime friend, with a headline from The Onion, the satirical publication: <a href="https://politics.theonion.com/epa-promotes-pulsating-black-sludge-to-deputy-director-1819592976">“EPA Promotes Pulsating Black Sludge to Deputy Director.”</a></p>
<p id="EzY9Ur">“Welcome, pulsating black sludge,” Mr. Jackson responded. “I guess I’m going to have to get the cleaning crews to come in more often.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p id="2b8MBV">And even though Inhofe was growing weary of Pruitt, he spoke highly of Wheeler. “I would say this that there’s a guy behind him, Andrew Wheeler, who’s really qualified too, so that might be a good swap,” Inhofe told conservative radio host <a href="https://www.vox.com/2018/6/13/17460550/scott-pruitt-epa-dark-money-republicans">Laura Ingraham</a> in June.</p>
<p id="XKESrL">All this means that Wheeler will probably hammer away at the foundations of the EPA with the same vigor as Pruitt. Still, he is taking over the agency only in an acting role and will have to face another Senate confirmation process if he’s nominated to become a full administrator. His initial nomination as the deputy was submitted in October 2017 but he was only confirmed in April, and by a 53 to 45 vote. So the next nominee to lead the agency will likely face another contentious, drawn-out political fight.</p>
<p id="KZXx7Q">And when it comes to Pruitt’s future, a question is whether he can leverage his accomplishments in Washington without the taint of his scandals. Some reports have suggested that Pruitt was eyeing a run for the <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2018/03/18/politics/pruitt-political-ambitions-nyt/index.html">Senate in 2020</a>, taking over for Inhofe in Oklahoma. Once the dust from his resignation settles, much of Pruitt’s regulatory rollbacks might play well with <a href="https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2018/4/7/17205276/scott-pruitt-resigns-scandals-tribalism">his tribe</a>, and it’s possible voters in Oklahoma would overlook his transgressions.</p>
<p id="4UY00E">Which suggests Washington may not have seen the last of Scott Pruitt.</p>
<p id="By0hOF"></p>
<p id="0reIeM"></p>
<p id="DaNeJB"></p>
https://www.vox.com/2018/7/6/17539834/scott-pruitt-resigns-andrew-wheeler-epa-legacyUmair Irfan2018-07-06T10:34:49-04:002018-07-06T10:34:49-04:00Tribalism fueled Scott Pruitt’s rise to power — and the scandals that came with it
<figure>
<img alt="" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/WVgX3GqfxXiSrCofzpY8ZgGr-MM=/0x10:3000x2260/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/59303475/pruitt_trump.1523105882.jpg" />
<figcaption><a href="http://www.gettyimages.com/license/659299592" target="_blank">Ron Sach-Pool/Getty Images</a></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>As EPA chief, Pruitt was pure Trumpism. But Trumpism couldn’t save him.</p> <p id="QlMHm4">Scott Pruitt, who <a href="https://www.vox.com/2018/7/5/17192716/scott-pruitt-resigns-epa-administrator-andrew-wheeler">resigned</a> Thursday, was not like past administrators of the Environmental Protection Agency, just as <a href="https://www.vox.com/explainers/2018/7/5/17531360/donald-trump-poll-numbers-popularity">Donald Trump</a> is not like past presidents. </p>
<p id="KAts4d">In both cases, it’s not that they’re conservatives. Conservatives have held those positions before. It’s that they seem to be engaged in something different than their predecessors — different not just in degree, but in kind. </p>
<p id="rDBo3h">They have governed on behalf of their allies and supporters, against their perceived enemies, with virtually no claims to anything more universal. That kind of tribalism in politics is not new, of course, but with the Trump administration, the US conservative movement has more or less abandoned any pretense of anything loftier. Respect for mutual norms and procedural neutrality have gone well out the window. </p>
<p id="HbLGAn">The GOP has become, in the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/in-theory/wp/2016/03/08/republicans-created-dysfunction-now-theyre-paying-for-it/?utm_term=.49dcae49a218">immortal words</a> of Thomas Mann and Norman Ornstein, “an insurgent outlier — ideologically extreme; contemptuous of the inherited social and economic regime; scornful of compromise; unpersuaded by conventional understanding of facts, evidence and science; and dismissive of the legitimacy of its political opposition.”</p>
<p id="QzWBz0">As I first wrote in April, tribalism explains Pruitt: his policies, his paranoia, and his ethical and political missteps. It also helps explain his legal missteps, which seem to have <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/05/climate/scott-pruitt-epa-trump.html">clinched</a> Trump’s decision to have him resign.</p>
<figure class="e-image">
<img alt="EPA administrator Scott Pruitt speaks last year as President Trump looks on." data-mask-text="false" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/xUoO56HGw8HnEZWUVDqJaMKZL2k=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/10600613/GettyImages_691376520.jpg">
<cite>Cheriss May/NurPhoto via Getty</cite>
</figure>
<h3 id="UyhIkQ">How the GOP surrendered to tribalism</h3>
<p id="EzwKVO">The story of how the US right radicalized, becoming more and more ideologically homogeneous and extreme, has been told many times (here’s <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/3/22/14762030/donald-trump-tribal-epistemology">my attempt</a>), so I won’t tell it again here. Suffice it to say, that radicalism has now fully arrived at the EPA.</p>
<p id="xxK6pw">Past Republican administrations were run by the GOP establishment, which felt obliged to pay homage to shared norms, even when appointing administrators devoted to deregulation. That meant respecting the rule-making progress, staffing the agency with credentialed professionals, deferring to the Senate on appointments, and other matters of professionalism. Among other things, they felt the need to justify their policies, to maintain the pretense that different conceptions of the public good were at issue.</p>
<p id="NpGimF">On the surface, at the level of federal politics, the symbolism and formalities of governance still exerted some power over the GOP well into the 2000s (though the theft of the 2000 election was a notable signpost on the path to lawlessness).</p>
<p id="TEkKtt">But any notion of norms, standards, or restraints that transcend partisanship, that apply equally to all tribes, has all but vanished from consideration. That which is not explicitly forbidden by law is allowed. Mitch McConnell recently <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2018/04/05/why-mitch-mcconnell-is-bragging-about-holding-up-merrick-garland-from-the-supreme-court-two-years-later/?utm_term=.551c046a0c15">bragged</a> that denying Obama Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland a confirmation vote — a grotesque violation of Senate norms and procedure, the latest in a string orchestrated by McConnell — is “the most consequential decision I’ve ever made in my entire public career.”</p>
<p id="Izcq4m">It turns out, by the time Trump took power, what was left of the conservative establishment was ready, nay, eager to be freed from remaining norms. The GOP has rolled over for Trump like a puppy. His naked corruption and overt authoritarian tendencies do not occasion any oversight or even objection, because they are deployed on behalf of the tribe. When you are involved in zero-sum warfare, the ends justify any means.</p>
<figure class="e-image">
<img alt="tribal epistemology" data-mask-text="false" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/71GgNXP53hfCJF1_JuEOioes4S0=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/8202055/trump_unbalance.jpg">
<cite>Javier Zarracina for Vox</cite>
</figure>
<p id="Cc4Zm3">And so it has been at EPA.</p>
<h3 id="wwXo5q">Pruitt is a creature of his tribe</h3>
<p id="9XidQs">Pruitt is a pure creature of this new hyper-conservative GOP. He came up in Oklahoma conservative politics, where alliance with fossil fuel industries and hostility toward federal regulators are taken for granted and the only serious political threat is from the right. Liberals and environmentalists mostly exist as grotesque caricatures on the conservative media that dominate the airwaves.</p>
<p id="8RUyMs">Pruitt has lived his life in a conservative bubble, and much like <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/10/23/the-danger-of-president-pence">Vice President Mike Pence</a>, his intense religious convictions, his naked political ambition, and his industry-friendly policy agenda are in perfect alignment, with nary a hint of cognitive dissonance. God <a href="https://www.motherjones.com/environment/2018/03/scott-pruitt-has-laid-bare-the-growing-environmental-schism-within-christianity/">called on him to deregulate</a> the fossil fuel industry. The more power he gains, the higher he rises in politics, the more he can carry out God’s will.</p>
<div id="Io1lA0">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
<p lang="en" dir="ltr">To understand the Pruitt scandal it helps to know that he believes he was chosen by God to destroy the environment: <a href="https://t.co/nvBBsjphIk">https://t.co/nvBBsjphIk</a></p>— Clara Jeffery (@ClaraJeffery) <a href="https://twitter.com/ClaraJeffery/status/981961154485338112?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 5, 2018</a>
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<p id="2X4qUt">Industry people and conservative people (there’s no sign he sees any difference) are simply his people, his tribe. He still echoes some of the old conservative policy talking points that gesture at the public good — job-killing regulations, regulatory certainty, originalism, etc. — but it is desultory at best. There’s no sign he’s trying to <em>persuade</em> anyone. Simulacra of persuasion are just something occasionally required to placate the media.</p>
<p id="wrSgIP">After all, there’s no one to persuade. His tribe is already convinced and the enemy tribe — a class that in his mind includes the DC political establishment, career agency staff, and the mainstream media — is out to destroy him. It’s a fight, not a salon.</p>
<p id="fXdIXk">A cosmopolitan-minded person might approach environmental policy and say: “Okay, we agree that we should serve the public interest, but our tribes just disagree how best to do it. Let’s come to a compromise.”</p>
<p id="kAH3eR">That kind of talk is gibberish to a tribalist, just one of the pious bits of nonsense people in the opposing tribe use to impress one another. The tribalist does not begin with a pluralist conception of the good and work backward to policy. The tribalist begins with the good of the tribe and works backward to policy (and to everything else, <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/11/2/16588964/america-epistemic-crisis">including truth</a>). </p>
<p id="J6DPSp">For the tribalist, there are only opposing tribes and the battle between them. Pretense to the contrary, appeals to any sort of trans-partisan standards or restraints, are merely a ruse, a gambit in the endless war.</p>
<p id="ojPSdG">Pruitt was there to serve his tribe, i.e., resource industries.</p>
<figure class="e-image">
<img alt="Scott Pruitt announcing a revision of fuel economy standards at the EPA in a week where ethics questions about his condo and hiring process continue to haunt him." data-mask-text="false" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/wG8UMWLHFrFzIznCUpik_T2GOh8=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/10600175/Screen_Shot_2018_04_06_at_11.42.36_AM.png">
<cite>EPA</cite>
</figure>
<h3 id="JhFRuF">Tribalism explains Pruitt’s pre-EPA scandals</h3>
<p id="S4pj48">Tribalism explains why, long before he was EPA administrator, Pruitt was tangled in ethics scandals, as Mother Jones reporter Rebecca Leber recounts in her <a href="https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2018/02/scott-pruitt-profile-epa-trump/">excellent profile</a>. </p>
<p id="O2HjtT">Pruitt’s past (and present) ethics scandals do not seem to reflect any particular personal avarice, so much as they reflect someone so accustomed to acting on behalf of industry that it fails to occur to him to try to hide it. </p>
<p id="1l8dmN">When he was Oklahoma attorney general he was busted <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2017/02/22/politics/scott-pruitt-epa-oklahoma/index.html">copying industry talking points</a> directly into his communications with the federal government. Emails from that time, which have been <a href="https://www.aclu.org/news/groups-sue-trump-epa-nominee-scott-pruitt-denying-public-access-polluter-emails">dragged out of him</a> by investigations and lawsuits, reveal a <a href="https://apnews.com/f8797e5c55764ff39429b21372d2acee">long pattern</a> of working in close coordination with industry to attack EPA regulations. They also reveal a striking lack of self-awareness that anyone might object to or even make particular note of such a relationship. </p>
<p id="fHSxcH">More than anything, Pruitt just doesn’t seem to see anything wrong with it. They worked with their tribe (environmentalists), why shouldn’t he work with his (industry)? </p>
<div id="oPI1jT">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-conversation="none">
<p lang="en" dir="ltr">2) The Pruitt Emails: E.P.A. Chief Was Arm in Arm With Industry<br> <a href="https://t.co/MCbBFVbtPP">https://t.co/MCbBFVbtPP</a></p>— Eric Lipton (@EricLiptonNYT) <a href="https://twitter.com/EricLiptonNYT/status/973666275351252992?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 13, 2018</a>
</blockquote>
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<h3 id="agEIxJ">It explains his paranoia and current scandals</h3>
<p id="Zdhe5u">Tribalism explains why Pruitt<strong> </strong>hired an <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/white-house/trump-epa-chief-pruitt-doing-great-job-totally-under-siege-n863361">enormous security team</a>, built a <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2018/03/14/scott-pruitts-25000-soundproof-phone-booth-it-actually-cost-more-like-43000/?utm_term=.ea88b03f9fae">$43,000 security phone booth</a>, <a href="http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/politics/ct-epa-chief-flies-first-class-20180214-story.html">avoids flying coach</a>, <a href="https://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/report-pruitt-used-loophole-to-give-two-top-aides-huge-raises">hires political cronies without Senate confirmation</a>, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/05/business/epa-officials-questioned-scott-pruitt.html">exiles anyone who questions him</a>, <a href="https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2017/8/14/16142150/scott-pruitt-epa-secrecy-republican">boxes out career staff</a>, works to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/26/opinion/pruitt-attack-science-epa.html">diminish the influence of scientists</a>, meets <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/03/us/politics/epa-scott-pruitt-calendar-industries-coal-oil-environmentalists.html">almost exclusively with industry groups</a>, has <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2018/03/28/epa-staffers-get-talking-points-downplaying-human-role-in-climate-change/?utm_term=.09adb2ed97b7">issued agency talking points</a> playing down the threat of climate change, and <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2018/07/02/politics/scott-pruitt-whistleblower-secret-calendar/index.html">told</a> his aides to change his official calendar numerous times to hide meetings from the public.</p>
<p id="lHOgfA">It’s all for the same reason, captured in what he said to a <a href="https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2018/apr/4/scott-pruitt-says-implementing-trump-agenda-epa-ha/">Washington Times podcast</a> in April about the scandals at the time:</p>
<blockquote><p id="DnhnDn">I think it’s noise. It’s been noisy and competitive since Day One, because this agency has been a bastion of liberalism since Day One. As we are making progress there and also reducing the regulatory burden, it is infuriating to those that have dominated and controlled the agency for years.</p></blockquote>
<p id="QkYGm4">Pruitt viewed himself as operating within occupied enemy territory. Washington, DC, and the federal bureaucracy are dominated by the enemy tribe. The Dems in Congress pressing him for information are part of it. The media that is covering these scandals are part of it. The people who yell at him in big-city airports are part of it. </p>
<p id="lTEhu2">He was surrounded by enemies who would, in his words, “resort to anything” to get him. That’s why he needed so much security, avoided unstructured encounters the public, and slept in a <a href="https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2018/4/3/17189462/scott-pruitt-condo-epa-ethics-scandal">lobbyist’s condo</a> or <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2018/04/04/after-leaving-50-a-night-rental-epas-scott-pruitt-had-no-fixed-d-c-address-for-a-month/?utm_term=.f8558713b250">at home in Tulsa</a>. He has no interest in encountering the enemy. </p>
<p id="BV1VdG">It was Pruitt’s undisguised tribalism that seems to shock <a href="https://www.axios.com/republican-epa-chiefs-slam-pruitts-latest-moves-1522879153-921f91dc-9781-4b6b-84ae-340790704e16.html">even previous GOP EPA administrators</a> — the unwillingness or inability to even go through the motions of propriety, much less broad consultation and transparent policymaking.</p>
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<img alt="EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt Under Scrutiny For Renting DC Condo That Is Owned By Energy Lobbyist's Wife" data-mask-text="false" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/WLPts7_LBPXR6xxlp9v_AqFMWNo=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/10604563/940173010.jpg.jpg">
<cite>Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images</cite>
<figcaption>The now-infamous condo where Pruitt squatted for $50 a night and apparently <a href="https://www.politico.com/story/2018/04/06/pruitt-was-the-kato-kaelin-of-capitol-hill-505658">had to be evicted</a>.</figcaption>
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<h3 id="mXpdsj">It explains Pruitt’s media strategy</h3>
<p id="aPiERI">Tribalism explains why, when he came under political heat, Pruitt <a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/blog/2018/04/04/Under-fire-for-scandals-EPA-head-Scott-Pruitt-again-turns-to-right-wing-media/219850">fled to friendly right-wing media outlets</a> to do interviews. (The strategy did not go well for him when he ran into an informed, probing interview on ... [checks notes] ... <a href="https://www.vox.com/2018/4/4/17199954/fox-news-scott-pruitt-ed-henry-interview-scandal">Fox News</a>?)</p>
<p id="8wJUvJ">It did not occur to him to explain himself to the mainstream media; they were the enemy. Instead, his immediate instinct — one that reflects his long-time immersion in, and relationship to, right-wing media — was to play the victim of a liberal witch hunt.</p>
<p id="N7Jhru">It wasn’t hard to sell that narrative on the right. Conservative media were slavishly supportive of Pruitt from the beginning, culminating in a series of fawning profiles in purportedly respectable outlets like the <a href="http://www.weeklystandard.com/the-man-they-love-to-hate/article/2010851">Weekly Standard</a> and <a href="https://www.nationalreview.com/magazine/2017/12/31/scott-pruitts-epa-reformation-re-shaping-agency/">National Review</a>. (The author of NR’s lickspittle paean to Pruitt’s greatness? None other than <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/05/business/media/kevin-williamson-atlantic.html">Kevin D. Williamson</a>.)</p>
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<p lang="en" dir="ltr">Fox News isn't the only news site ignoring the Pruitt scandals. Front pages of Drudge, National Review, and Wall Street Journal were all lacking Pruitt stories today. <a href="https://t.co/wPfBWOp2Wi">https://t.co/wPfBWOp2Wi</a></p>— Emily Atkin (@emorwee) <a href="https://twitter.com/emorwee/status/981369749673336832?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 4, 2018</a>
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<p id="Xtdn8f">For the most part, right-wing media, think tanks, and industry groups <a href="https://www.eenews.net/stories/1060078051">rallied on Pruitt’s behalf</a>. (A few, including Fox News host <a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/laura-ingraham-scott-pruitt_us_5b3c1425e4b07b827cbbeb55">Laura Ingraham</a>, began turning against him in recent weeks.) They didn’t care about establishment standards or the perception of procedural neutrality, any more than he did. He was of their tribe, advancing their agenda.</p>
<h3 id="XExmD9">But tribalism ultimately couldn’t save Pruitt from himself</h3>
<p id="tppwQB">Being openly tribal has served Scott Pruitt well so far in his career, earning him the iron-clad support of industry, the far right, and Donald Trump alike.</p>
<p id="1OXhQ2">Pruitt’s personal loyalty to Trump, his effectiveness in deregulating industry, his true-blue commitment to the conservative cause helped him keep his job for far longer than many expected.</p>
<p id="yP0lWt">Pruitt’s own legal troubles, however, seem to have finally caught up with him. According to his totally <a href="https://www.vox.com/2018/7/5/17538086/scott-pruitt-resignation-why-letter">unapologetic resignation letter</a>, Pruitt stepped down because of “unrelenting attacks” on him and his family. But as the New York Times <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/05/climate/scott-pruitt-epa-trump.html">reported</a> Thursday, it was ultimately Trump’s decision that it was time for him to go. “An individual close to Mr. Pruitt said that the president acted after he found one particular story in recent days embarrassing: a report that Mr. Pruitt had asked Mr. Trump to fire Jeff Sessions so that Mr. Pruitt could run the Justice Department,” the Times said.</p>
<p id="XXrRR6">Also, earlier this week, Rep. Ted Lieu (D-CA) said that the latest allegations suggested Pruitt may have committed one or more felonies:</p>
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<p lang="en" dir="ltr">In addition to being a national embarrassment, Scott Pruitt likely committed one or more felonies. The Federal Records Act would almost certainly apply to the calendar of <a href="https://twitter.com/EPAScottPruitt?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@EPAScottPruitt</a>. Concealing or falsifying a federal record is a felony. <br><br>cc: <a href="https://twitter.com/FBI?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@FBI</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/TheJusticeDept?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@TheJusticeDept</a> <a href="https://t.co/hDCJIBRTwc">https://t.co/hDCJIBRTwc</a></p>— Ted Lieu (@tedlieu) <a href="https://twitter.com/tedlieu/status/1014004468059287557?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 3, 2018</a>
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<p id="gNUfKG">It’s not clear what will happen with the investigations now that he’s out of office. But Pruitt may still have a long and comfortable career in conservative politics, where corruption in service to tribe is no vice at all.</p>
https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2018/4/7/17205276/scott-pruitt-resigns-scandals-tribalismDavid Roberts2018-07-06T10:20:01-04:002018-07-06T10:20:01-04:00How Republicans came to embrace anti-environmentalism
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<img alt="Trump and Pruitt." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/sTHch8l5Hq3dKIBPUMIDSi-oi0M=/0x0:2408x1806/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/60282521/AP_17171038368614.0.jpg" />
<figcaption>AP Photo/Andrew Harnik</figcaption>
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<p>The deep roots of conservative opposition to the environmental state, explained.</p> <p id="7lBiK7">EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt is <a href="https://www.vox.com/2018/7/5/17192716/scott-pruitt-resigns-epa-administrator-andrew-wheeler">now out</a>, brought down by a cascade of personal indiscretions. But with former coal lobbyist <a href="https://www.vox.com/2018/7/5/17538160/andrew-wheeler-epa-scott-pruitt">Andrew Wheeler</a> soon to be at the helm of the EPA, President Donald Trump’s U-turn on the environment shows no signs of stopping.</p>
<p id="krpH57">A couple of years ago, the US was making notable progress on some of our toughest environmental problems. Grassroots mobilizations and other forms of pressure<strong> </strong>helped nudge America’s political leadership to halt pipelines and craft new policies on climate change, fracking, and toxics. The rest of the world, even China, was coalescing around a commitment to curb greenhouse gases, and the <a href="https://www.vox.com/2015/12/12/9981020/paris-climate-deal">Paris accord</a> had been signed into effect.</p>
<p id="9Teg1a">Pruitt’s stint at the EPA’s helm has changed much of that. He’s spent a year and a half in pursuit of, as former White House strategist Steven Bannon <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/top-wh-strategist-vows-a-daily-fight-for-deconstruction-of-the-administrative-state/2017/02/23/03f6b8da-f9ea-11e6-bf01-d47f8cf9b643_story.html?utm_term=.939457bb3762">put it</a>, the “deconstruction of the administrative state.” The ax has already fallen on the Paris agreement and agency morale, and hangs in mid-swing over much else of the EPA’s established work, from Obama’s climate policies to its <a href="https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2018/3/23/17147330/epa-scott-pruitt-science-regulations">use of science</a> to enforcement.</p>
<p id="NRBzhi">It’s ironic that today’s Republicans see America’s environmental state as such a liability, given that Republican presidents had such a big hand in constructing it. In the early 20th century Teddy Roosevelt pushed a federal system of parks, forests, and monuments. In 1970, it was Richard Nixon who created the Environmental Protection Agency and signed many foundational laws. Even during the last Republican administration of George W. Bush, longtime EPA employees have told me there was considerable if often tacit support by party leaders.</p>
<p id="xGsWjI">So how has the current Republican anti-environmentalism come so far so fast? Why this extreme Republican animus toward the environmental state?</p>
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<cite>AP Photo/John Duricka</cite>
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<h3 id="zB2MdY">Early stirrings of Republican anti-environmentalism</h3>
<p id="r3yQ6T">For starters, it helps to recall where the strongest environmental support came from in the 1960s and 1970s, during the great bipartisan build-out of America’s environmental laws and agencies: those regions where urbanizing and industrializing had gone the furthest, across the cities of the coasts and the Great Lakes and especially in their suburbs. A new political language of “the environment” was born along urban edges; it interwove homeowner concerns about pollution and developer intrusions that state and local governments had failed to address.</p>
<p id="j0penC">Once new federal agencies stepped in as the environment’s defender, however, this regime itself became a political foil for new anti-statist coalitions between suburban and rural voters.</p>
<p id="zRwUaj">One strand of coalition-building emerged in the 1970s in the western states, where a so-called Sagebrush rebellion erupted among ranchers, miners, and other larger property owners upset over new environmental restrictions. Aspiring Republican politicians rode these issues into legislative takeovers in states like Colorado in 1976, by drawing support not just from rural but also from suburban voters.</p>
<p id="HprdY9">Among the victors was a 34-old Republican lawyer named Anne Gorsuch representing Jefferson County, on Denver’s edge, who railed against regional planning as well as federal regulatory “overreach.” When reelected, Gorsuch attracted sufficient attention for former California governor Reagan to bring her in as adviser to his own conservative campaign for the presidency.</p>
<p id="55VebC">The other strand of early anti-environmentalism ran through the South, where traditional Democratic dominance was in flux. Democrats like then-Georgia governor Jimmy Carter embraced environmental causes. Some Republicans did as well. When college professor Newt Gingrich ran for Congress starting in 1972 in a West Georgia district extending into Atlanta’s suburbs, it made sense that he did so both as a Republican and an environmentalist.</p>
<p id="hSMLbQ">But Gingrich kept losing until he noticed that rural lifelong Democrats rejecting his candidacy turned out repeatedly for a John Bircher Democrat running in a neighboring district who publicly questioned the constitutionality of both the EPA and national parks. Taking the cue, Gingrich won his first of many Congressional races in 1978 by dialing down his environmental rhetoric and cozying up to local industries that had run afoul of the new agencies and laws.</p>
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<img alt="reagan and gingrich" data-mask-text="false" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/A0uvVVvaHnD6r1EK_Mv90BJMVMw=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/8202285/Ronald_Reagan_with_Newt_Gingrich.jpg">
<cite><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ronald_Reagan_with_Newt_Gingrich.jpg" target="_blank">Wikimedia Commons</a></cite>
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<h3 id="4FRqF4">The Reagan administration takes a swing at environmental agencies and regulation</h3>
<p id="RoYEnx">Riding these political tides to the White House, the early Reagan administration undertook a frontal assault on environmental agencies and regulation much like what we are now seeing. Gorsuch stepped into the EPA’s helm, hatching plans to cut its budget and personnel by half. Her Colorado colleague over at the Interior Department, James Watt, sought a similar devolution of control over federal lands; OSHA and FDA were also targeted.</p>
<p id="ExLQky">But for these Republican anti-environmentalists, the power of the Presidency was not enough. A Democratic Congress, still bolstered by the party’s Southern bloc, stood in the way. Democratic committee chairs geared up for Congressional hearings that spotlighted the ensuing consequences and corruption at agencies under fire. The hue and cry then raised, and courtroom battles the Administration then lost, turned out to be much more than it had bargained for. Within two years, Gorsuch and Watt had resigned and restoration of federal environmental agencies was underway. A seminal Supreme Court decision in 1984, <a href="http://www.casebriefs.com/blog/law/administrative-law/administrative-law-keyed-to-lawson/scope-of-review-of-agency-action/chevron-usa-v-natural-resources-defense-council-inc/">Chevron, Inc. vs NRDC</a>, required judicial deference to environmental and other agencies’ interpretation of statutes, confirming their authority to regulate.</p>
<p id="WiwRMu">As moderate Republicans took over, federal environmental budgets and operations were restored, but the grounds were also being laid for a next war on the environmental state. The Heritage Foundation, established in the 1970s, enjoyed a heyday as an idea factory for tugging the administration to the right, and new think tanks established in the mid-1980s like the Competitive Enterprise Institute and the Thomas Jefferson Institute for Public Policy came to nourish a special hostility toward the climate issue. In the South, as well, enterprising Republicans such as Gingrich successfully moved to convert white Democratic voters to their party.</p>
<h3 id="Dqv402">How a more diverse and more urban environmental movement helped Republicans</h3>
<p id="YYoJja">Racial and geographic realignments over the 1980s and ‘90s favored the anti-environmental Republicanism Gingrich now sought. Better-off black Americans moved to suburbs of their own, as civil rights groups spearheaded a new movement for “environmental justice.” White environmental groups gained bases in well-off older suburbs as well far-flung newer ones, but energy concerns inclined them to identify with a gentrifying downtown and the “walkability” espoused by a New Urbanism. At the same time, black-majority districts were also being created to bring racial equity to Georgia’s Congressional delegations, starting with the 5th district, which was won in 1986 by John Lewis. Black representatives became the state’s foremost supporters of environmental causes in Congress.</p>
<p id="yvHtHF">This shift in Georgia environmentalism, fortified by redistricting, served Gingrich and the Georgia Republican Party extraordinarily well. With environmental causes coded in these ways, down-playing or opposing them shored up electoral support among rural as well as many suburban whites, especially the working class. Through gerrymandering Republicans worked to pack more blacks into fewer of Georgia’s Congressional districts, making most other districts whiter.</p>
<p id="386ngx">The Republican takeover of Congress in 1994 commenced a second war on the federal environmental state. Gingrich’s <a href="http://www.heritage.org/political-process/report/the-contract-america-implementing-new-ideas-the-us">Contract with America</a>, which helped Republicans win, embodied the new stealth strategy of attack. The contract said nary a word about any environmental issue; instead, it called for all manner of restraints on “regulation.” Yet its proposals—for instance, requiring government compensation for regulation-related declines in property value--would have hand-cuffed agencies like the EPA, as environmental groups began pointing out. Anti-environmental Republicans’ initiatives in Congress faced a formidable barrier in the White House: Democrat Bill Clinton, veto pen in hand.</p>
<p id="LYJiL3">However limited its successes, the contract augured where anti-environmental thinking and strategizing would be headed in subsequent decades. The goal was not just to prevent new environmental laws but to stymy agency initiatives based on older statutes, through assertions of congressional power.</p>
<p id="xvRUTH">Meanwhile, anti-environmental conservatives got busy in other ways. New think tanks blossomed especially around climate and energy policy. Beyond the biblical literalism of allied evangelicals, newly sophisticated ways of attacking environmental sciences arose that appealed to doubt and uncertainty, coins of the scientific realm itself. Their <a href="http://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/3/22/14762030/donald-trump-tribal-epistemology">public outreach</a> was especially impressive. From talk radio to Fox News to Breitbart, alternative public spheres coalesced as echo chambers, where climate science could be regularly parried and parodied and conservative precepts about government overreach perpetually reinforced.</p>
<p id="cLmPUD">Trump’s 2016 victory was a testimony to their successes. This time around, a stealth anti-environmentalism was no longer necessary; he unapologetically denied climate change and despised the EPA. Capitalizing on post-recession bitterness, he not only won the South and Mountain West, he became the first Republican in a generation to win several northeastern and Midwestern states, where environmentalism had long been strong.</p>
<h3 id="GrPHZb">The third war against the federal environmental state is in progress</h3>
<p id="0e3LrZ">The anti-environmental Republicans now in charge enjoy advantages over their predecessors of 1981 and 1994 that seem veritably monumental. Their party controls both the presidency and both houses of Congress. Well-seasoned conservative think tanks have staffed the transition and “beachhead” teams; they’ve imported ready-made plans for the first year’s budget and personnel cuts. A host of bills making their way through Congress seek to end individual regulations and the EPA itself, even to reverse the Chevron decision. And with the ascension of Anne Gorsuch’s own son, Neil Gorsuch, to the Supreme Court, they may now enjoy a courtroom edge.</p>
<p id="jKk5gw">That strategy entailed a canny grasp of a political weakness in our environmental state which its supporters (myself included) have been slower to recognize or address. Internal agency deliberations have preoccupied environmental groups as well as many of the thousands who have come to work in our many environmental professions, swallowing up most attention and energy. Certainly there was a need to counter business influences on rule-making.</p>
<p id="xkpR1k">But this orientation, along with our sense of environmental progress, have come to rest too exclusively on proceedings inside the executive branch. They have raised a specter of technocracy, of a rule by experts and allied elites that anti-environmental conservatives have effectively exploited. In the process, supporters of environment protection have been thoroughly outflanked.</p>
<h3 id="QmqMEk">Environmental groups need to find new ways of mobilizing — and fast</h3>
<p id="L4vOHu">Despite Pruitt’s departure, this perfect storm of anti-environmental conservatism unlikely to end what bids to become a historically unprecedented assault on our environmental agencies and laws. The new acting chief <a href="https://www.vox.com/2018/7/5/17538160/andrew-wheeler-epa-scott-pruitt">Andrew Wheeler</a>, after all, fits the very mold of an industry lobbyist, even more so than Pruitt himself. </p>
<p id="zyVxLU">In response, environmental groups, hitherto quiescent environmental professionals, and more — all Americans who care about the health of our country and our planet — still need to find new ways and means of mobilizing against it, and fast.</p>
<p id="WnpmpE">Just as under Pruitt, success against earlier assaults offers cues for today’s opposition to the agency’s new leadership. As our Republican Congress is unlikely to wield the hearings and subpoenas that brought down Gorsuch and Watt, others must continue to step in. Journalists, environmentalists, former and current agency officials, any and everyone with a story to tell, need to get word out about the constraints, corruption, and their fallout, making the most of all tools at hand, from marches to digital and social media.</p>
<p id="0lqWZf">The skepticism that today’s conservatives have been able to stir about science is especially worrisome, for it strikes at the heart of how modern environmental regulation works. Scientific understanding and data offer our best window into environmental conditions and problems; without them, our environmental statutes would have little direction, and the resulting policies no teeth. Swelling efforts to save government data as well as to “<a href="https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2017/4/19/14331168/science-march-earth-day-route-livestream-signs-speakers">March for Science</a>” have opened important new avenues for activism, distinctive to our own time.</p>
<p id="jovdxT">What also needs to be made clear is that in the realms of environment and health, science’s importance is hardly just for scientists alone. It also serves those places and people whose conditions it studies, and ideally, whose problems it illuminates not just for experts and policy-makers but for all. Science, we’d do well to argue, is not some elitist conspiracy, but vital to environmental democracy.</p>
<p id="undWHj">The fight for the environment still needs to be carried into agency hearings and courtrooms. On these fronts, the big environmental groups and the states have been making headway. But additional battle lines must be opened in town halls and in local electoral politics, starting with the 2018 midterm elections. After all, decades of smaller victories there have now positioned Republicans to make good on Trump’s anti-environmental campaign promises.</p>
<p id="yjyN97">Any roadmap toward a more pro-environment Congress must begin not so much in the cities — already heavily Democratic — as in our suburbs, where modern environmentalism itself was born. Though they are now widely derided and written off in environmental circles, suburbs have emerged as the great swing zones of American politics, even as many are surprisingly prone to green retrofits. retrofits. They offer the best hope for electing a Congress that will rebuff the Trump anti-environmental agenda.</p>
<p id="k49gXI">Challenges to that agenda will stand a better chance if they can also stoke the embers of an older pro-environment Republicanism that continue to glow. Despite lock-step messaging from their leaders, media, and big donors, conservative constituencies such as hunters still <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2017/02/02/facing-backlash-utah-rep-jason-chaffetz-withdraws-bill-to-transfer-federal-land-to-the-states/">support protecting public lands</a>, and around half of all Republicans do <a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/many-more-republicans-now-believe-in-climate-change/">worry</a> about climate change.</p>
<p id="GdZHTH">Those of us who would defend our nation’s environmental defenses, a vital yet under-appreciated legacy of the last half-century, need to examine the recent successes of anti-environmental conservatism and learn. Only a similarly determined, broad, and long-term quest for electoral influence will enable pro-environmental politicians to push back. Then, in the hopefully not too distant future, we’ll be able to repair the damage that has only just begun. Then, in the hopefully not too distant future, we’ll be able to repair the damage already underway, but it is likely to get worse before it gets better.</p>
<p id="InPF4A"><em>Christopher Sellers is a professor of history at Stony Brook University, a fellow at the Wilson Center, and on the steering committee of the </em><a href="https://envirodatagov.org/"><em>Environmental Data and Governance Initiative </em></a><em>(EDGI). He is the author of </em>Crabgrass Crucible: Suburban Nature and the Rise of Environmentalism in 20th-Century America<em>, and forthcoming books on the history of environmental politics in Atlanta, Texas, and Mexico. A version of this story was first published in April 2017.</em></p>
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https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2018/7/6/17540154/scott-pruitt-resigns-epa-republicans-environmentalismChristopher Sellers2018-07-06T08:24:10-04:002018-07-06T08:24:10-04:00Scott Pruitt, Trump’s scandal-plagued EPA chief, has resigned
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<img alt="Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Scott Pruitt testifies about the fiscal year 2018 budget during a Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, June 27, 201" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/nCMAXGAPBz2QFvXm0rrtfA1-2Do=/310x0:5259x3712/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/60275563/scott_pruitt.0.jpg" />
<figcaption>EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt resigned on July 5 after months of reports of corruption, malfeasance, and deceiving the public. | (Photo: SAUL LOEB/AFP/Getty Images)</figcaption>
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<p>The resignation came in an especially damning week of revelations about his improprieties.</p> <p id="ukL2bd">Scott Pruitt, administrator of the US Environmental Protection Agency, has <a href="https://www.vox.com/2018/7/5/17538086/scott-pruitt-resignation-why-letter">resigned</a> after his <a href="https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2018/4/12/17216254/epa-scott-pruitt-investigations-scandal-condo">alleged ethical breaches</a> — among them a $43,000 <a href="https://www.vox.com/2018/4/16/17243048/scott-pruitt-gao-illegal-phone-booth-law">phone booth</a>, <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/6/4/17425068/scott-pruitt-trump-hotel-mattress">a Trump mattress,</a> and <a href="https://www.vox.com/2018/6/7/17437628/scott-pruitt-ritz-carlton-trump-epa-white-house">exclusive moisturizer</a> — and <a href="https://www.vox.com/2018/4/16/17243048/scott-pruitt-gao-illegal-phone-booth-law">violations of the law</a> became too much for <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/05/climate/scott-pruitt-epa-trump.html">President Trump</a> to bear. </p>
<p id="L5q3sy">The highest-ranking environmental official in the Trump administration submitted his <a href="https://www.vox.com/2018/7/5/17538086/scott-pruitt-resignation-why-letter">resignation letter</a> Thursday afternoon. President Trump said that Pruitt’s deputy, former coal lobbyist <a href="https://www.epa.gov/newsreleases/andrew-wheeler-nominated-epa-deputy-administrator">Andrew Wheeler</a>, will take over the agency on Monday. </p>
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<p lang="en" dir="ltr">I have accepted the resignation of Scott Pruitt as the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency. Within the Agency Scott has done an outstanding job, and I will always be thankful to him for this. The Senate confirmed Deputy at EPA, Andrew Wheeler, will...</p>— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1014956568129892352?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 5, 2018</a>
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<p id="Vzb6By">The resignation came in an especially brutal week of revelations about his improprieties.</p>
<p id="pH8Kn9">We found out that Pruitt asked aides to <a href="https://www.vox.com/2018/7/3/17530466/scott-pruitt-epa-scandal">book hotels</a> for him on their own personal credit cards and <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/pruitt-aides-reveal-new-details-of-his-spending-and-management-at-epa/2018/07/02/71b87384-7aec-11e8-80be-6d32e182a3bc_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.3a8c909f9bdb">didn’t reimburse the expense</a> in at least one instance. The <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/epa-chief-scott-pruitt-tapped-aide-donors-to-help-wife-land-job-at-conservative-group/2018/06/13/f54c87fa-6db1-11e8-afd5-778aca903bbe_story.html?utm_term=.3d614ffc25ba">Washington Post </a>also reported that Pruitt pressured aides to find a job for his wife with a salary of at least $200,000. </p>
<p id="HC6VdG">EPA whistleblower Kevin Chmielewski, a former deputy chief of staff, told <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2018/07/02/politics/scott-pruitt-whistleblower-secret-calendar/index.html">CNN</a> that Pruitt borrowed the mafia tactic of keeping <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two_sets_of_books">two sets of books</a>. The administrator deleted controversial meetings and appointments from his public calendar that were listed in the agency’s internal calendar. </p>
<p id="2Hwoc2">“We had at one point three different schedules. One of them was one that no one else saw except three or four of us,” Chmielewski told CNN. “It was a secret ... and they would decide what to nix from the public calendar.”</p>
<p id="52WfZG">Reports also emerged this week that Pruitt threw <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2018/07/03/politics/scott-pruitt-jeff-sessions-trump/index.html">Attorney General Jeff Sessions</a> under the bus, telling Trump to fire Sessions and hire Pruitt for the post instead. <a href="https://www.politico.com/story/2018/07/03/pruitt-pac-treasurer-public-records-releases-667031">Politico</a> reported that Pruitt hired a former political fundraiser, <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/beth-beacham-white-4b91255/">Elizabeth Beacham White</a>, to oversee public record requests. According to environmental activists, she has helped slow-walk the release of incriminating documents. </p>
<p id="m0ucUu">Pruitt was then confronted by a Washington, DC, schoolteacher who told him to resign while he was having lunch with his chief of staff, <a href="https://www.epa.gov/aboutepa/epas-chief-staff">Ryan Jackson</a>: </p>
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<p id="gZLFVL">This is all in addition to his long, long list of other scandals — the <a href="https://www.vox.com/2018/4/16/17243048/scott-pruitt-gao-illegal-phone-booth-law">$43,000 phone booth</a>, the <a href="https://theintercept.com/2018/06/20/scott-pruitt-epa-security-total-expenses-foia/">$4.6 million security detail</a>, the <a href="https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2018/4/3/17189462/scott-pruitt-condo-epa-ethics-scandal">$50-a-night condo</a> rented from a lobbyist — that have triggered <a href="https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2018/4/12/17216254/epa-scott-pruitt-investigations-scandal-condo">more than a dozen federal audits, inquires, and investigations</a>. </p>
<p id="NAoHs5">Republican lawmakers’ patience was also wearing thin. <a href="http://thehill.com/business-a-lobbying/384421-nj-congressman-latest-republican-to-call-for-pruitt-to-resign">Four house Republicans</a> openly called on Pruitt to resign. House oversight committee chair <a href="https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2018/4/16/17242470/fox-news-gowdy-scott-pruitt-oversight-investigation">Rep. Trey Gowdy</a> (R-SC) mocked Pruitt’s paranoia on Fox News. (Meanwhile, House Speaker <a href="https://twitter.com/NBCNews/status/1007293152955453446">Paul Ryan</a> (R-WI) decided to basically stick his fingers in his ears and go “la-la-la.”) </p>
<p id="fTuzVu">In the Senate, Republicans also grew frustrated. Sen. Joni Ernst (R-IA) said Pruitt was “about as swampy as you get.” Even Pruitt’s fellow Oklahoman, Sen. James Inhofe, told Laura Ingraham that “I think something needs to happen to change that, and one of those alternatives is for him to leave that job.”</p>
<p id="eAvIKh">On Thursday, the New York Times <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/05/climate/scott-pruitt-epa-trump.html">reported</a> that “the president acted after he found one particular story in recent days embarrassing:” the report that Pruitt suggested that <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2018/07/03/politics/scott-pruitt-jeff-sessions-trump/index.html">Trump fire Sessions</a>, so that Pruitt could run the Justice Department. “Fresh allegations that Mr. Pruitt had retroactively altered his public schedule, potentially committing a federal crime, had also escalated concerns about him at the White House, according to a White House aide. On Thursday afternoon, around 1:30, Mr. Trump’s chief of staff, John F. Kelly, reached out to Mr. Pruitt to tell him the time had come.”</p>
<h3 id="ih08CG">Scott Pruitt was one of Trump’s most industrious Cabinet members, but he was controversial from Day 1</h3>
<p id="RVpD5W">Trump’s announcement last year that Pruitt would take over the EPA was met with jubilation from the conservative base and revulsion from environmental groups, for largely the same reasons. Pruitt is a noted culture warrior who was eager to stake out his conservative bona fides during his time in the Oklahoma legislature, including pushing for<a href="https://www.eenews.net/stories/1060074217"> creationism</a> to be taught in public schools.</p>
<p id="2NTVBh">He was a <a href="https://www.npr.org/2018/05/01/607181437/on-fire-for-gods-work-how-scott-pruitts-faith-drives-his-politics">deacon and long-time member</a> of the First Baptist Church in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma, and said his faith helped shape his views of the environment and his doubts about climate change. Pruitt <a href="https://www.vox.com/identities/2018/2/23/17044912/scott-pruitt-bible-oil-friendly-policies-evangelicals-environment">cited the Bible</a> to justify his alliances with the oil and coal industries and to drive out many of the EPA’s <a href="https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2018/3/23/17147330/epa-scott-pruitt-science-regulations">science advisers</a>.</p>
<p id="GOPPyj">As Oklahoma’s attorney general, he set his sights on the EPA to defend the state’s oil and gas industry, <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/3290872-Pruitt-v-EPA-a-Compilation-of-Oklahoma-14.html">suing the agency</a> 14 times to block its regulations.</p>
<p id="aAYIA2">Since taking office in February 2017, Pruitt launched an unprecedented campaign against his own agency, pushing for budget cuts, staff reductions, and a drastic rollback of the department’s mandate to protect public health and the environment. The EPA started 2017 as an $8 billion agency with 15,000 employees. More than <a href="https://thinkprogress.org/epa-employees-leaving-under-pruitt-11b36a220062/">700 employees </a>were laid off, took buyouts, or left since then and at Pruitt’s departure, its budget was slashed by more than <a href="http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2018/apr/26/evan-jenkins/how-much-have-republicans-cut-epa-budget-staff-two/">$800 million</a>.</p>
<p id="hgYkHZ">Pruitt pitched this as a “back-to-basics” approach for the agency, but environmental advocates saw Pruitt’s agenda as captive to the fossil fuels, chemicals, and automotive industries, sectors the EPA is supposed to regulate.</p>
<p id="hTBKty">One of the Pruitt era’s biggest regulatory moves, for example, was a decision to overrule EPA scientists and ignore advice from the American Academy of Pediatrics <a href="http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/339609-pediatricians-group-deeply-alarmed-at-epas-pesticide-decision">to ban the pesticide chlorpyrifos</a>.</p>
<p id="Vv3AYJ">The long-running defense of Pruitt from the White House and his allies in Congress was that Pruitt was advancing Trump’s agenda. This perception helped insulate Pruitt even as allegations of corruption mounted. </p>
<p id="ruSSF1">Pruitt has rolled back, delayed, or started the process of repealing more than <a href="https://www.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2018-03/documents/year_in_review_3.5.18.pdf">22 environmental regulations</a>, ranging from regulations on clean water to greenhouse gas emissions from power plants. </p>
<p id="kfRORj">Under his watch, the EPA <a href="https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2018/2/22/17036114/pollution-fines-trump-pruitt-epa">collected fewer fines from polluters</a> and lifted limits on <a href="https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2018/1/26/16936104/epa-trump-toxic-air-pollution">toxic air pollution</a>. The agency also started changing how it calculates the <a href="https://www.vox.com/2018/6/9/17441484/scott-pruitt-epa-chemicals-cost-benefit-analysis">costs and benefits of environmental regulations</a>, limiting what counts as harmful and defining “benefits” narrowly, a move favored by industries like chemicals manufacturers. </p>
<p id="Rztsk0">For a White House that often struggled to put up numbers, Pruitt delivered wins to the president that resonated with his base like few others in the administration. Pruitt gave Trump plenty of photo ops with his favorite prop: coal miners in hard hats. </p>
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<img alt="trump and coal" data-mask-text="false" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/STuANeCscqAhRDV1t-Vv8K9kIcE=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/6523891/trump-coal.gif">
<figcaption>The real MAGA hat.</figcaption>
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<p id="nZ9Day">“You know, I just left coal and energy country,” Trump said in April after coming back from West Virginia. “They love Scott Pruitt. They feel very strongly about Scott Pruitt.”</p>
<p id="5Y919O">Similarly, there were plenty of Republicans on <a href="https://www.vox.com/2018/4/26/17285884/scott-pruitt-epa-congress-house-condo-phonebooth-travel">Capitol Hill</a> who were willing to go to bat for him. “I appreciate the fact that you’re respecting the rule of law, and I appreciate the good work of this administration,” Rep. Evan Jenkins (R-WV) told Pruitt during a hearing in April.</p>
<p id="XgJT4y">Meanwhile, Democrats and environmental activists quickly grew alarmed and mounted an organized campaign to <a href="https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2018/3/30/17176138/trump-resignations-scott-pruitt-epa">Boot Pruitt</a> out of office. </p>
<h3 id="9jbdBR">Pruitt’s unrelenting scandals, explained</h3>
<p id="J9A5Qq">Pruitt’s corruption in office was expansive, diverse, and comical. He introduced “<a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/6/21/17488454/scott-pruitt-tactical-pants-scandal">tactical pants</a>,” “<a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/6/4/17425068/scott-pruitt-trump-hotel-mattress">used Trump hotel mattress</a>,” and “<a href="https://www.vox.com/2018/6/7/17439044/scott-pruitt-ritz-carlton-moisturizing-lotion">Ritz-Carlton lotion</a>” into our lexicon. </p>
<p id="G8hNFD">Pruitt’s taste for luxury air travel and close ties to lobbyists were among the first indiscretions to raise the specter of corruption.</p>
<p id="vCBki8">After moving to Washington, DC, Pruitt lived in a condominium less than a block from the US Capitol and paid $50 a night, and only for the nights he was actually there. The building, however, belonged in part to the wife of a prominent lobbyist for natural gas interests, and was used to host fundraisers for Republicans.</p>
<p id="zq6JNj">In his first year in office, Pruitt traveled at time in first class, citing security and that he wanted to avoid <a href="https://www.vox.com/2018/2/14/17013568/epa-scott-pruitt-first-class-flights">uncivil travelers</a>. He also gleefully milked the perks of being an administrator, using lights and sirens in his motorcade to reach dinner reservations, springing for more luxurious hotel accommodations, and buying fancy customized pens, perhaps trying to <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/posteverything/wp/2018/06/12/scott-pruitt-is-acting-like-what-he-is-the-poorest-member-of-trumps-cabinet/?utm_term=.6438111489e3">match the lifestyles of wealthier cabinet officials</a>. </p>
<p id="f962P7">Pruitt has also spent thousands of dollars to assuage his paranoia. He spent $3,000 to sweep his office for <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2017/12/19/epa-chief-sweeps-office-bugs-installs-high-tech-locks/965315001/">surveillance bugs</a> and more than $5,700 to install biometric locks with fingerprint scanners. He also had a $42,000 soundproof <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/epa-spent-43000-secure-phone-booth-scott-pruitts/story?id=53738101">phone booth</a> constructed for his office.</p>
<p id="0UYIly">And unlike past EPA administrators, Pruitt has surrounded himself with a 24-hour<a href="https://www.cnn.com/2018/03/30/politics/epa-pruitt-travel-whitehouse-rose-bowl-disneyland/index.html"> security detail</a> that racked up a $4.6 million bill. </p>
<p id="VGtBsi">Questionable staffing choices at the EPA was another concern. Pruitt hired<a href="https://theintercept.com/2017/12/28/scott-pruitt-failed-banker-running-epa-superfund-program/"> Albert Kelly</a>, an Oklahoma banker banned from working as a banker, to run the EPA’s Superfund program. <a href="https://www.npr.org/2018/05/03/607996825/albert-kelly-an-adviser-to-epa-chief-scott-pruitt-resigns-abruptly">Kelly resigned</a> in May. Agency workers also received permission to keep <a href="https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2018/3/8/17092764/epa-employee-ethics-lobbyist">political consulting</a> jobs on the side and Pruitt gave big pay bumps without approval from the White House to two staffers, one of whom performed <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2018/04/03/epas-pruitt-gave-big-raises-to-two-close-aides-after-being-rebuffed-by-the-white-house/?utm_source=rss_energy-environment&utm_term=.15d054d509b8">personal errands</a> for him, likely violating federal rules. </p>
<p id="shP9x3">The aides, <a href="https://www.vox.com/2018/6/7/17437628/scott-pruitt-ritz-carlton-trump-epa-white-house">Sarah Greenwalt and Millan Hupp</a>, have both since resigned. Another staffer reportedly was asked to use her <a href="https://www.vox.com/2018/7/3/17530466/scott-pruitt-epa-scandal">personal credit card</a> to book hotels for the administrator and wasn’t reimbursed in one instance. </p>
<p id="6kT8GV">Pruitt also leveraged his office to gain favors for his wife Marlyn. Millan’s sister Sydney, who was working as his scheduler at the time, arranged a phone call with <a href="https://www.vox.com/2018/6/7/17437628/scott-pruitt-ritz-carlton-trump-epa-white-house">Chick-fil-A</a> at Pruitt’s behest to help his wife open a franchise of the restaurant. Pruitt asked another EPA worker, Samantha Dravis, to look for a job for his wife that <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/pruitt-aides-reveal-new-details-of-his-spending-and-management-at-epa/2018/07/02/71b87384-7aec-11e8-80be-6d32e182a3bc_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.882d53cac709">paid at least $200,000</a> with politically-connected conservative groups. </p>
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<p lang="en" dir="ltr">This looks like Scott Pruitt's worst ethics scandal yet.<br><br>He pressured an EPA employee to conduct a job search for his wife among lobbyists, wealthy GOP donors, and special interest groups.<br><br>Pruitt's actions here were certainly illegal, and astonishingly corrupt even for him. 1/ <a href="https://t.co/G6g98lBw9k">https://t.co/G6g98lBw9k</a></p>— Rep. Don Beyer (@RepDonBeyer) <a href="https://twitter.com/RepDonBeyer/status/1006911703043510273?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 13, 2018</a>
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<p id="NT5CfY">To deal with all of his scandals, Pruitt created a <a href="https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2018/5/17/17361562/scott-pruitt-legal-defense-fund-scandal">legal defense fund</a>. But lawmakers warned Pruitt that the fund created even more opportunities for malfeasance. </p>
<p id="5sGWAB">When cornered on <a href="https://www.vox.com/2018/4/4/17199954/fox-news-scott-pruitt-ed-henry-interview-scandal">television</a> or by lawmakers about his indiscretions, Pruitt took several pages out <a href="https://www.vox.com/2018/6/7/17437628/scott-pruitt-ritz-carlton-trump-epa-white-house">Trump’s playbook</a>. <a href="https://www.vox.com/2018/4/7/17207350/scott-pruitt-epa-5-lies">He brazenly lied</a>. He never acknowledged wrongdoing. He blamed underlings. </p>
<p id="aNOF6N">In his <a href="https://www.vox.com/2018/7/5/17538086/scott-pruitt-resignation-why-letter">resignation letter</a>, Pruitt cited “unrelenting attacks” on himself and his family as the reason for his departure. The letter didn’t mention the environment at all nor did it even hint at any wrongdoing, but it heaped praise on the president.</p>
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<img alt="Scott Pruitt made Donald Trump smile." data-mask-text="false" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/YACviIppYDEXpJzIzOnJgatd9LE=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/10751185/2017_pruittsigning2.jpg">
<cite>Corey T. Dennis/Environmental Protection Agency</cite>
<figcaption>Scott Pruitt made Donald Trump smile.</figcaption>
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<p id="MwC3Bd">“Truly, your confidence in me has blessed me personally and enabled me to advance your agenda beyond what anyone anticipated at the beginning of your Administration,” Pruitt wrote. </p>
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https://www.vox.com/2018/7/5/17192716/scott-pruitt-resigns-epa-administrator-andrew-wheelerUmair Irfan