By Carole McWilliams
Over considerable opposition from Americans concerned about the future of our environment and from many current and former Environmental Protection Agency staffers, U.S. Senate Republicans rubber-stamped Scott Pruitt as President Donald Trump's EPA administrator on Feb. 17.
The EPA started sending press releases to me after the Gold King Mine spill. The ones issued since Pruitt's Feb. 17 swearing-in are telling in their boosterism quality.
The first one skated around Pruitt's ties with fossil fuel interests, the number of times he sued the EPA as Oklahoma's attorney general on behalf of the fossil fuel industry, and his dismissal of climate change science.
It calls Pruitt a national leader and a dedicated civil servant who "will lead EPA in a way that our future generations inherit a better and healthier environment while advancing America's economic interests." All well and good, but there's concern about how those will be balanced, given Pruitt's history.
We might get an idea from another e-mail that same day citing lavish praise from various groups, happily referred to as "America's leaders and job creators."
Entities listed include the American Farm Bureau, Longview Power, Auto Alliance, American Coalition for Clean Coal Electric, National Association of Manufacturers, National Mining Association, National Pork Producers Council ...
Get the drift?
But that wasn't enough. I got another praise list the next day that proclaimed, "Positive comments keep rolling in ..." That one listed CropLife of America, National Rural Electric Cooperative Association, American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers, Edison Electric Institute and the National Cotton Council.
No former EPA people or environmental type groups. And no, I'm not saying all the entities listed above are bad guys. But ...
Has EPA's 2012 scientific integrity policy disappeared yet? According to National Public Radio, it prohibits "all EPA employees, including scientists, managers and other agency leadership, from suppressing, altering or otherwise impeding the timely release of scientific findings or conclusions."
Despite Pruitt's nice talk, I suspect that EPA will now stand for Environmental Predation Agency. Only a week in, he delayed for four months (allegedly for more public comment) an Obama administration rule that mining companies must have financial means to clean up their toxic messes.
Go ahead boys and do whatever's needed to maximize profits. The taxpayers will be happy to clean up your mess later, as with all those old mines above Silverton.
Our so-called president and congressional Republicans had already canceled an Obama rule that blocked mining companies in Appalachia from dumping mining crap in streams. And our Congressman, Rep. Scott Tipton, seems to think the Four Corners methane hot spot is a good idea and warrants cancellation of an Obama regulation that required energy producers to stop methane leaks or gas flaring.
Getting rid of job-killing regulations, it's called. That's become the de facto description for almost any regulations, including those that protect people and their property, the water they drink and the air they breathe.
But we can't let that interfere with the short-term profit maximization of congressional campaign contributors and Scott Pruitt's fossil fuel industry friends.
