EPA naysayer now chief

52-46 vote OKs Oklahoman after resistance

Scott Pruitt watches Friday as Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito signs the affidavit of appointment after swearing Pruitt in as head of the Environmental Protection Agency.
Scott Pruitt watches Friday as Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito signs the affidavit of appointment after swearing Pruitt in as head of the Environmental Protection Agency.

WASHINGTON -- Scott Pruitt, who as Oklahoma's attorney general spent years suing the Environmental Protection Agency over its efforts to regulate pollution, was confirmed Friday as the agency's next administrator.



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Pruitt cleared the Senate by a 52-46 vote. John Boozman and Tom Cotton, both Republicans from Arkansas, voted for confirmation.

Pruitt was sworn in later Friday by Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito.

The Senate vote came after Democrats held the Senate floor for hours overnight and through Friday morning to criticize Pruitt as a pawn of the fossil-fuel industry and to push for a last-minute delay of his confirmation. Part of their argument was an Oklahoma judge's ruling late Thursday that Pruitt's office must turn over thousands of emails related to his communication with oil, gas and coal companies. The judge set a Tuesday deadline for the release of the emails, which a nonprofit group had been seeking for more than two years.

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Republicans pressed forward with the vote Friday afternoon, saying Pruitt had been thoroughly vetted in recent months and calling on Democrats to end what Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., called "a historic level of obstruction" in holding up President Donald Trump's nominees.

"EPA has made life hard for families all across America," said Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo., chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. "The agency has issued punishing regulations that caused many hardworking Americans to lose their jobs. Mr. Pruitt will bring much needed change."

Sen. Susan Collins of Maine was the lone Republican vote against Pruitt. Two Democrats from states with economies heavily dependent on fossil fuels crossed party lines to support Trump's pick, Sens. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota.

Minutes after Friday's confirmation, the EPA tweeted for the first time since Trump's inauguration.

"We'd like to congratulate Mr. Pruitt on his confirmation!" the tweet read. "We look forward to welcoming him to the EPA."

Pruitt's confirmation marked a defeat for environmental advocacy groups, which wrote letters, waged a furious social-media campaign, lobbied members of Congress, paid for television ads and sponsored public protests to keep the Oklahoman from taking the reins of the EPA.

"Scott Pruitt as administrator of the EPA likely means a full-scale assault on the protection that Americans have enjoyed for clean air, clean water and a healthy climate," Michael Brune, executive director of the Sierra Club, said in an interview. "For environmental groups, it means we're in for the fight of our lives for the next four years."

Pruitt sued the EPA 14 times during former President Barack Obama's administration, challenging the agency's authority to regulate toxic mercury pollution, smog, carbon emissions from power plants and the quality of wetlands and other waters. In Oklahoma, he dismantled a specialized environmental protection unit that had existed under his Democratic predecessor and established a "federalism unit" to combat what he called "unwarranted regulation and systematic overreach" by Washington.

And as the onetime leader of the Republican Attorneys General Association and the privately funded Rule of Law Defense Fund, he spearheaded a group of attorneys general that fought the Obama administration on such issues as the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, Wall Street regulations and efforts to extend overtime pay to more workers.

That approach won him praise from some fellow Republicans and the oil and gas companies that have helped fund his efforts, as well as from Trump, who has criticized the EPA for what he calls burdensome and unnecessary regulations.

"Whoever was nominated by President Trump, the environmental community was going to demonize," said Jeff Holmstead, who headed the EPA's air and radiation office under President George W. Bush and is now a lawyer representing energy companies. But he said he thinks Pruitt will prove to his critics and to EPA employees that he does believe in the agency's core mission, even as he has argued that the EPA overstepped its legal authority under Obama.

"Over the past eight years in particular, [the EPA] has completely micromanaged the states. I think you'll see a real effort to reset that balance," Holmstead said. "I think he really does believe in the rule of the law. He believes the role of executive branch is to carry out the intent of Congress. I think he's committed to doing that."

During his Senate confirmation hearing last month, Pruitt said he disagreed with Trump's past statements that global warming is a hoax. However, Pruitt previously has expressed doubt about scientific evidence showing that the planet is heating up and that humans are to blame.

Pruitt's nomination was vigorously opposed by environmental groups and hundreds of current and former EPA employees who fear he will preside over budget and staff cuts.

"The biologists, scientists, lab technicians, engineers and other civil servants who work at the EPA must be able to do their jobs without political interference or fear of retribution," said J. David Cox Sr., president of the American Federation of Government Employees, a labor union representing more than 9,000 EPA employees.

His nomination also has rattled some agency employees who fear he will be eager to carry out the promise that Trump made on the campaign trail to "get rid of [the EPA] in almost every form. We're going to have little tidbits left, but we're going to take a tremendous amount out."

More than 700 former EPA officials recently wrote to Congress opposing Pruitt's confirmation, saying he "has gone to disturbing lengths to advance the views and interests of business."

Even some current employees openly protested his nomination, notably during a recent rally in downtown Chicago near the agency's Region 5 offices.

Holmstead insisted such protests don't represent all EPA employees. "I really think that for the vast majority of people at EPA, this idea that there is fear and trembling is a vast exaggeration."

Democrats boycotted a committee vote on Pruitt's nomination last month, citing his refusal to hand over thousands of emails that he exchanged with oil and gas executives. As part of a public-records lawsuit, a state judge in Oklahoma on Thursday concluded there was no legal justification for Pruitt's withholding his correspondence for the past two years. She ordered him to release most of the emails by next week.

Senate Democratic Leader Charles Schumer of New York called for McConnell to delay Pruitt's confirmation vote for 10 days. Schumer tried to draw a direct line between Pruitt's withheld emails and last year's demands from Republicans during the presidential campaign.

"Emails! Remember emails?" Schumer asked on the Senate floor. "'We should get them out!' they said about Hillary Clinton. ... If they weren't worried about them, then why rush?"

To dramatize their cause, Democrats kept the Senate in session Thursday night into Friday morning with speeches opposing Pruitt's confirmation. Democrats were still heading to the floor at daybreak.

Separately, another nominee, businessman Wilbur Ross, cleared a Senate hurdle on Friday and is on track to win approval to serve as commerce secretary. A final vote is set for Feb. 27.

Information for this article was contributed by Brady Dennis, Susan Hogan and Sean Sullivan of The Washington Post and by Michael Biesecker and Tim Talley of The Associated Press.

A Section on 02/18/2017

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