More Pruitt Highlights

January 19, 2017

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by Anthony Adragna (Politico's Morning Energy) During the second half of more than six hours of questioning for Scott Pruitt, the EPA pick said he saw no reason to review the agency’s 2009 endangerment finding, the scientific conclusion that climate change is a threat. “The endangerment finding is there and needs to be enforced and respected,” Pruitt said. “There is nothing that I know that would cause a review at this point.” Democratic Sen. Cory Booker argued the Oklahoma attorney general’s handling of a long-running water quality dispute with Arkansas undercuts the EPA hopeful’s stance as a defender of states’ rights. And Pruitt pledged to review EPA’s move last week to keep in place 2022-2025 vehicle emissions standards.

Pruitt also vowed to review a waiver allowing California to set its own stricter emission rules for cars and trucks, prompting a defiant statement from California Senate President Kevin de León: “California will continue to lead the world in addressing climate change and advancing clean energy regardless of who is in the White House or at the EPA. Mr. Pruitt should get used to that and not try to impose his Oklahoma views on the Golden State,” de León said.

Bottom line: Democrats did their darndest to land body blows on Pruitt, questioning "dark money" donations from fossil fuel companies to groups he was associated with, alleging his anti-EPA litigation sets up major conflicts of interest, and begging him to think of the nation’s asthmatic children. But Pruitt avoided major damage, giving the lawyerly answer to questions of conduct and providing just enough reassurance that he wasn’t immediately going to rip up the climate change endangerment finding or the power plant mercury rule to keep Democrats from literally pulling their hair out. Republicans, meanwhile, found a kindred spirit in Pruitt when it came to commiserating about varied Obama-era EPA actions. READ MORE and MORE (DTN The Progressive Farmer) and MORE (Energy.AgWired.com; includes AUDIO of part of hearing mentioned below) and MORE (Reuters) and MORE (WLS-AM News) and MORE (Environmental and Energy Study Institute) and MORE (Climate Central) and MORE (The Washington Post) and MORE (The New York Times)

Excerpts from DTN The Progressive Farmer: Though agriculture interests were alarmed by the total maximum daily load, or TMDL, implemented in the Chesapeake Bay by basin states and led by the Obama EPA, Pruitt told members of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee the nutrients-reduction effort in the region is an example of how cooperative federalism should work.

That is, states in the region put together and implemented a nutrients-reduction plan that has, in fact, reduced nutrients flowing into the Chesapeake Bay.

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Sen. Deb Fischer, R-Neb., said the EPA has been hard on Nebraskans in the past eight years. Fischer is one of several Midwest senators who met with Pruitt prior to the confirmation process.

She pointed to the effects of the waters of the United States, or WOTUS, rule, the agency's foot-dragging on approving new crop products, and repeated delays in implementing the Renewable Fuel Standard as issues farmers and ranchers need addressed.

"We are the largest ethanol producer west of the Missouri river, our neighbors to the east, Sen. (Joni) Ernst's home state, they do lead the nation in ethanol production," Fischer said.

Honoring congressionally mandated timelines and the volume requirements, she said, are critical for biofuels investors. "In our meeting, you did express your commitment to me to honor the law, and you echoed President-elect Trump's support for the statute itself and a strong RVO (renewable volume obligations), and for the record: can you please once again express your commitment to uphold the congressional intent of the RFS?" Fischer asked.

Pruitt responded, "Yes senator, and you said it well. To honor the intent and the expression of the Renewable Fuel Standard statute is very, very important. It's not the job of the administrator or the EPA to do anything other than administer the program according to the intent of Congress. And I commit to you to do so."

There has been concern in the Corn Belt about whether a Pruitt-led EPA would maintain the intent of the RFS. Pruitt said Wednesday his job as administrator would be to ensure the RFS is administered the way Congress intends.

By and large, the RFS going forward is designed to spark the development and production of advanced biofuels such as cellulosic ethanol and biomass biodiesel. That's because the RFS capped corn-ethanol production at 15 billion gallons that qualify under the law.

Renewable Fuels Association President and Chief Executive Officer Bob Dinneen said Pruitt's support for the RFS is welcomed. READ MORE

Excerpt from Climate Central: It became clear Wednesday that far-reaching car pollution rules enforced by California and a handful of other states could be jeopardized if EPA nominee Scott Pruitt is confirmed by the Senate.

After repeatedly suing the EPA as Oklahoma's attorney general over what he has characterized as federal overreach, President-elect Trump’s pick to lead the agency said during his senate hearing that he plans to review whether California will be allowed to continue operating its own pollution rules affecting vehicles.

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California has long set the standard nationwide on environmental regulations, and it has been enforcing pollution rules on automakers for more than 50 years that have helped to reduce smog, slow global warming and improve mileage.

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Pruitt said he would review a federal waiver provided to California that allows it to operate clean car standards that are more stringent than federal rules. Pruitt said “we shouldn’t prejudge the outcome” of his review.

Federal standards are silent on electric vehicles. Under a longstanding provision of the Clean Air Act, Massachusetts and some other states are allowed to enforce California’s vehicle regulations instead of federal ones.

Pruitt’s statement triggered alarm among climate experts and activists who already fear that the Trump administration and Republicans in Congress will go further than merely ending federal leadership on climate action — and preemptively prevent cities and states from taking action on their own.

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Also after Trump’s election win, California hired Eric H. Holder Jr., Obama’s attorney general, to help it defend its state rights from what it fears will be attacks by the incoming federal government. It’s expected to take any fights over its EPA waiver to court.

Pruitt’s plan to review the California waiver appeared to contradict his own testimony during the hearing that he supports granting states more leeway in regulating environmental issues. It also appeared to contradict the underlying arguments in many of the 14 lawsuits he has filed against EPA regulations. READ MORE

Excerpt from The Washington Post: Oklahoma is 1,400 miles from the entrance of the Chesapeake Bay at Havre de Grace, Md., halfway across the country. But the distance didn’t matter to Oklahoma’s attorney general, Scott Pruitt, after the Environmental Protection Agency drew up a plan to clean the polluted bay. He tried to stop it.

Pruitt was one of 21 state attorneys general who signed an amicus brief opposing the largest cleanup of a water body in U.S. history. The brief supported a federal lawsuit filed by the American Farm Bureau Federation and the Pennsylvania Farm Bureau that claimed the EPA usurped the power of states in the watershed to regulate pollution that flows into the bay from cities and farms.

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But a spokesman for Trump’s presidential transition team said Tuesday that Pruitt recently assured Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.) that he supports the multistate approach to the bay restoration. The two met last week partly to discuss the nominee’s position on the cleanup plan.

The spokesman clarified that Pruitt opposes any approach that would make the Chesapeake Bay a blueprint to clean watersheds elsewhere in the country. The EPA has repeatedly said over the years that it had no intention to take the plan nationwide. It also emphasized that point throughout the court proceedings.

A federal judge ruled in 2013 that the EPA has the authority to limit pollution that runs into the Chesapeake under the Clean Water Act. The federation that lost that lawsuit is now hailing Trump’s choice, and some farmers who struggled to pay for infrastructure to lower chemical and manure runoff from their land say they believe that the scales have tipped in their favor.

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Nutrient pollution, primarily phosphorous from human and animal waste and nitrogen from farm chemicals, is a deadly cocktail that causes algae to grow out of control and suck oxygen from water, killing animals trapped in the resulting dead zone. READ MORE