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EPA Chief Scott Pruitt resigns amid mounting scandals.
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Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt has resigned, amid an onslaught of financial and ethics scandals and widespread opposition to his campaign to roll back key environmental protections. President Trump announced Pruitt's resignation via Twitter. Trump later told reporters, "Scott Pruitt did an outstanding job inside of the EPA. We've gotten rid of record-breaking regulations, and it's been really good."
At the time of his resignation, Pruitt was facing more than a dozen federal investigations into ethical misconduct, ranging from lavish spending to asking subordinates to help his wife find a job. Just earlier this week, CNN reported Pruitt kept a secret calendar and schedule in an attempt to hide his meetings with many industry executives.
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AMY GOODMAN: Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt has resigned, amidst an onslaught of financial and ethics scandals and widespread opposition to his campaign to roll back key environmental protections. President Trump announced Pruitt's resignation via Twitter. Trump later told reporters, "Scott Pruitt did an outstanding job inside of the EPA. We've gotten rid of record-breaking regulations, and it's been really good," Trump said.
EPA Deputy Administrator Andrew Wheeler will become the agency's acting administrator. Wheeler is a former lobbyist for Murray Energy, the nation's largest underground coal mining company. He's also the former chief of staff for Oklahoma Republican Senator Jim Inhofe, who's known as the most notorious climate-denying lawmaker in Washington. In one of his most famous stunts, Senator Inhofe brought a snowball onto the Senate floor in 2015 in order to prove that global warming was a hoax
At the time of his resignation, Pruitt was facing more than a dozen federal investigations into ethical misconduct, ranging from lavish spending to asking subordinates to help his wife find a job. Just earlier this week, CNN reported Pruitt kept a secret calendar and schedule in an attempt to hide his meetings with many industry executives.
During his tenure, Pruitt also undertook a radical effort to reshape the EPA. The agency weakened Obama administration efforts to tighten fuel economy standards. It repealed Obama's Clean Power Plan, which aimed at slashing emissions from coal-fired power plants. The EPA also scaled back the way the federal government determines health and safety risks associated with the most dangerous chemicals on the market. And it attempted to block publication of a federal health study on a national water contamination crisis from the chemicals PFOA and PFOS, which are used in Teflon and firefighting foam. A number of key EPA officials have quit in protest during Pruitt's tenure.
Well, for more, we're joined in Washington, D.C., by two former EPA officials who have left the agency under Pruitt. Mustafa Ali is the former head of the environmental justice program at the Environmental Protection Agency. And Chris Zarba is a career EPA employee, who retired in February after leading the agency's Scientific Advisory Boards. Also joining us from Washington, D.C., is Kristin Mink, the mother and teacher in Washington, D.C., who confronted Pruitt earlier this week at a restaurant, calling on him to resign. Also with us, Emily Atkin, staff writer at The New Republic whose latest piece is headlined "Scott Pruitt Is Gone. His Assault on the Environment Continues."
We welcome you all to Democracy Now! Let's begin with Mustafa Ali. You were one of the first to quit the EPA when Scott Pruitt became its chief. Talk about your response. What do you think brought him down?
MUSTAFA ALI: Well, I think it was a number of things, Amy, that brought him down. Folks should definitely be focused on the policy and how the choices that were being made were placing our country and our citizens in much greater harm. So I think that that's the first place that we should always start, because that actually affects public health and the environment. You know, the scandals that he was a part of also were just the extra added incentive for him to need to leave. I think that he actually didn't understand what the job description was, which was to protect public health and the environment. So, if he couldn't do that, he should have never accepted the position.
AMY GOODMAN: And what was the spark for you to leave, Mustafa Ali? And when was that? It was almost at the very beginning of his term.
MUSTAFA ALI: Yeah, I left on March the 8th of 2017. And, you know, I took a look at some of the decisions that were being proposed and actions that were being moved forward on. And I knew that the vulnerable communities that I had worked for -- communities of color, low-income communities and indigenous populations -- would sort of be placed in a much more dangerous situation by the things that they were proposing. So I knew that I could not be a part of that, and I decided to walk away.
AMY GOODMAN: Chris Zarba, you left in February. Talk about the reasons you left. You're ex-director of the EPA's Science Advisory Board.
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