Pulse Magazine
Spring 2017
Reuse. Reread. Recycle
A Different Philosophy
Former EPA head doesn’t see eye to eye with Pruitt
Photo Courtesy of the Environmental Protection Agency
By Elyse Carmosino
On Friday, Feb. 17, former Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt was sworn in as the 14th administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency—a development that has since been met with opposition and protest from environmental advocates, various government figures and thousands of Americans nationwide. Perhaps most surprisingly, one of Pruitt’s most outspoken critics has been former Republican EPA leader Christine Todd Whitman. Unlike what many current members of her party seem to project, Whitman believes a tradeoff between protecting the economy and protecting the environment is not only unnecessary, but could even become counterproductive to the party’s aims.
“The assumption seems to be that anything—that any kind of environmental regulation—is going to stop development, stop our energy and cause major economic issues. We’ve seen in the past that simply is not the case. You can reduce pollutants and you can increase the economy at the same time,” Whitman said.
She cites the Clean Air Act which regulates air pollution, as well as various water quality protections, as a major example of this.
“Between 1990 with the Clean Air Act and 2012, we saw an increase in the population of the United States, an increase in the demand usage of energy in the United States, and yet the reduction by 67 percent of the six criteria pollutants, the worst pollutants, at the same time that our GDP more than doubled in real numbers,” she said.
Photo Courtesy of The Whitman Strategy Group
President Trump has previously defended his pick for head of the EPA, assuring the public that all of his cabinet choices are “highly qualified,” but it hasn’t been enough to quell the widespread worry quickly mounting among his critics. There is, it seems, much to worry about when it comes to Pruitt.
During a time when top scientists worldwide almost unanimously agree more environmental regulation is crucial, Pruitt seems determined to take a more leisurely approach when it comes to telling industries what they can and can’t do. An outspoken climate change skeptic, the EPA’s newest administrator previously sued the agency—or supported other lawsuits against it—nearly two dozen times while he served as Oklahoma Attorney General and head of the Republican Attorney General Association. During his time in office, Pruitt also collected millions in political donations from the very same industries he is now being asked to regulate, and on top of this, he has since announced plans to reduce EPA funding and undo many major environmental regulations—some of which have been in place for decades—including the Clean Air Act.
Michael Gerrard, a professor of environmental law at Columbia University, says that even if many of these laws aren’t repealed entirely, under Pruitt’s new plans they are likely to be considerably weakened to the point where states will be largely left to their own devices when it comes to enforcing environmental regulations. This will still pose problems, he says.
“Some of the states have little interest in carrying out these laws and most of them rely heavily on federal money to carry out these programs. If we saw the devolution of many of these programs to the states, there would be quite a few states that would continue the race to the bottom which would then urge industries to strengthen their stance for weak regulation,” Gerrard said. “Nationwide, you’d have a major weakening of environmental protection.”
In a letter he penned with Alabama Senator Luther Strange for the National Review, Pruitt addressed the talk around one of his most controversial views: that climate change should remain a topic open for debate.
“Some of our states... are acting less like Jefferson and Adams and more like George III. A group of Democratic attorneys general has announced it intends to criminally investigate oil and gas companies that have disputed the science behind man-made global warming. Backed by green-energy interests and environmentalist lobbying groups, the coalition has promised to use intrusive investigations, costly litigation, and criminal prosecutions to silence critics of its climate-change agenda,” Pruitt wrote.
Referring to a bill former President Obama proposed that would have made it possible to prosecute climate change deniers, one aspect of Pruitt’s rhetoric that has many concerned is his implied argument that if climate change deniers could be prosecuted under the Obama administration, then climate change activists should be subject to prosecution as well. While Pruitt has not explicitly said he believes climate change activists should be prosecuted, his comments stating he believes the climate change debate is still “far from settled” has many activists worried about a culture of environmental apathy in the United States during the next four years.
Whitman, who led the agency under former President George W. Bush from 2001 to 2003, has many reservations about what Pruitt’s appointment will mean not only for the environment but for the nation as a whole.
“My concern is for the country and the American people. My concern is for the health of the environment. I’ve seen from administrator Pruitt [that] the science is being undermined and the budget is being undermined. The agency is not going to be able to do its job."
- Christine Todd Whitman
Adam Beitman, the deputy national press secretary for the Sierra Club, which is the largest grassroots environmental organization in the United States, believes Whitman’s comments speak volumes about the divide within the Republican Party, as well as help highlight the extremeness of Pruitt’s aims:
“The fact that previous Republican EPA administrators have been so vocal in their opposition to Pruitt running the Agency, as well as his specific attacks on public health and climate action, tells you just how radically outside of the mainstream Pruitt's policy of catering exclusively to fossil fuel billionaires truly is,” Beitman said.
Whitman also questions where Pruitt’s loyalties lie—with the protection of the environment or the companies that harm it? Many of Pruitt’s proposed plans seem to favor big businesses and job creation at the cost of the environment and the health of the American people. On top of this, if the Republican Party has historically focused more on the welfare of corporations, Whitman finds Pruitt’s potentially harmful and arguably anti-environmental policies to be outdated and out of touch with what consumers and many businesses already want.
“A lot of corporations are already seeing that reducing their energy demand saves them money. They’re seeing reducing their water saves them money. It also gives them a point of differentiation with their competitors, so a number of corporations are already doing that,” she said.
Whitman also credits the generation currently entering the workforce as a driving factor behind this focal shift. As environmental issues slowly seep into the mainstream consciousness, businesses can expect to see an increase in the number of employees seeking out companies whose values align with their own.
“Some of the questions this generation is asking as they go in for job interviews, are what are the company’s environmental standards, so it is something people do care about. They don’t like regulation, but they like clean air and they like clean water and they want to see what they can do about it,” she said.
When he addressed the EPA on Feb 21, Pruitt said he does believe it’s possible to grow the economy and protect the environment at the same time.
“I believe that we as a nation can be both pro-energy and jobs, and pro-environment. We don’t have to choose between the two. I think our nation has done better than any nation in the world at making sure that we do the job of protecting our natural resources, and protecting our environment, while also respecting economic growth,” he said.
Whitman said in response:
“The problem is ‘watch what I do, not what I say.’ The ability to continue to monitor that, to continue to improve the environmental performance, is going to depend on having the kind of structure and support at the agency that allows you to do that. With the kind of budget cuts they’re talking about, it’s going to be almost impossible for them to continue to serve that role.”
As concerned as Whitman is about the new administration, environmental groups are even more on edge. When asked how organizations like the Sierra Club are preparing for the next four years, Beitman said:
“As head of the EPA, Pruitt has the power to weaken protections for clean air, clean water and our climate, but the solution is far from despair. We won't give up without a fight, and we’ll be making our voices heard in the courts, in the streets, and at the state and local level around the country alongside our millions of members and supporters.”
He concluded with a rallying sentiment that seemed to sum up the current feelings of activists across the nation:
“Pruitt and Trump are on the wrong side of history, and we're going to make sure their chapter does not last long.”