Pruitt blew it

Paul Mirengoff

That’s Ramesh Ponnuru’s assessment, and I agree with it. Ponnuru writes:

EPA administrator Scott Pruitt had enemies who were out to get him because he is a Republican, a conservative, a high-ranking member of the Trump administration, and an environmental deregulator. But it wasn’t liberals, the media, or deep staters who made him get large raises for his top aides, deny that he knew about it, and then admit that he did. It wasn’t they who made him have an aide find him a discount mattress, or run sirens so he could get to a French restaurant on time.
The aides who told journalists, or congressional investigators, or both about Pruitt’s misbehavior weren’t all or even mostly liberals or deep staters. Several of them were conservative Trump supporters who were disturbed by Pruitt’s behavior and thought he was serving both the president and taxpayers poorly. Some of them had come with Pruitt from Oklahoma because they believed in him. The more they saw him in action in D.C., the less they did. Today it caught up with him.

We hear plenty about the arrogance and high-handedness “swamp” residents. Some of it, too much, is true. But that arrogance and high-handedness is usually in the service of policy, not petty privilege.

It’s a rare Washington insider who behaves the way Pruitt did. When we see a sense of entitlement of the kind Pruitt displayed, it usually comes from a Washington outsider, recently arrived.

In these cases, there may be a kind of naivety at work, but that’s no excuse.

By all accounts, Pruitt was doing a fine job at EPA. He let President Trump and conservatives down by tripping himself on pettiness.

POWERLINE 

Pruitt denies he urged Trump to dump Sessions, install him at DOJ

EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt is denying a CNN report that he appealed directly to President Donald Trump this spring to fire Attorney General Jeff Sessions and put him in charge of the Justice Department. Pruitt, who is facing more than a dozen investigations into his ethics and spending, made the pitch during an Oval Office meeting with Trump, CNN reported, citing three people familiar with the matter. “This report is simply false. General Sessions and I are friends and I have always said I want nothing more than to see him succeed in his role,” Pruitt said in a statement. But Pruitt has repeatedly expressed interest in Sessions' job, people familiar with the discussions first told POLITICO in January, and continued rumblings about his intra-Cabinet ambitions have become one factor in the White House staff's growing irritation with the EPA chief. At the same time, Trump himself "enjoys discussing his negative view" of Sessions with Pruitt, The New York Times reported last month. According to the CNN report, Pruitt suggested that Trump appoint him to head the Justice Department for the 210 days he could serve as acting attorney general under the Vacancies Reform Act, and that he would then return to Oklahoma to run for office. White House advisers quickly shot down the proposal...MORE

Dem's letter to Ryan about Pruitt

Speaker Ryan was recently quoted as saying he hasn't "paid that close attention" to the ethical controversies surrounding EPA Administrator Pruitt. Two dem congressmen decided to educate him by sending a letter summarizing 14 different ethical issues swirling around Pruitt.

Pruitt has been great on policy, but has totally blown it with all these ethical breaches and has become a major embarrassment. Trump will most likely use the findings of one of the many ongoing investigations into Pruitt's conduct to send the guy packing.

I've embedded the letter below.

 https://drive.google.com/file/d/1vn9WfYyTg2oMdGkLYCbic_IXYygfPtlw/view?usp=sharing

Trump ‘not happy about certain things’ involving Pruitt

President Trump said he’s “not happy” with certain aspects of the ethics and spending scandals involving Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Scott Pruitt. “I’m looking at Scott, and Scott’s done a fantastic job at EPA,” Trump told reporters Friday at the White House. “I’m not happy about certain things. I’ll be honest.” Trump added that Pruitt has “done a fantastic job running the EPA, which is very overriding. But I am not happy about it.” The embattled EPA chief is under continuous fire over allegations that he’s wasted taxpayer money on himself, violated ethics standards and used government staff for personal tasks like running errands and finding jobs for his wife at Chick-fil-A and conservative organizations. He’s under more than a dozen federal investigations for controversial moves such as spending $3.5 million for a personal security detail and renting a condo from the wife of an energy lobbyist for just $50 for each night he spent there. Just Friday morning, the EPA confirmed that Pruitt had a communications consultant with energy clients help get him tickets to the Rose Bowl game, had a former Virginia lawmaker help his daughter get into law school and had his staff assist in getting his daughter a White House internship. Trump has consistently stood by Pruitt amid the scandals and has come out multiple times recently to say that he stands by the EPA head. But conservatives and GOP lawmakers have started to sour on Pruitt. In recent days, Fox News host Laura Ingraham has called on Trump to fire Pruitt for embarrassing the president, while Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.) has said Pruitt, who was attorney general of Inhofe's home state before taking over the EPA, may need to step down...MORE

Two of Scott Pruitt's top aides resign amid EPA scrutiny

Two of Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt's closest aides at the agency resigned on Wednesday, an EPA official confirms to CNN. Sarah Greenwalt, a senior counselor to Pruitt, and Millan Hupp, who worked as Pruitt's scheduling director, both resigned on Wednesday, the official told CNN. Their resignations are set to take effect late this week and early next week, the source said. Hupp recently testified before the House oversight committee that she did many personal tasks for Pruitt, including house-hunting and inquiring about obtaining a used Trump hotel mattress. Their resignations leave Pruitt increasingly isolated at the EPA, where he has lost the confidence of most of the agency's career staff and many conservative political appointees who feel that Pruitt's ethical lapses have done a disservice to the President's agenda. Still, Pruitt earned President Donald Trump's praise earlier Wednesday. "EPA is doing really, really well. And you know, somebody has to say that about you a little bit," Trump said. "EPA is doing so well...I think people are very happy with the job that's being done at the EPA."...MORE

EPA watchdog announces new probe into Pruitt's emails

The Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) inspector general said it is investigating EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt’s use of nonpublic email accounts, the latest in a series of federal investigations into the agency chief. The inspector general, an independent office within the EPA, will look into whether Pruitt is keeping a record of his emails, as he is mandated to by federal law, and whether the EPA is searching all his accounts when fulfilling public records requests. Members of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee — ranking member Tom Carper (D-Del.) and Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) — released a letter dated May 2 that confirmed the investigation. Past EPA administrators also used nonpublic email accounts for everyday communication, according to Politico. The latest probe comes as Pruitt faces scrutiny over ethical and spending controversies. It also ups the total number of federal investigations into the administrator’s behavior to a dozen...MORE

Republican senator threatens to call on Pruitt to resign

Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) is threatening to push for Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) head Scott Pruitt’s resignation over ethanol policy. Grassley made the threat Tuesday as part of a warning to Pruitt against the EPA’s reported “hardship” waivers, which are given to fuel refineries to exempt them from the federal ethanol mandate under the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS). “Well, they better, or I’m going to be calling for Pruitt to resign, because I’m done playing around with this” he said of his request that EPA stop issuing the waivers to individual small refineries owned by large companies. Grassley argued that waivers violate promises by Pruitt and President Trump to keep the annual federal ethanol mandate at the level Congress called for in 2007, which is currently 15 billion gallons. His state is dominant nationally in corn production, and the ethanol mandate has significantly ramped up demand for corn to create the biofuel. He fears the waivers will chip away at the mandate and hurt Iowa. “Trump was elected with an agenda, Pruitt was not elected, and it's Pruitt’s job to carry out the Trump agenda,” he said in a call. Grassley reiterated the threat later Tuesday in a tweet. “I’ve supported Pruitt but if he pushes changes to RFS that permanently cut ethanol by billions of gallons he will have broken Trump promise & he should step down & let someone else do the job of implementing Trump agenda if he refuses,” Grassley wrote...MORE

Amazing. All the first-class travel, condo renting, and over the top security are ok, but by God if he cuts subsidies to ethanol he should resign.

A Pruitt Aide's Attack on Zinke Angers the White House

As Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt faces a seemingly endless stream of scandal, his team is scrambling to divert the spotlight to Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke. And the White House isn’t happy about it. In the last week, a member of Pruitt’s press team, Michael Abboud, has been shopping negative stories about Zinke to multiple outlets, according to two sources with direct knowledge of the efforts, as well as correspondence reviewed by The Atlantic. “This did not happen, and it’s categorically false,” EPA spokesman Jahan Wilcox said. The stories were shopped with the intention of “taking the heat off of Pruitt,” the sources said, in the aftermath of the EPA chief’s punishing congressional hearing last week. They both added, however, that most reporters felt the story was not solid enough to run. On Thursday, Patrick Howley of Big League Politics published a piece on the allegations; he did not respond to request for comment as to his sources. Abboud alleged to reporters that an Interior staffer conspired with former EPA deputy chief of staff Kevin Chmielewski to leak damaging information about the EPA, as part of a rivalry between Zinke and Pruitt. The collaboration, Abboud claimed, allowed the Interior staffer to prop up Zinke at the expense of Pruitt, and Chmielewski to “get back” at his former boss. Abboud offered to connect reporters with Healy Baumgardner as a second source, according to a person with direct knowledge. Baumgardner, a former Trump campaign official, is a global energy lobbyist for the U.S.-China Exchange. She’s close to some EPA officials, the source, as well as an EPA official, confirmed. Baumgardner did not immediately return a request for comment. According to the two sources, Interior staffers who fielded the reporters’ calls were able to ascertain that Abboud, who is a former Trump campaign official, was behind the stories. The Interior Department’s White House liaison then called the White House Presidential Personnel Office to complain about his conduct. On Wednesday, a PPO official called top aides at the EPA “enraged” about Abboud’s efforts, according to a senior EPA official...MORE 

What a sad state of affairs. Two cabinet-level agencies leaking documents about each other, supposedly to make their boss look good by comparison. Now you see how far staff persons will go to protect their boss, and of course, their own employment.

2 top Pruitt aides leave EPA amid ethics investigations

Two top aides have resigned from the Environmental Protection Agency amid a growing series of federal ethics investigations, EPA chief Scott Pruitt announced Tuesday. In statements, Pruitt gave no immediate reasons why the aides — security chief Pasquale "Nino" Perrotta and Superfund manager Albert Kelly — were leaving. EPA spokespeople Jahan Wilcox and Liz Bowman did not immediately respond to questions about whether the departures were related to ongoing federal investigations...MORE

Pruitt dodges blame

Scott Pruitt may have handled his daylong congressional grilling well enough to salvage his job for now — but only after he blamed his torrent of scandals on staff, disavowed one of his top advisers and raised new questions about what he knew about massive raises awarded to some of his closest aides. The Environmental Protection Agency administrator shrugged off responsibility Thursday for a $43,000 privacy booth and more than $100,000 in first-class flights, and even said he has no idea whether his chief policy adviser showed up for work at all during a three-month stretch. But the former Oklahoma attorney general stayed calm throughout the nearly six hours of questioning. And his televised performance brought no immediate complaints from the one person whose opinion matters — the media-obsessed president who has so far stuck with Pruitt despite a multitude of investigations and the exasperation of key White House staff. “Let me be very clear: I have nothing to hide as its relates to how I’ve run the agency for the past 16 months,” Pruitt told a House Energy and Commerce subcommittee, the first of two panels to subject him to hours of questioning Thursday. But he also didn’t offer enough specifics to satisfy Democratic lawmakers — and a few Republicans — who criticized the lavish spending, cozy relations with lobbyists and other controversies that have taken root on his watch. He pointedly refused to apologize, instead accusing his critics of trying to “derail” President Donald Trump’s policies...MORE

White House Deterring Republicans From Defending Pruitt, Sources Say

White House officials are cautioning Republican lawmakers and other conservative allies to temper their defense of Scott Pruitt, according to two people familiar with the discussions, in a sign that administration support for the embattled EPA chief may be waning. The warnings come as several top GOP lawmakers have stepped forward to publicly criticize Pruitt in recent days, marking a dramatic turn of fortune for one of the most conservative members of President Donald Trump’s cabinet who has been heralded for dismantling Obama-era regulations. Republicans are now sharpening their criticisms about Pruitt amid a revelation that he met at least once with the lobbyist whose wife rented him a bedroom on Capitol Hill. Pruitt’s performance in front of two congressional committees this week could be key in determining how long he remains at the agency’s helm. The back-to-back House hearings scheduled for Thursday -- nominally on the EPA budget -- are set to be Pruitt’s first public appearance on Capitol Hill since the deluge of damaging revelations that began late last month. The scrutiny also coincides with the arrival of a deputy administrator at the Environmental Protection Agency who could take Pruitt’s place: former coal lobbyist Andrew Wheeler, who was hurriedly installed as the EPA’s No. 2 official after being confirmed by the Senate 11 days ago...MORE

Scott Pruitt is the target of no less than 10 federal investigations

The feds are really, really curious about what Scott Pruitt’s been up to. As the controversies surrounding the EPA chief have mounted in recent weeks, so have the federal investigations. Now, the EPA’s internal watchdog has lots of questions for Pruitt, as does the top federal ethics watchdog, and the House Oversight Committee, led by Republican Trey Gowdy. There are at least 10 federal investigations focused on Pruitt’s first-class travel, unusually large security detail, frequent association with lobbying interests, pay raises for staffers, and, somehow, more. The mounting appearance of misconduct and corruption at the EPA has started to attract not just the attention of Democrats — 170 of whom have called for Pruitt’s resignation — but Republicans, too. Amid all the scrutiny, Pruitt’s office has been quick to deny any wrongdoing. EPA spokesperson Jahan Wilcox has repeatedly responded to allegations with, “This is not news.” The denials, however, haven’t stopped federal agencies from poking around. Here are the big probes currently roiling Pruitt’s scandal-ridden EPA:...MORE

EPA's Pruitt under OMB spending probe; senators urge his ouster

The White House budget office said on Wednesday it was probing whether a $43,000 soundproof phone booth installed for Environmental Protection Agency chief Scott Pruitt violated the law, while dozens of Democratic senators called for him to resign over allegations of ethics lapses. Pruitt has been under fire for potential ethics lapses, including flying first class, excessive spending on security, and the rental of a room in a Washington condominium owned by the wife of an energy lobbyist. The Office of Management and Budget is reviewing whether spending on the booth installed in Pruitt’s office broke a law prohibiting federal agencies from incurring expenses in excess of available funds, known as the Anti-Deficiency Act. “We take the anti-deficiency statue very, very seriously and if (it’s) been broken, we’ll follow the rules,” Mick Mulvaney, the head of the Office of Management and Budget, told lawmakers in a House hearing. “We will enforce the law, and we’ll do so in a transparent fashion.” An OMB spokeswoman said the probe had already begun and her agency was working with the EPA on it. The EPA’s approval of the phone booth violated both the anti-deficiency law and another requiring agencies to notify Congress when they obligate more than $5,000 in federal funds to make improvements in an office of a presidential appointee, the Government Accountability Office, a congressional watchdog, said on Monday...MORE 

This could very well be the first step to his ouster or resignation. 
Somebody in the EPA budget office or the office of Congressional Affairs was bound to know this was a problem. Was Pruitt set up or were the career officials afraid to speak up?

EPA broke spending law on Pruitt phone booth: government watchdog

A government watchdog agency concluded that the Environmental Protection Agency violated federal laws in spending more than $43,000 to install a private phone booth in EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt’s office. The Government Accountability Office found that the EPA did not comply with the Financial Services and General Government Appropriations Act by failing to notify Congress before spending more than $5,000 on the phone booth. According to Section 710 of that law, any agency or department head or government employee appointed by the president must inform relevant members of Congress before spending more than $5,000 “to furnish, or redecorate … or to purchase furniture or make improvements” to an office. The EPA “was required to notify the appropriations committees of its proposed obligation,” the GAO wrote in the report. “By failing to provide such advance notice, EPA violated the provision. The agency also violated another law, the Antideficiency Act, by spending "in a manner specifically prohibited by law" the independent, non-political government agency that investigates spending of taxpayer money on behalf of Congress also concluded. The GAO’s report said that their finding only focused on whether the EPA notified Congress in advance, as it was required to do under the act, and not on whether the phone booth was the best way to provide a secure phone line for the administrator. “Because EPA did not comply with the notification requirement, the funds were not legally available at the time EPA incurred the obligation,” the GAO wrote in the report...MORE

Republican-led House panel orders interviews with Pruitt aides at EPA

A Republican-led House of Representatives committee wrote to Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt on Friday to demand interviews with five top aides, including his security chief. The letter from Representative Trey Gowdy, chairman of the House oversight panel, ordered the agency to make appointments for the aides for interviews by April 27. It also asked for a wide range of documents related to the EPA administrator’s travel and security arrangements, following written requests for other material earlier this week and in February. There was no immediate response from the EPA to a request for comment...MORE

At E.P.A., Pruitt’s ‘Sheriff’ Clashed With Critics of Spending

A former Secret Service agent, with a background investigating the Gambino crime family, is serving as the chief of security for Scott Pruitt, the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, and has helped build an unusual and costly protective apparatus around him. The agent, Pasquale Perrotta, has clashed — at least once physically — with top E.P.A. officials who challenged Mr. Pruitt’s spending, and has steered at least one E.P.A. security contract to a business associate, according to interviews with current and former senior agency officials. Officially, Mr. Perrotta leads Mr. Pruitt’s protective detail, but he plays a far larger role at the E.P.A., offering security justifications for management, personnel and spending decisions, said the officials, who were not authorized to speak publicly and feared retribution. Mr. Perrotta’s outsize influence has placed him at the center of inquiries by the E.P.A. inspector general’s office into excessive spending and possible violations of contracting rules by Mr. Pruitt’s administration, according to the senior officials. When Mr. Pruitt and his team became convinced that his office might have been bugged by environmentalists or disgruntled career employees, Mr. Perrotta recommended that a sweep for surveillance devices be conducted by a company owned by Edwin Steinmetz, who is listed as a vice president at a security firm Mr. Perrotta operates on the side, the senior officials said. Mr. Perrotta also used agency funds to hire Italy-based private security guards to protect Mr. Pruitt during a trip to Italy, they said.In addition, Mr. Perrotta played a central role in approving Mr. Pruitt’s regular use of first-class flights, and has often joined him in first class, including during the trip to Italy last June, for which travel costs totaled at least $120,000, according to public records. And when Mr. Pruitt wanted a secure place to make sensitive phone calls, Mr. Perrotta pushed for the construction of a $43,000 surveillance-proof booth in Mr. Pruitt’s office in Washington, over the objections of colleagues who had advocated a less expensive option. Mr. Perrotta also pressed, unsuccessfully, for a bulletproof vehicle for Mr. Pruitt and a bulletproof desk for his security detail...MORE

Threats against EPA’s Pruitt wildly exaggerated, security precautions unnecessary: Senate Democrats

A pair of Senate Democrats on Tuesday said they’ve seen private assessments that show EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt has not faced the kind of threats he’s claimed, and that the agency’s spending on a full-time security detail for Mr. Pruitt aren’t warranted. In a letter released Tuesday morning, Sen. Tom Carper of Delaware and Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island released parts of confidential materials — including an “internal EPA Intelligence Office report” — that they contend prove Mr. Pruitt and his aides are greatly exaggerating the nature and number of threats against the administrator. “It is hard to reconcile the public statements of EPA, and the president, with these internal and external assessments. It may be that the materials we have been provided are incomplete and that EPA has additional information that justifies its public position,” the Democrats wrote in a letter to Sen. John Barrasso, Wyoming Republican and chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, asking that the panel hold immediate hearings on the matter...MORE

Lost amid all the 'noise' over Scott Pruitt is the very real damage Obama's EPA did to rural communities

Daniel Mitchell

...Lost amid all the noise is the extreme damage the previous EPA did to rural communities. My work takes me to small, energy-rich towns around the country. These are the places where America gets its power, where multiple generations of energy workers live and worship and raise their families. Places where the champions of the eco-left would not deign to visit. These towns survived dot.com bubbles and housing crashes because the majority had steady, good paying jobs in coal mines or oil fields. These proud towns went from prosperity to poverty during eight years of EPA regulatory action as unemployment became rampant, and with it, myriad hardships: shuttered stores on main street, depleted education funds, increased opioid use. Families broke apart as moms and dads moved from their beloved hometowns looking for work. The very fabric of their communities – neighbors, schools, churches, little league, diners, town squares – destroyed in less than a decade. The ideologues of the previous EPA believed they were punishing “the fat cats” as Obama liked to call rich people who didn’t vote for him, or “millionaires and billionaires” in Bernie Sanders lexicon, or “big oil” according to the eco-left. But who they really punished were the forgotten men and women in Ohio, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Kentucky, New Mexico, Alaska, and Louisiana, among others. These millions of Americans who lost their jobs, their towns, and their livelihood voted to undo the EPA’s destruction, and Scott Pruitt is doing just that. His punishment will be severe: the eco-left, in conjunction with their elected patrons in Congress and media allies, will persecute him relentlessly. Our message to Administrator Pruitt: American energy workers who are going back to work thank you. The American economy thanks you. And please remember these wise words: if you want a friend in Washington, get a dog...MORE

Dems And EPA Insiders Are Freaking Out Over Trump’s Refusal To Nix Pruitt

Chris White

Democratic lawmakers and career officials at the EPA are grasping at straws to understand why President Donald Trump is sticking by one of his most effective lieutenants. There is a virtual civil war happening inside the EPA as negative reports about agency head Scott Pruitt continue stacking up, agency insiders claim. Capitol Hill Democrats are also not sure how to proceed as Trump dismisses calls to fire the former Oklahoma attorney general. Democratic California Rep. Ted Lieu, for instance, evolved from calling Pruitt a “deeply paranoid” and “unethical” person who must be fired to advocating Trump’s decision might be a good thing for Democrats in the long run. “So now I’m thinking, please don’t fire @EPAScottPruitt,” Lieu wrote Saturday on Twitter shortly before the president reiterated his support for the beleaguered administrator. “He’s such a great symbol of the corruption and fraud, waste & abuse in your Administration.” More than 64 of his congressional colleagues disagree: they want him gone. “Scott Pruitt’s unethical behavior, wasteful use of taxpayer money, and his efforts to undermine the EPA’s core mission to protect our environmental and public health demand an appropriate response: his resignation or his firing,” a coalition of 64 Democratic representatives wrote in a letter Friday to the president...MORE

The Myth of Scott Pruitt’s EPA Rollback

EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt’s spiraling ethics scandals and perilous job status were big news this week, but he also made headlines with his latest assault on President Barack Obama’s environmental legacy. “Pruitt Announces Rollback of Obama-Era Auto Fuel Efficiency Rule,” ABC News reported. “EPA’s Pruitt Kills Obama’s Auto Rules,” the Washington Examiner put it. The New York Times analyzed how the furor over Pruitt’s behavior has overshadowed his triumphs over regulation: “For Scott Pruitt, a Spotlight Shines on His Ethics, Not His EPA Rollbacks.” But Pruitt did not kill or roll back Obama’s strict fuel-efficiency standards; he merely announced his intention to launch a process that could eventually weaken them. In fact, Pruitt has not yet killed or rolled back any significant regulations that were in place when President Donald Trump took office. While Pruitt is often hailed (or attacked) as Trump’s most effective (or destructive) deregulatory warrior, the recent spotlight on his ethics—allegations of a sweetheart housing deal; pay raises for favored aides; lavish spending on travel, furniture and security; and retaliation against underlings who questioned him—has arguably overshadowed his lack of regulatory rollbacks during his first 15 months in Washington. The truth is that Scott Pruitt has done a lot less to dismantle the EPA than he—or his critics—would have you believe. Pruitt’s problem is that major federal regulations are extremely difficult and time-consuming to enact, and just as difficult and time-consuming to reverse. The rulemaking process can take years of technical and administrative work that Pruitt and his team have not yet had time to do. And even if Pruitt manages to keep his job long enough to complete that process for any of his efforts to weaken clean-air and clean-water rules, the EPA will inevitably face years of litigation over each one. The old saying that it’s easier to tear down a barn than to build one does not really apply to rules limiting pollutants like ozone, coal ash, mercury and methane. So far, though, Pruitt has yet to create new regulations that would outlast his tenure or Trump’s, or to rescind any of the regulations Obama created. He’s only been able to delay a few that were already on hold before he took office because they were mired in litigation—most notably Obama’s rules protecting wetlands from development and limiting carbon emissions from power plants...MORE