150 Facts About Scott Pruitt

Edward Scott Pruitt was born on May 9,1968 and is an American attorney, lobbyist and Republican politician from the state of Oklahoma.

Scott Pruitt served as the 14th Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency from February 17,2017, to July 9,2018, during the Donald Trump presidency, resigning while under at least 14 federal investigations.

Scott Pruitt was elected as chairman of the Republican Attorneys General Association in 2012 and was re-elected for a second term in February 2013.

Scott Pruitt received major corporate and employee campaign contributions from the fossil fuel industry, taking in at least $215,574 between 2010 and 2014 despite running unopposed in the latter year.

Scott Pruitt made frequent use of first-class travel as well as frequent charter and military flights.

Scott Pruitt leased a condo in Washington, DC, at a deeply discounted rate from a lobbyist whose clients were regulated by the EPA.

Scott Pruitt further caused ethics concerns by circumventing the White House and using a narrow provision of the Safe Drinking Water Act to autonomously give raises to his two closest aides of approximately $28,000 and $57,000 each, which were substantially higher than salaries paid to those in similar positions in the Obama administration, and which allowed both to avoid signing conflicts of interest pledges.

On July 5,2018, Pruitt announced he would resign from office on July 9, leaving Andrew R Wheeler as the acting head of the agency.

Scott Pruitt was born in 1968 in Danville, Kentucky, the eldest of three siblings, and moved to Lexington as a boy.

Scott Pruitt was a football and baseball player at Lafayette High School, earning a baseball scholarship to the University of Kentucky, where he played second base.

Scott Pruitt then moved to Tulsa, Oklahoma, where he attended the University of Tulsa College of Law and earned a Juris Doctor in 1993.

Scott Pruitt worked as a lawyer for five years before running for state senate.

Scott Pruitt was elected to the Oklahoma Senate in 1998, representing Tulsa and Wagoner counties.

In 1999 and again in 2005, Scott Pruitt introduced legislation to establish fathers' "property rights" over unborn fetuses, which meant that a pregnant woman would be required to get the consent of the father prior to an abortion.

Scott Pruitt was then selected to serve as the Republican Assistant Floor Leader, a position he held until he left the Senate in 2006.

In 2001, while a freshman state legislator, Scott Pruitt sought his party's nomination to succeed Steve Largent as the representative for Oklahoma's 1st congressional district but was unsuccessful.

In 2003, after his unsuccessful congressional campaign, Pruitt bought a share in a Triple-A baseball team, the Oklahoma City RedHawks, partnering with major Republican donor Robert A Funk.

At the time, Whitefield was a registered lobbyist for industry-aligned groups that sought legislative changes to Oklahoma's workers' compensation laws; Scott Pruitt was the major legislative supporter of these efforts.

Scott Pruitt failed to publicly disclose his financial relationships with Whitefield and the others, which were revealed by the press in 2018.

In 2006 Scott Pruitt sought the Republican nomination to replace outgoing Republican Mary Fallin as Lieutenant Governor of Oklahoma.

Scott Pruitt was unsuccessful; Fallin later won the gubernatorial election.

In 2010, Scott Pruitt again ran for the position of Attorney General of Oklahoma.

In 2014 Scott Pruitt ran unopposed in both the primary and general elections.

Scott Pruitt stated a desire to increase operational efficiency and shifted the attorneys responsible for environmental protection to the Attorney General's Public Protection Unit and the Solicitor General's Unit.

Scott Pruitt instead created a "Federalism Unit" in the Attorney General's office dedicated to fighting President Barack Obama's regulatory agenda and suing the administration over its immigration policy, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, and the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act.

Scott Pruitt was successful in raising campaign contributions from the energy industry, helping him to become chairman of the Republican Attorneys General Association.

In 2012, Scott Pruitt kept Oklahoma out of the mortgage settlement reached by 49 other states with five national lenders, with Scott Pruitt citing differing philosophies of government.

In 2013, Scott Pruitt brought a lawsuit targeting the Affordable Care Act, Oklahoma ex rel.

Scott Pruitt ran unopposed in the 2014 primary election and won the November 2014 election for a new term as Attorney General.

Scott Pruitt's office sued the EPA to block its Clean Power Plan and Waters of the United States rule.

Scott Pruitt sued the EPA on behalf of Oklahoma utilities unwilling to take on the burdens of additional regulation of their coal-fired plants, and criticized the agency in a congressional hearing.

In 2013, Scott Pruitt supported the Oklahoma legislature's bid to join four other states trying to restrict medical abortions by limiting or banning off-label uses of drugs, via House Bill 1970.

Scott Pruitt was unhappy with the United States Supreme Court's rejection of the Oklahoma case.

In June 2013, Scott Pruitt maintained that the Supreme Court's decision to strike down a provision of DOMA, a federal law that denied federal benefits to homosexual married couples did not affect Oklahoma's laws on the subject.

In 2014, Scott Pruitt asked Oklahoma's State Auditor and Inspector Gary Jones to audit the financial corruption by contractors performing the cleanup.

Scott Pruitt blocked Jones from following his intention to release the audit results.

On March 6,2014, Scott Pruitt joined a lawsuit targeting California's prohibition on the sale of eggs laid by caged hens kept in conditions more restrictive than those approved by California voters.

Less than a week later, Scott Pruitt announced that he would investigate the Humane Society of the United States, one of the principal proponents of the California law.

Scott Pruitt then filed a motion arguing that the Supreme Court was acting outside its authority, complaining it was causing a "constitutional crisis".

Scott Pruitt expressed his dissatisfaction when a federal court ruled that Oklahoma's voter-approved amendment in 2004 to the Oklahoma State Constitution that defined marriage as only the union of one man and one woman was a violation of the US Constitution in 2014.

In October 2014, Scott Pruitt criticized the Supreme Court's refusal to hear Oklahoma's appeal in the definition of marriage case.

In November 2014, after the Oklahoma Supreme Court blocked the enforcement of two abortion-related laws until after their constitutionality was litigated, Scott Pruitt's office communicated the Attorney General's intention to support their implementation and enforcement.

On December 7,2014, The New York Times published a front-page story highlighting that Scott Pruitt had used his office's stationery to send form letters written by energy industry lobbyists to federal agencies during public comment.

Scott Pruitt was an advisor to the Jeb Bush presidential campaign, 2016.

In February 2017, Scott Pruitt was ordered by the Oklahoma District Court to release thousands of emails of communication with fossil fuel industries in order to comply with Freedom of Information Act requests filed over a two-year period by the liberal watchdog group Center for Media and Democracy.

The documents showed that while serving as Oklahoma attorney general, Scott Pruitt "acted in close concert with oil and gas companies to challenge environmental regulations, even putting his letterhead to a complaint filed by one firm, Devon Energy".

Scott Pruitt was endorsed by the American Legislative Exchange Council.

Scott Pruitt was sworn in the same day by Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito.

Along the way, Scott Pruitt has begun to dismantle former president Barack Obama's environmental legacy, halting the agency's efforts to combat climate change and to shift the nation away from its reliance on fossil fuels.

Rutgers University professor Stuart Shapiro said that while Scott Pruitt had weakened enforcement of existing regulations, he had not been successful at repealing regulations.

Scott Pruitt's chosen deputy, chief of staff, and deputy chief of staff are all former members of Senator Jim Inhofe's staff.

Scott Pruitt picked Washington State senators Don Benton and Doug Ericksen to be, respectively, a White House liaison and a regional administrator.

Scott Pruitt has issued a directive to stop litigants from pressuring the EPA to regulate, referring to the practice as "sue and settle".

Scott Pruitt has offered himself as a replacement of US Attorney General Jeff Sessions.

In October 2017, Scott Pruitt removed several scientists from EPA advisory panels and forbade any scientist who receives a grant from the EPA from then serving those panels.

In March 2018, Scott Pruitt proposed to restrict the EPA from considering research that relies on confidential information, such as medical data.

On June 29,2017, Pruitt attended a board meeting of the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity, and told them that he will have researchers publicly debate the human role in climate change, adopting Steven E Koonin's suggestion to hold a "red team blue team" exercise.

Scott Pruitt has met with industry representatives almost daily while rarely meeting with environmentalists.

Senate Environment Committee Chair John Barrasso of Wyoming, supported Scott Pruitt, as did Senators Rand Paul and Ted Cruz.

In contrast to prior EPA administrators since its founding in 1973, Scott Pruitt neither provided lists of scheduled public speaking events nor disclosed most trips until afterward.

Emails generated by EPA staffers, when Scott Pruitt was the nominee for the EPA post, showed he considered running the agency at least part-time from Tulsa, his hometown, and sought office space in that city that would include room for his security detail.

EPA staff emails said Scott Pruitt required a "secure cabinet or safe" as well as a secure room to receive classified information from President Donald Trump and his cabinet members.

Scott Pruitt wanted the latitude to work from home at times.

EPA employees reported that the doors to the floor in the EPA's headquarters containing Scott Pruitt's office were frequently locked, and employees were required to have escorts while visiting the floor.

Scott Pruitt was accompanied by armed guards even while at EPA's headquarters, an unprecedented level of security for an EPA administrator.

Scott Pruitt ended the longstanding practice of making public the appointments of the administrator and other top agency officials.

Early in his tenure, Scott Pruitt asked his security detail to use flashing lights and sirens when they were stuck in DC traffic.

Eric Weese, the lead agent of his security detail, told Scott Pruitt that flashing lights and sirens were only used in emergency circumstances.

Weese had expressed a reluctance to sign off on requests that Scott Pruitt needed to travel first class for security reasons.

Scott Pruitt replaced Weese with Pasquale "Nino" Perrotta, a former Secret Service agent operating a private security company.

Perrotta traveled first class with Scott Pruitt and shared, along with his men, a five-course meal with Scott Pruitt at a restaurant in Rome.

In June 2018, it was reported that Scott Pruitt had used agency staff to perform nonofficial duties for Scott Pruitt.

Scott Pruitt tasked members of his security detail to run errands like picking up his dry cleaning and driving him around to search for a favorite moisturizer.

Scott Pruitt tasked staffers to look for apartments and to purchase a used mattress for his personal use.

In internal emails from August 2017, Jackson and another top Scott Pruitt aide complained that career EPA officials had released records in response to a FOIA request from a news organization, when such records could have been withheld for several additional weeks.

Scott Pruitt hired the former treasurer of his political action committee, Elizabeth Beacham White to run the EPA office that handles Freedom of Information Act requests for Scott Pruitt's office.

Scott Pruitt's office had the slowest response rate to FOIA requests of any section of the EPA.

Scott Pruitt drew controversy in the late summer and fall of 2017 over his use of taxpayer funds.

Unlike his predecessors, Scott Pruitt has, as EPA head, regularly flown first or business class on commercial airlines, as well as chartered private jets and military planes at exorbitant costs.

Scott Pruitt has a vastly larger around-the-clock security detail than his predecessors.

In September 2017, it was revealed that Scott Pruitt had used at least $58,000 worth of noncommercial charter flights and military flights during his tenure, and when traveling on commercial airlines had opted for business or first class when those seats were available.

In February 2018, a Washington Post investigation determined that Scott Pruitt has thus far spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on first-class airline travel, charter flights, military aircraft and luxury hotel stays, potentially contravening federal travel regulations and contrary to the practices of his predecessors, who routinely traveled in economy class.

On June 5,2017, for example, Scott Pruitt billed the government for a $1,641.43 first-class ticket on a flight from Washington, DC to New York.

Scott Pruitt defended his unprecedented travel costs as necessary for security reasons.

Scott Pruitt's spokesman told The Hill that Pruitt has a "blanket waiver" to travel regulations which normally prohibit first-class travel by federal employees.

Furthermore, according to a former top aide, Scott Pruitt refused to stay at hotels which had been vetted by the US Embassy while traveling abroad, opting instead for more expensive and less secure hotels.

Scott Pruitt frequently opted to fly with Delta Airlines, despite US government contracts giving discounts on certain routes.

Scott Pruitt tended to stay at high-end hotels during his trips.

Scott Pruitt was found to have spent 43 of the 92 days from March to May 2017 in Oklahoma or traveling there.

The EPA justified the size of the detail, saying that it was because Scott Pruitt faced greater security threats.

In October 2017, CNN reported that Scott Pruitt had requested a dozen more agents, which would cost the taxpayers at least $2 million per year in salaries alone.

In June 2018, it was reported that Scott Pruitt had spent approximately $1,500 on 12 customized fountain pens from a Washington jewelry store.

In 2018, Scott Pruitt faced increased scrutiny concerning a December 2017 trip to Morocco.

In May 2018, Le Desk revealed that Richard Smotkin, a former Comcast lobbyist and long-time friend of Scott Pruitt's, arranged the trip to Morocco.

Critics said that Scott Pruitt's trip was improper because the export of liquified natural gas, a fossil fuel, falls outside the EPA's mission of ensuring clean air and water, and because the Energy Department and Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, not the EPA, oversee the export of LNG.

At the time of the trip, Scott Pruitt's landlord's lobbying firm represented the only US domestic exporter of LNG.

In March 2018, it was reported that Scott Pruitt had leased a condominium townhouse in Washington DC from a lobbyist couple, Vicki and Steven Hart, at a price of $50 per night, which amounted to $6,100 over a six-month period.

In May 2018, emails showed that Hart had asked Scott Pruitt to get three people appointed to the EPA's Science Advisory Board.

Scott Pruitt's landlords gave him notice that he would have to move by July 2017, and changed the locks on the doors when he departed.

The townhouse rented by Scott Pruitt was used as a Republican fundraising hub while he and his adult daughter were living there.

In July 2018, it was reported that Scott Pruitt had requested help from two EPA aides, both of whom were attorneys, in a dispute that he had with a separate landlord.

Scott Pruitt sought to increase the salary from $107,435 to $164,200 for one aide and from $86,460 to $114,590 for the other.

Scott Pruitt hired former Oklahoma banker Albert Kelly to head the Superfund program, which is responsible for cleaning up the nation's most contaminated land.

Scott Pruitt repeatedly pressured his federal security detail to speed and use emergency sirens and lights when he was late for engagements, on one occasion in the wrong direction into oncoming traffic to pick up dry cleaning before a meeting.

Scott Pruitt ate frequently at the White House Mess, a restaurant seating only 50 that provides fine dining at bargain prices and is available only to senior officials and is not intended for daily use.

Scott Pruitt ate there so frequently that it triggered push back from the White House cabinet affairs team and criticism from the press and public.

William Ruckelshaus, the first and fifth EPA Administrator under Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan respectively, characterized Scott Pruitt as disbelieving of "the mission of the agency" while believing that the EPA was "over-regulating".

Gina McCarthy, EPA Administrator under Barack Obama, said that Scott Pruitt's EPA had created a "wealth of uncertainty" in undoing so many regulations because businesses would not know if they should "take rules seriously".

The EPA's overhaul of their website under Scott Pruitt has drawn flak from former administrators.

At a May 16,2018 hearing of the Senate Appropriations Committee's Interior, Environment and Related Agencies Appropriations Subcommittee, Scott Pruitt affirmed that he had set up a legal defense fund that will enable "friends, allies, lobbyists and others" to help defray any legal costs Scott Pruitt may face due to numerous charges of spending and ethics violations.

Scott Pruitt agreed they would be and added that his attorney would be working with the General Accounting Office to assure the fund met legal requirements.

In June 2018, it was revealed that Scott Pruitt had used his official position at the EPA to line up special favors and business opportunities for his wife and daughter.

Three months after being sworn in as head of the EPA, Scott Pruitt's scheduler sent an email to Dan Cathy, the chairman, president, and CEO of fast-food chain Chick-fil-A, about "a potential business opportunity".

Scott Pruitt approached the CEO of Concordia, a New York nonprofit organization which sets up summits to build public-private partnerships, about hiring his wife to plan summits.

Scott Pruitt had a top EPA aide contact major Republican donors for job opportunities for his wife.

Scott Pruitt instructed one of his aides to contact the Republican Attorneys General Association about finding a job for his wife, but the aide refused as she considered it an ethics violation.

Scott Pruitt instructed at least three EPA aides to help secure a White House internship for his daughter, after which she received such a post.

Scott Pruitt obtained Rose Bowl tickets via the head of a firm, Saxum, doing public affairs work for energy companies.

Representative Elijah Cummings requested documents pertaining to assistance Scott Pruitt received to obtain the prized tickets.

Scott Pruitt promoted overseas coal sales for coal baron Joseph Craft III.

The Washington Post reported that Scott Pruitt had meetings with officials from the same industries that he regulated while EPA head.

Scott Pruitt's lawyer said that Scott Pruitt had not and would not violate the five-year ban on lobbying the EPA.

In March 2017, Scott Pruitt said that he does not believe that human activities, specifically carbon dioxide emissions, are a primary contributor to climate change, a view which is in contradiction with the scientific consensus.

Scott Pruitt has incorrectly asserted that China and India have "no obligations" until 2030 under the Paris Agreement.

Scott Pruitt stated at his Senate confirmation hearing in January 2017 that the EPA has an "obligation" to regulate carbon dioxide in accordance with a 2007 Supreme Court case and 2009 EPA decision establishing carbon emissions as a threat to public health.

Under Scott Pruitt, Oklahoma sued the EPA and lost on challenges to the EPA's regulatory authority over mercury and other toxins, as well as pollutants responsible for creating regional atmospheric haze.

On March 28,2017, President Trump signed an executive order directing Scott Pruitt to rescind the Clean Power Plan.

Scott Pruitt has refused to rescind EPA's endangerment finding which determined that carbon dioxide emissions threaten public health, prompting criticism from some Trump supporters.

Scott Pruitt has stated that a move to rescind would almost certainly be overturned by the courts.

On October 10,2017, Scott Pruitt issued a notice of proposed rulemaking to repeal the Clean Power Plan.

On June 27,2017, Scott Pruitt released a proposal to rescind the Clean Water Rule.

On January 31,2018, Scott Pruitt finalized repeal of the Clean Water Rule.

On March 1,2018, Scott Pruitt issued a proposed rule to relax regulation of coal ash.

Scott Pruitt has finalized a rule postponing new effluent guidelines on power plants.

Scott Pruitt has rejected a proposed rule to require hard rock miners to guarantee they can pay mine reclamation costs.

Scott Pruitt has agreed to allow permitting to proceed for the Pebble Mine on Bristol Bay.

In June 2017, Scott Pruitt announced that he would delay designating which areas met new National Ambient Air Quality Standards for ozone.

In March 2018, Scott Pruitt was finally ordered to do so by US District Judge Haywood Stirling Gilliam Jr.

Scott Pruitt has been planning to reduce federally mandated corporate average fuel economy.

Scott Pruitt has proposed to repeal heightened emissions standards on "glider trucks", which are semi-trailer trucks that have new bodies but old engines.

Scott Pruitt had requested public comment on reductions to the Renewable Fuel Standard after being encouraged to do so by Carl Icahn.

Scott Pruitt has since traveled to Iowa twice to promote the repeal of the Clean Water Rule and to promise support of corn ethanol production.

In December 2017, after Scott Pruitt requested six more years to regulate lead levels, a divided federal appeals court issued a writ of mandamus ordering Scott Pruitt to regulate lead within the next 90 days.

Internal documents show Scott Pruitt worked closely with the American Farm Bureau Federation to permit continuation of the pesticide's use.

On March 22,2017, Scott Pruitt had dinner at the Washington Trump International Hotel with 45 board members of the American Petroleum Institute, where they asked for relief on new regulation of methane leaks from wells, which the industry estimates could cost it over $170 million.

January 2018 emails between the EPA, the White House, and the Department of Health and Human Services made public following a Freedom of Information Act request showed that the White House and EPA under Scott Pruitt decided to halt the publication of a study done by the DHHS Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry.

Scott Pruitt conceded that his agency should take "concrete action" related to chemicals like PFAS, but testified that he was unaware of any delay in the release of the study.

Scott Pruitt married Marlyn Lloyd in 1990 at Southeast Christian Church in Louisville, Kentucky.

Scott Pruitt was a trustee at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.

Scott Pruitt expressed his views regularly on the radio in Tulsa, including advocating for the passage of constitutional amendments to ban abortion and gay marriage and objecting to what he feels is the suppression of majority religious beliefs.