Dumping Pruitt A First Step, But Won't Stop Shitstain And His War On Terra

[hatrack]

EDIT

Environmental Protection Agency administrator Scott Pruitt is an embarrassment in an administration that does not embarrass easily. His petty graft alone — taking a $50-a-night room from a lobbyist’s wife; spending taxpayer dollars on luxury travel — should have cost him his job already. He also hit up donors and supporters for jobs for his wife. And he reportedly sent aides to the White House to try to scare up an internship for his daughter. All told, there are more than a dozen open ethics investigations into his actions. In fact, he’s even getting hounded back in Oklahoma, where the state bar association has opened an ethics investigation based on his assertion during his Senate confirmation hearing that he didn’t use private email accounts for state business; it turns out he did just that.

Worse than Pruitt’s lack of ethics, though, is the list of anti-regulatory actions he’s taken to try to roll back necessary environmental protections, from rules to protect waterways to limits on the toxins emitted from smokestacks. We hope that he exits the office soon, whether President Trump fires him or he decides he wants to, um, pursue other options. Even some conservatives who have long supported his anti-environmental efforts have turned on him. Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.), a mentor whom Pruitt might seek to succeed if the 83-year-old senator decides not to run for reelection, told Fox News the other day that “something needs to happen” to shut off the stream of ethical lapses and poor judgment. “One of those alternatives would be for him to leave that job,” Inhofe said.

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It's what might follow, though, that should chill the marrow of people who believe, as we do, that the world must take giant steps to throttle back carbon emissions to mitigate the worst effects of global warming. Pruitt’s deputy and likely leading choice to succeed him is Andrew Wheeler — who has been an aide to Imhofe and a lobbyist for the coal industry. Wheeler also was among those lobbying the Interior Department to reduce the size of the Bears Ears National Monument to open more land to uranium mining. Were Trump to tap him to run the EPA, he might not be any worse than Pruitt, but he certainly wouldn’t be any better. And he might be more effective.

EDIT

http://www.latimes.com/opinion/editorials/la-ed-pruitt-trump-pence-20180615-story.html

[tblue37]

1. Pruitt's deputy would be just as awful for the environment, but less disastrous for Trump on

optics, so I say keep Pruitt there, and keep his corruption front and center.