{"id":8831,"date":"2018-07-20T17:33:34","date_gmt":"2018-07-20T17:33:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/?p=8831"},"modified":"2018-07-20T17:33:34","modified_gmt":"2018-07-20T17:33:34","slug":"government-watchdog-groups-pruitts-epa-exit-long-overdue","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/?p=8831","title":{"rendered":"Government Watchdog Groups: Pruitt\u2019s EPA Exit \u201cLong Overdue\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_8833\" style=\"width: 610px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-8833\" class=\"size-full wp-image-8833\" src=\"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/gr-63227-1-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"600\" height=\"401\" srcset=\"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/gr-63227-1-1.jpg 600w, https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/gr-63227-1-1-300x201.jpg 300w, https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/gr-63227-1-1-405x271.jpg 405w, https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/gr-63227-1-1-60x40.jpg 60w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-8833\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Many of the EPA regulations that Scott Pruitt scrapped or delayed as EPA administrator had not yet taken effect before his resignation. Photo: Wikimedia Commons<\/p><\/div>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong><em>by Trimmel Gomes<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p align=\"left\"><strong>WASHINGTON \u2013<\/strong>\u00a0After allegedly overspending on everything from pens to lavish trips and accepting questionable deals from lobbyists, government ethics and watchdog groups say Scott Pruitt\u2019s resignation as Environmental Protection Agency administrator is long overdue.<\/p>\n<p>During his one-year tenure, Pruitt was seen by conservatives as one of President Donald Trump\u2019s most effective Cabinet members, working relentlessly to dismantle Obama-era regulations aimed at reducing pollution.<\/p>\n<p>Stephen Spaulding, chief of strategy for the group\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.commoncause.org\/\" target=\"parent\">Common Cause<\/a>, said Pruitt\u2019s questionable past was widely known. His group had urged Congress to delay the confirmation when Pruitt withheld documents revealing corporate influence in his decisions as Oklahoma attorney general.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe was clearly unfit for the position of public trust that he was in as administrator of the EPA,\u201d said Spaulding. \u201cI think we were extremely troubled that the majority in Congress really refused to hold him accountable and, in our view, were complicit.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Spaulding shared similar reservations about Andrew Wheeler, a former coal-company lobbyist and now EPA deputy administrator, who will take Pruitt\u2019s place as acting administrator on Monday. Pruitt expressed no regrets in a letter submitted to media outlets on Thursday.<\/p>\n<p>Environmental groups predict the Trump administration will continue its pattern of appointing the least likely candidate to head the agency. Kara Cook-Schultz, director of\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/uspirg.org\/\" target=\"parent\">U.S. PIRG\u2019s<\/a>\u00a0(Public Interest Research Group) toxics program, thinks the president should take time to really understand the purpose of the EPA.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cScott Pruitt has failed in the EPA mission to protect human health and the environment, and Americans are less safe today than they should be, due to his poor decisions and leadership,\u201d Cook-Schultz said.<\/p>\n<p>Like President Trump, Pruitt voiced skepticism about mainstream climate science. Andrew Wheeler also doubts that humans are a primary cause of the rapid increase in climate change.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>by Trimmel Gomes WASHINGTON \u2013\u00a0After allegedly overspending on everything from pens to lavish trips and accepting questionable deals from lobbyists, government ethics and watchdog groups say Scott Pruitt\u2019s resignation as Environmental Protection Agency administrator is long overdue. During his one-year tenure, Pruitt was seen by conservatives as one of President Donald Trump\u2019s most effective Cabinet [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":8833,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8831","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-state"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8831","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8831"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8831\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8834,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8831\/revisions\/8834"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/8833"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8831"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8831"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8831"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}