Environmental Protection Agency Draws Criticism 

Some Fourth Quarter Press Releases from the Sierra Club

Sierra Club
Monday, December 18, 2017
Contact: Jonathon Berman

ICYMI: Pruitt Attempting to Run a Police State, Not EPA

Washington, DC -- On Friday, Mother Jones first reported that EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt has wasted $120,000 of taxpayer funds on a political political consulting firm. The funds went to Republican firm Definers Corp. On Sunday afternoon, the New York Times reported that an attorney working with the Republican consulting firm, America Rising, which is affiliated with Definers, has been filing FOIA requests on nearly every EPA staffer that speaks about the need to protect human health and the environment -- the Agency’s mission. Despite Definers claiming their contract does not include monitoring EPA employees, its president called for further scrutiny of those who work at the Agency. According to the Times, Definers and America Rising share at least nine current and former executives and an office building in Arlington, VA.

There have been hundreds of FOIA requests made to the EPA since Pruitt has taken over with many having been ignored or rejected or at times, forcing lawsuits to be filed to ensure the work is done, yet this Republican consulting firm has had their FOIA requests filled promptly. The Sierra Club has filed more than 35 FOIA requests with only 5 having produced a response. The Club has two pending lawsuits over EPA’s failure to fulfill its legal requirements in filling these requests.

In response, Sierra Club Resist Campaign Director Maura Cowley released the following statement:

“Scott Pruitt has not just abdicated his responsibility to protect the health of the public, he’s using taxpayer resources to launch a witch hunt against anyone at the EPA who actually tries to do her or his job. Pruitt is supposed to run the EPA, not a police state, and his shameless waste of taxpayer dollars to attack those simply trying to protect the public is a scandal of historic proportions.  Pruitt isn’t only blocking the Agency from fulfilling its mission, it appears he’s attempting to shroud his work in secrecy by only answering FOIA requests from those partisan consultants potentially on his payroll. In Pruitt’s world, pollution will not only cloud our air and water, but also the truth.”

Sierra Club
Wednesday, November 29, 2017
Contact:  Rudhdi Karnik

EPW Committee Advances Dangerous Nominations of Wheeler and Hartnett-White

Sierra Club calls on Senate to reject nominees

WASHINGTON D.C.-- Today, the Senate Environment and Public Works (EPW) Committee voted to advance the nominations of Kathleen Hartnett-White for Director of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, and Andrew Wheeler for Deputy Administrator at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) along party lines.

The role of Director of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, which Hartnett-White has been nominated for, is to advise the President on how to best protect the health of our environment and our families. While Hartnett-White served as the Chairman and Commissioner of the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) and member of the Texas Water Development Board from 1999 to 2001, she made decisions favorable to polluters, not Texans. Hartnett-White oversaw the TCEQ practice of intentionally under-reporting levels of radiation in water and allowed at least 35 violations to go unreported, stated we don’t need limits on carbon emissions, and called carbon dioxide the “gas of life,” praised vehicle tailpipe pollution, criticized the Clean Air Act, and voted to allow construction of a new coal plant despite pollution concerns.

“Kathleen Hartnett-White has shown us time and time again that she will continue to put the wants of corporate polluters ahead of the needs of American families,” said John Coequyt, Sierra Club’s Global Climate Policy Director. “It’s preposterous that someone who oversaw the intentional under-reporting of radiation levels in water and who has gone so far as to call CO2 the ‘gas of life’ should ever lead the White House Council on Environmental Quality. If the Senate does not reject this dangerous nomination, Hartnett-White will only advise the President on how to harm Americans’ health and safety at the benefit of corporate polluters.”

Andrew Wheeler is a big time lobbyist who has represented Big Coal for almost a decade, representing clients challenging EPA rules numerous times. Since 2009, Wheeler has been defending a company that: violated labor laws and worker safety standards at its mines; sued the government to block life-saving clean air protections; has tried to mine for coal in our parks; has consistently called threats to our health, such as acid rain and climate change, hoaxes; and has labeled life-saving proposals to toughen emission standards as criminal fraud.

“The advancement of Andrew Wheeler’s nomination is a victory for polluters and special interests-- not the American families that rely on clean air and clean water,” said Coequyt. “He’s spent his career challenging the vital lifesaving environmental protections that keep our air and water clean so that we can keep our families safe. Wheeler was not only a key D.C. advocate for the coal industry, but also a former aide for outspoken climate-denying senator James Inhofe. He is a dangerous pick and unfit for the job.

“There’s absolutely no doubt about it: both Hartnett-White and Wheeler are extremely dangerous picks for public health and American families,” concluded Coequyt. “The Senate must reject these nominations.”

Sierra Club
Wednesday, November 8, 2017
Contact:  Rudhdi Karnik

Wheeler and Hartnett-White Are Dangers to The Truth, Our Clean Air and Water, and The Climate

Senate must stand up and reject these nominations

WASHINGTON D.C.-- Today, Andrew Wheeler, nominee for Deputy Administrator at the Environmental Protection Agency, and Kathleen Hartnett-White, nominee for Director of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, testified in front of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee.

During the hearing, Wheeler and Hartnett-White repeatedly dodged answers to questions and denied the impacts of human activities on climate change and of pollution on human health.

Andrew Wheeler is a big time lobbyist who has represented Big Coal for almost a decade, including in numerous lawsuits challenging the EPA. Since 2009, Wheeler has been defending a company that: violated labor laws and worker safety standards at its mines; sued the government to block life-saving clean air protections; has tried to mine for coal in our parks; has consistently called very real, very dangerous threats to our health, such as acid rain and climate change, hoaxes; and has labeled life-saving proposals to toughen emission standards as criminal fraud.

“Wheeler is a friend to polluters, not to American families that rely on clean air and clean water,” said Matthew Gravatt, Sierra Club’s Associate Legislative Director. “He’s spent his career challenging the vital lifesaving environmental protections that keep our air and water clean so that we can keep our families safe. Wheeler was not only a key D.C. advocate for the coal industry, but also a former aide for outspoken climate-denying senator James Inhofe. On top of all this, he continued his baseless claims today about his so-called support for science and scientists. He is a dangerous pick and unfit for the job.”

The role of Director of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, which Hartnett-White has been nominated for, is to advise the President on how to best protect the health of our environment and our families. While Hartnett-White served as the Chairman and Commissioner of the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) and member of the Texas Water Development Board from 1999 to 2001, she made decisions favorable to polluters, not Texans. Hartnett-White oversaw the TCEQ practice of intentionally under-reporting levels of radiation in water and allowed at least 35 violations to go unreported, stated we don’t need limits on carbon emissions and called carbon dioxide the “gas of life”, praised vehicle tailpipe pollution, criticized the Clean Air Act, and voted to allow construction of a new coal plant despite pollution concerns.

“With Trump and Pruitt’s numerous attacks on our environmental safeguards, it’s clear Trump needs an advisor who won’t bend to the will of big polluters,” said Gravatt. “However, it would be a gross inaccuracy to say Kathleen Hartnett-White cares about the quality of our environment. Hartnett-White, who has gone so far as to call CO2 the ‘gas of life’ and oversaw the intentional under-reporting of radiation levels in water, has shown a callous disregard for the health of our families throughout her career, will advise the President on how to dismantle key environmental safeguards and put our families at risk.”

“There’s absolutely no doubt about it: both Wheeler and Hartnett-White are extremely dangerous picks for public health and American families,” concluded Gravatt. “The Senate must reject these nominations.”

Sierra Club
Friday, November 3, 2017
Contact:
Emily Pomilio
Mark Kresowik

Sierra Club Slams Pruitt’s EPA for Denying Pollution Protections for the Northeast, Mid-Atlantic Region

Baltimore, MD--The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) denied a request by eight Northeast and Mid-Atlantic states today to require a handful of states to the west and south of them to participate in additional safeguards reducing smog pollution in the region. In a 2013 petition filing, Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and Vermont, stated that pollution from neighboring states such as Kentucky and Virginia have consistently carried over into their regions, keeping them from being able to meet federal clean air safeguards and polluting their communities.

The EPA denied the request in part by claiming there are better tools under the Clean Air Act for downwind states to address interstate pollution - tools which Pruitt’s EPA has failed to use despite multiple state requests.

In response Mark Kresowik, Eastern Region Deputy Director for the Sierra Club’s Beyond Coal Campaign issued the following statement:

“Once again, Scott Pruitt refuses to do his job and protect the health of communities to instead benefit his polluting cronies--but this time he’s harming the health of an entire region. This decision is particularly egregious because Pruitt is failing to act using the tools he claims to prefer for addressing cross-state pollution. Pruitt’s EPA has missed mandatory deadlines to respond to multiple “Good Neighbor” petitions from Connecticut, Delaware and Maryland to reduce pollution from coal plants in other states. For example, Brunner Island, one of the largest coal-fired plants in the region still fails to operate with the most effective modern pollution controls that could limit pollution contributing to asthma-causing smog.”
 
Sierra Club
Tuesday, October 3, 2017
Contact: Trey Pollard

Sierra Club: Scott Pruitt’s Schedule Shows He is Not Fit to Serve at EPA

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Scott Pruitt’s schedule is packed with meetings with the fossil fuel industry and chemical companies, according to hundreds of pages of his schedule uncovered by open records requests filed by the nonprofit group American Oversight. According to reporting by the New York Times, the revelations “for the first time, create a direct link between Mr. Pruitt’s meetings and actions that the industry wants him to take.” Among the lowlights of Pruitt’s schedule:


  • A trip to the Ritz-Carlton Golf Resort in Naples, FL for a speech to the National Mining Association
  • A trip to the Phoenician Golf Resort in Scottsdale, AZ for a speech to the National Association of Manufacturers
  • Numerous meetings with auto manufacturers seeking to gut vehicle emissions and fuel economy standards.
  • Meetings with a pesticides trade group the day after Pruitt overruled scientists calling for a ban on chlorpyrifos, a chemical known to cause disabilities in children.

The New York Times asserts that “Industry executives and conservative activists often scored meetings to press Mr. Pruitt to kill or modify Obama-era climate change regulations, particularly the so-called Clean Power Plan” while “William K. Reilly, the E.P.A. administrator under the first President George Bush, described the level of meetings between Mr. Pruitt and industry executives as unusual….He said Mr. Pruitt’s history of suing the E.P.A. should have prompted him to meet regularly with public health advocates and environmentalists.”


In response, Sierra Club Executive Director Michael Brune released the following statement:

"There is a reason Scott Pruitt tried so hard to keep his schedule secret: it is an indictment of his total failure to do the job he was sworn to do. When he is not taking expensive private flights on the taxpayers’ dime, Pruitt’s time in office has been spent almost exclusively meeting with wealthy executives from the country’s most toxic industries and then doing their bidding by gutting clean air and water safeguards. Even to this Administration, Pruitt is a dangerous embarrassment, and he should be removed from office before he endangers any more lives with his transparently pro-polluter agenda."

Sierra Club
Tuesday, October 3, 2017
Contact: Lauren Lantry

Sierra Club: Senate Should Reject Trump’s Toxic EPA Nominees

Nominees’ polluter ties will add to the toxic sludge of deci

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Tomorrow, the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works will hold a full committee hearing on Michael Dourson, Matthew Leopold, David Ross, and William Wehrum, Trump’s nominees to be Assistant Administrators of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), as well as Jeffery Baran, Trump’s nominee to be a member of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

Wehrum, who is nominated to head the EPA’s Office of Air and Radiation, the office in charge of enforcing the Clean Air Act was nominated for this position once before, in 2006, and rejected by the Senate. Wehrum, ironically has said that the Clean Air Act shouldn't apply to the carbon pollution that contributes to climate change.

Dourson, who is nominated to head the EPA Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution, the division that oversees the chemical industry, has spent much of his professional career writing studies that undermine existing science and concerns about toxic chemicals, and call for weaker regulations on chemicals like pesticides. Dourson was paid by Dow Agrosciences to downplay safety concerns about a toxic pesticide that is dangerous to kids. The EPA recently reversed restrictions on the use of this pesticide, called chlorpyrifos, shortly after meeting with officials from Dow.

In response, Sierra Club Legislative Director Melinda Pierce released the following statement:

"With this latest slate of nominations, Donald Trump and Scott Pruitt may as well change the Environmental Protection Agency’s name to the Corporate Polluter Protection Agency. While the EPA is already led by a climate denier who formerly sued the agency 14 times to fight public health protections, Trump and Pruitt’s latest nominees’ polluter ties will surely add to the toxic sludge of decisions the EPA is currently pumping out. We urge the Senate to protect our public health and environment by rejecting Wehrum, Dourson and all of Trump’s toxic nominees.”


____________
ed. note: Dourson withdrew in mid-Dec. 2017 >

Sierra Club
Friday, September 8, 2017
Contact: Rudhdi Karnik

Sierra Club: Formerly-rejected Wehrum for EPA should be easy and obvious for Senate to throw out again

WASHINGTON D.C.-- Late yesterday, President Trump announced his nomination of Bill Wehrum, a lobbyist and former George W. Bush-era EPA official, to lead the EPA's air and radiation office. Wehrum was nominated for this position once before, in 2006, and rejected by the Senate.

In response, Sierra Club’s Global Climate Policy Director John Coequyt released the following statement:

"Donald Trump is putting yet another corporate polluting lobbyist into a position of power at EPA, which is already led by a climate denier who formerly sued EPA 14 times himself to fight public health protections. Bill Wehrum has been nominated to lead the air office at EPA but ironically has said that the Clean Air Act shouldn't apply to the carbon pollution that contributes to climate change and superstorms like Hurricane Harvey. Wehrum was rejected by the Senate once before for this position and like many of Trump's nominees has an astounding number of conflicts of interest given that he has regularly represented industry in their efforts to undermine clean air standards. Pollution-free clean air should be the standard for Americans everywhere but given Wehrum's track record, it's unlikely that he's going to put people before polluters. Hopefully this is an easy nomination for the Senate to rightfully reject again"