Clipped from a FOX news article
runs parallel (in my opinion) to the story that needs emphasis on the IRS
The days of the weaponization of the EPA promulgated by Obama are over
In his first year as administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, Scott Pruitt has already transformed the agency in many ways. He spoke exclusively to The Daily Signal before addressing attendees at the Conservative Political Action Conference’s annual Reagan Dinner. An edited transcript of the interview is below.
Rob Bluey: You gave a speech at CPAC last year where you were just at the beginning of your tenure at the Environmental Protection Agency, and you outlined some of the things that you wanted to do. Here we are a year later, you’ve repealed, taken back, 22 regulations at a savings at $1 billion, a significant contribution to the U.S. economy, as President Donald Trump talked about in his speech. What does that mean?
Scott Pruitt: Busy year. And it was great to be at CPAC about two weeks after having been sworn in last year. And I talked last year about the future ain’t what it used to be, that Yogi Berra quote that I cited about the change that was gonna take place at the agency and I think we’ve been about that change the last year. Focusing on rule of law, restoring process and order, making sure that we engage in cooperative federalism as we engage in regulation.
But the key to me is that weaponization of the agency that took place in the Obama administration, where the agency was used to pick winners and losers. Those days are over.
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You know, to be in Pennsylvania as I was early in my term, shortly after the CPAC speech last year, and to spend time with miners in Pennsylvania and be able to share with them underground. I was a thousand feet underground and 3 miles in. First time that an administrator in history had done that, and I talked to those long wall miners in Pennsylvania, and delivered the message from the president that the war on coal is over. That was a tremendous message for them, emotion that I saw on their faces.
Can you imagine, in the first instance, an agency of the federal government, a department of the U.S. government, declaring war on a sector of your economy? Where is that in the statute? Where does that authority exist? It doesn’t. And so to restore process and restore commitment to doing things the right way, I think we’ve seen tremendous success this past year.
Bluey: President Trump cited a number of examples that have come out of EPA in his speech to the CPAC attendees, and one of them was coal, another one was the Paris climate treaty. Talk about those two issues and your work with the president in terms of why you decided to take those actions in conjunction with him?
Pruitt: The president’s decision to exit the Paris accord—tremendously courageous. When you look at that decision, it put America first, which is what the president said in the Rose Garden in June.
What was decided in Paris under the past administration was not about carbon reduction. It was about penalties to our own economy because China and India, under that accord, didn’t have to take any steps to reduce CO2 until the year 2030. So, if it’s really about CO2 reduction, why do you let that happen?
“That weaponization of the agency that took place in the Obama administration—where the agency was used to pick winners and losers—those days are over.”
When you look at who’s led the world in CO2 reduction, it’s us. From the year 2000 to 2014, we reduced our CO2 footprint almost 20 percent through innovation and technology. So, we have nothing to be apologetic about as a country, and yet, the past administration went to Paris, hat in hand, and said, “Penalize our economy”, which is what happened with the Clean Power Plan.
The president saying no to that and putting America first was the tremendously courageous and right thing to do. I’m very excited about that decision. I know he talked about that in his speech and it was a wonderful decision he made, and I think great for the American people.
Overall, this regulatory reform agenda—this regulatory certainty that we’re about—is achieving good things for the environment, but it’s also achieving, as you say, good things for our economy. We can do both. And I think that’s what’s key.