4/9/18: EPA Director Scott Pruitt Must Go
Deadline to Act: Please call MOCS ASAP – Keep the pressure on for Scott Pruitt to be fired or resign
Action: Please call Senators Michael Bennett and Cory Gardner and Representative Scott Tipton. Request that they call for Scott Pruitt’s immediate termination or resignation for his numerous ethical violations. See below for a description of these ethical violations and use them in your calls.
Why is this important: Since being confirmed as Director of the EPA, Scott Pruitt has led an assault on the EPA, its scientists and our environment.
- He is a climate change denier and has erased the phrase “climate change” from the EPAwebsite. He is actively trying to rescind and rollback regulations designed to protect our environment – most recently auto emissions standards.
- New complaints of ethical violations are coming out every day. These include, but are not limited to:
- rental ofa condo in Washington D.C. from the wife of an energy industry lobbyist for only $50 per night (well below market value);
- misuse of taxpayer funds, by traveling first class and having a 24/7 security detail and using the security detail on private vacations, building an expensive “phone booth” in his office at the EPA.
- After the Whitehouse did not approve raises for two staffers (who are both political appointees), Pruitt used an unrelated provision to give these two staffers raises.
- Pruitt used this same provision to hire Nancy Beck, a longtime lobbyist for the chemical industry to oversee toxic chemical regulation.
- Pruitt is being investigated for ethical violations in hiring of staffers and giving these individuals unapproved raises.
Good summary from Nicholas Kristoff – “What’s undoing Scott Pruitt at E.P.A. seems to be less his retrograde policies than his megalomania. He wanted a huge bulletproof desk, a bulletproof vehicle, a 20-man security detail, the use of lights and sirens to rush him to a restaurant, charter planes and first class travel — and he demoted staff who raised concerns. Basically, he wanted to be treated as if he were president. In any other administration, the latest revelations would have led Pruitt to be sacked.”
WHO TO CONTACT:
- Senator Michael Bennet
(970) 259-1710 (Durango) (202) 224-5852 (DC Office)
www.bennet.senate.gov
- Senator Cory Gardner
(970) 415-7416 (Durango) (202) 224-5941 (DC Office)
- Representative Scott Tipton
(970) 259-1490 (Durango) 202-225-4761 (DC Office)
https://tipton.house.gov/
WHO ARE COMMITTEE CONTACTS: Gail Harriss gailh@mydurango.net
For further information, click on: https://www.npr.org/2018/04/
https://www.washingtonpost.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/