{"id":27964,"date":"2017-02-21T14:36:19","date_gmt":"2017-02-21T20:36:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/?p=27964"},"modified":"2017-02-21T15:20:02","modified_gmt":"2017-02-21T21:20:02","slug":"pruitt-suggests-new-direction-for-epa-in-address-to-employees","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/2017\/02\/21\/pruitt-suggests-new-direction-for-epa-in-address-to-employees\/","title":{"rendered":"Pruitt Suggests New Direction for EPA in Address to Employees"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_27965\"  class=\"wp-caption module image right\" style=\"max-width: 300px;\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-27965\" alt=\"Scott Pruitt addressed EPA's 15,000 employees in a short speech on Feb. 21, 2017.\" src=\"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/files\/2017\/02\/pruitt-epa-address-300x240.png\" width=\"300\" height=\"240\" srcset=\"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/files\/2017\/02\/pruitt-epa-address-300x240.png 300w, https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/files\/2017\/02\/pruitt-epa-address-500x400.png 500w, https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/files\/2017\/02\/pruitt-epa-address-150x120.png 150w, https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/files\/2017\/02\/pruitt-epa-address.png 620w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-media-credit\">EPA<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Scott Pruitt addressed EPA&#39;s 15,000 employees in a short speech on Feb. 21, 2017.<\/p>\n<\/div><p>Former Oklahoma Attorney General and new Environmental Protection Agency administrator Scott Pruitt addressed employees of the federal agency for the first time today.<\/p><p>Speaking at EPA headquarters in Washington, D.C., Pruitt told the agency\u2019s 15,000 workers \u2014 some of which <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2017\/02\/16\/us\/politics\/scott-pruitt-environmental-protection-agency.html\">strongly opposed his nomination<\/a> \u2014 he would listen to their ideas and encourage civil debate on key environmental issues. He indicated a narrow interpretation of the agency\u2019s authority, saying the EPA\u2019s oversight had to be \u201ctethered\u201d to statute.<\/p><p>Pruitt said he\u2019d rebuild the EPA\u2019s partnership with state regulators and he pledged to ensure the environmental rule-making process is open, transparent and objective. But, he said, federal regulators have an obligation to make sure those rules provide certainty for industry.<!--more--><\/p><p>\u201cI really believe that we can be better as a country,\u201d he said. \u201cI believe that we as an agency and we as a nation can be both pro-energy and jobs and pro-environment.<\/p><p>In his first interview since his Feb. 17 nomination, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wsj.com\/articles\/scott-pruitts-back-to-basics-agenda-for-the-epa-1487375872\">Pruitt told<\/a> the <em>Wall Street Journal<\/em> he wants the EPA to prioritize helping states meet air-quality targets, clean up toxic sites through the agency&#8217;s Superfund program, and to help improve the nation&#8217;s water infrastructure:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u201cLook at what happened in Flint,\u201d the Michigan town where lead was found in the water supply. \u201cLook at what is happening in California,\u201d where the Oroville Dam\u2019s failure endangers tens of thousands of homes.<\/p><\/blockquote><p>President Donald Trump is expected to release this week new executive orders rewriting Obama\u2019s signature Clean Power Plan. Also expected this week: Emails between the attorney general\u2019s office and fossil fuel companies, which <a href=\"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/2017\/02\/16\/judge-rules-against-oklahoma-ag-orders-trumps-epa-pick-to-release-emails\/\">a district court judge on Feb. 16<\/a> ordered turned over to her in response to an open records lawsuit filed by a nonprofit watchdog group.<\/p><p>Gov. Mary Fallin appointed Secretary of State Mike Hunter to take over as Oklahoma\u2019s attorney general. Hunter previously worked for Pruitt as first assistant attorney general.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Former Oklahoma Attorney General and new Environmental Protection Agency administrator Scott Pruitt addressed employees of the federal agency for the first time today.Speaking at EPA headquarters in Washington, D.C., Pruitt told the agency\u2019s 15,000 workers \u2014 some of which strongly opposed his nomination \u2014 he would listen to their ideas and encourage civil debate on [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":36,"featured_media":27965,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[490,491],"tags":[688,647],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27964"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/36"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27964"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27964\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27969,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27964\/revisions\/27969"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27965"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27964"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27964"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27964"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}