Back to Basics or Slash and Burn? Scott Pruitt's Reign as EPA Administrator

• Date: 01 November 2017

11-2017 NEWS & ANALYSIS 47 ELR 10917

C O M M E N T S

Back to Basics or Slash and Burn?

Scott Pruitt’s Reign as

EPA Administrator

by Bob Sussman

Bob Sussman served as EPA Deputy Administrator under President William Clinton and as Senior Policy Counsel

to the EPA Administrator under President Barack Obama. Formerly a partner at Latham and Watkins, Bob is

now an energy and environmental consultant and an Adjunct Professor at Georgetown Law Center.

U.S.

Environmental Protection Agency

(EPA) Administrator Scott Pruitt

describes his philosophy as “back to

basics.”1 is phrase is a sly dig at his predecessors Lisa

Jackson and Gina McCar thy for straying f rom the Agen-

cy’s core mission, a s well as a n implicit promise to return

EPA to its roots.

Although Pruitt’s words suggest a renewed focus on the

fundamenta ls of environmental protection, his actions tell

a dierent stor y. Instead of doubling down on traditional

programs safeguarding air, water, a nd land, Pruitt’s ten-

ure has been dened by an obsessive focus on undoing

the legacy of Barack Obama’s EPA, downsizing the Agen-

cy’s workforce and budget, repea ling rules on the books,

weakening EPA’s science capabilities, and scaling back

oversight of state programs. As these initiatives unfold,

EPA’s ability to maintain core protections a nd respond to

new t hreats—the bread and butter of EPA’s mission—is

rapidly eroding and may suer irretrievable damage if

Pruitt’s policies continue.

EPA has experienced swings of the pendulum before,

but none as extreme as this one. Pruitt is well outside the

mainstream of previous EPA Administrators of both par-

ties, an outlier who threatens the Agency’s eectiveness

more than any challenge it has faced before.

Despite the ebb and ow of environmental policy from

one president to the next, the core protections EPA imple-

ments have shown remarkable stability and continuity over

time. is is because dierent Administrators, with limited

exceptions, have embraced common va lues and goals a nd

have generally built on and strengthened the work of their

predecessors. As a result, as new Agency heads have tack-

led emerging environmental challenges or improved poli-

cies on the books, their eorts have largely endured and

1. Kimberley A. Strassel, W

S. J., Feb. 17, 2017, https://www.wsj.com/articles/scott-pruitts-back-to-

basics-agenda-for-the-epa-1487375872.

become part of the evolving body of science a nd law t hat

denes the Agency’s mission.

Pruitt, however, has uprooted the U.S. environmental

protection framework by turning this paradigm on its

head. Instead of bui lding on the work of his predecessors,

he has embarked on an unparalleled eort to undo Obama

Administration rules and to suspend their implementation,

delaying the environmental benets they were intended

to deliver. Unlike previous EPA Administrators, Pruitt

has failed to articulate a vision of future environmental

progress, and edicts from the White House have para-

lyzed EPA’s ability to pursue a forward-looking regulatory

agenda. Even routine technical and reg ulatory tasks have

been imperiled by the downsizing of the workforce, loss

of critical expertise, a nd declines in funding. EPA cannot

function eectively if its institutional moorings are called

into question every four years and the Agency’s main focus

is to undo the work of the prior administration rather than

to maintain and enhance core protections.

At its root, this deeply destructive approach reects

skepticism and suspicion of the value of environmental reg-

ulation, coupled with cynicism about the scientic, legal,

and economic tools that have traditionally been the under-

pinnings of EPA’s programs. us, Pruitt is not preserving

the “ basics” of our environmental protection system, but

deconstructing them.

I. The Environmental Policy Consensus

Putting Scott Pruitt in the broader context of U.S. envi-

ronmental policy since 1970 underscores how radica lly he

has departed from the traditional concept of EPA’s mission.

Today’s environmental protection system is the product

of a bipartisan consensus that endured for several decades.

is consensus was embodied in a series of comprehensive

laws enacted between 1965 and 1996 that passed with large

margins in the U.S. Congress, and were signed by presi-

Copyright © 2017 Environmental Law Institute®, Washington, DC. Reprinted with permission from ELR®, http://www.eli.org, 1-800-433-5120.