Deconstructing America - Part whatever

Scott Pruitt, the head of the Environmental Protection Agency, vowed that he will get tough on corporate polluters, dismissing critics who cast him as too cozy with industry.

"They don’t know me," Pruitt said, during an interview with Bloomberg News in his Washington office. "I’ve led a grand jury. We are going to do enforcement, to go after bad actors and go after polluters."

  Bloomberg

Why do I not feel reassured?

Pruitt, the former Oklahoma attorney general, is leading the efforts to roll back Obama-era environmental regulations, including the first limits on carbon dioxide emissions from power plants and an overhaul of clean-water rules. Despite moving to rescind those measures, those that remain in place will be fully enforced, he said.

[...]

The Environmental Integrity Project, a watchdog group led by Schaeffer, reported in August that during President Donald Trump’s first six months in office, civil penalties paid for environmental violations were 60 percent smaller on average than for comparable periods in the administrations of presidents Obama, George W. Bush and Clinton.

[...]

Pruitt said he is still making plans for a "red team, blue team" exercise to examine the scientific research around climate change, with skeptics squaring off against scientists who say data overwhelmingly prove carbon dioxide emissions drive the phenomenon.

[...]

"I am here because I really feel called to it," Pruitt said. "My desire each day is to bless the president and the decisions he’s making."

Jesus wept. These people would have been perfect for Stalin.

Red team, blue team.  Oh, gee.  I wonder which team will take the anti-climate change science side. How much more obvious can you get that this is all political?

Why bother with Congressional approval of cabinet members when you can still get these Trump administration ignorant asshats like Pruitt, Carson, De Vos, and so many others?

 Let's have a look at Pruitt's confirmation hearing.

U.S. Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., led a group of senators Thursday in calling on Environmental Protection Agency administrator nominee Scott Pruitt to recuse himself from pending lawsuits he brought against the EPA as Oklahoma's attorney general.

  Mass Live

Yes, that's right. Simply recuse yourself from the many lawsuits you brought against the EPA.

Markey, who has previously raised concerns about President Donald Trump's pick to lead the EPA, continued to question whether Pruitt could be objective when weighing in on regulations he has previously sought to repeal.

Why wasn't that an automatic rejection?

Pointing to the 19 legal challenges the Oklahoma AG filed over various regulations, including eight cases at remain pending, Markey cautioned that Pruitt could use the position of EPA administrator to accomplish the outcomes originally sought in those lawsuits.

You think?

"Federal regulations require a federal official to recuse himself from matters where 'the circumstances would cause a reasonable person with knowledge of the relevant facts to question his impartiality in the matter,'" Markey wrote in the letter. "It is simply impossible for you to meet that test if you switch from plaintiff in your current capacity (in which you were a principal decision-maker on the part of litigating against EPA), to defend as EPA administrator (in which you would be the principal decision-maker on the responses to the lawsuits you filed)."

And yet, here he sits.

"A reasonable person" would realize that not one, but nineteen, lawsuits against the agency he will now head is a red flag big enough to cover the globe.

[Markey], who sits on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, which moved the nomination forward earlier this month, argued that Americans should have "the utmost confidence that members of the Trump administration are exclusively serving our national interests."

"Until you agree to recuse yourself from all matters (including regulations) related to your litigation against the EPA for the duration of your time in office, they will lack that confidence," he concluded in the letter.

No, Senator Markey. Those "reasonable persons" among us lack that confidence regardless of his recusal.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE:  Always worth a reminder...