Scott Pruitt, photo by Gage Skidmore
After several weeks spent considering several candidates, President-elect Donald Trump has chosen Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt as his nominee to head the Environmental Protection Agency.
The news was confirmed Wednesday. Pruitt has served as the Oklahoma attorney general since 2010. During his time in office, he has sued the EPA several times in an attempt to overturn federal regulations on coal, fracking and other fossil-fuel industries.
E-Scrap News could find no involvement or opinions from Pruitt regarding solid waste management or recycling. On the campaign trail, Trump made no specific comments about solid waste and recycling. His EPA comments were focused mainly on criticising the Clean Power Plan, which limits carbon dioxide emissions from power plants.
Michael Patton, a longtime conservation activist in Oklahoma, told E-Scrap News picking Pruitt to head the EPA “is like putting Satan in charge of the Church.” Patton worked for several decades managing one of Oklahoma’s largest residential recycling programs.
The EPA has 15,000 employees, 79 of whom are political appointees. Of those, 14 require Senate confirmation — that includes Pruitt and the assistant administrator for the Office of Land and Emergency Management, which oversees waste management and recycling. That position is currently held by Mathy Stanislaus, who was nominated by President Obama and confirmed by the U.S. Senate in 2009.
