Climate 411

Presenting the Pruitt list

By Keith Gaby / Published: December 20, 2017

Special people, places, polluters, cronies, calendars, chemicals, quotes, numbers, and other mischief that was part of 2017’s assault on environmental safeguards. Or, Who is Arthur A. Elkins, Jr.?

  1. Six: Number of former EPA Administrators (Republicans and Democrats) who have publicly condemned Administrator Scott Pruitt’s efforts to hollow out the EPA.
  2. “Little Tidbits”: What Donald Trump promised would be left of the EPA when he’s done with it.  (He actually made this promise in 2016.)
  3. Arthur A. Elkins, Jr.: EPA’s Inspector General.  He’s reviewing Pruitt’s spending on charter planes and travel to Oklahoma, where Pruitt spent 43 of 92 days this spring.
  4. $40,000: Amount spent for Pruitt to travel to Morocco to promote natural gas exports.
  5. Calendar: What Scott Pruitt has filled up with meetings with polluter executives and lobbyists, who often get favorable decisions after seeing him.
  6. “It’s just a mystery as to how you can persuade him to not follow exactly what industry asks him to do.” An EPA employee describing Pruitt at meetings with industry.
  7. 31%: The amount that Scott Pruitt and Donald Trump are trying to cut from the EPA budget—the most of any agency in government.
  8. “Meat Ax”: What former EPA Administrator William Ruckelshaus said that Scott Pruitt is swinging at public health and environmental protections.
  9. Superfund Cleanups: Pruitt seeks 30% cuts in EPA Superfund efforts while simultaneously promising to prioritize them.
  10. Indoor Radon Grant Program: Reduces radon in homes, schools and buildings.  Pruitt and Trump are seeking to eliminate it.
  11. EPA’s Office of Environmental Justice: Created to give everyone protections from environmental and health hazards.  Pruitt is seeking to eliminate it.
  12. More than 60: Percent of Americans who would like to see the EPA’s powers preserved or strengthened.
  13. Paranoia: What might cause an EPA Administrator to keep a secret calendar, spend taxpayer money to sweep his offices for surveillance bugs, require employees to have an escort on his floor and not bring cell phones or take notes in his office, and install a $25,000 soundproof communications booth when EPA has one already.
  14. Arthur A. Elkins, Jr.: EPA’s Inspector General.  He’s reviewing Pruitt’s decision to spend more than $25,000 on a soundproof communications booth.
  15. About one-third: Drop in number of EPA enforcement cases against suspected polluters under Pruitt.
  16. 39%: Reduction in civil penalties sought from polluters under Pruitt.
  17. Michael Dourson: Industry “toxicologist-for-hire” forced to withdraw his nomination to run EPA’s Chemical Safety office amid public pressure and bipartisan Congressional opposition.
  18. Albert “Kell” Kelly: Senior Advisor to Pruitt.  Banker and baseball pal of Pruitt with no environmental experience—but barred from the financial industry by the FDIC.
  19. William Wehrum: Assistant Administrator, Office of Air and Radiation.  Sued EPA to tear down clear air and climate protections at least 31 times in the last decade.
  20. Industry insiders who have spent decades fighting to block environmental safeguards and undermine scientific findings: See Leadership, EPA.
  21. EPA’s Board of Scientific Counselors: Created to provide independent advice, it’s now being purged to make room for climate deniers and industry-backed figures.
  22. “The evidence is abundant of the dangerous political turn of an agency that is supposed to be guided by science.” Former EPA chief Christie Todd Whitman.
  23. Opposition Research: What Definers Public Affairs, a partisan firm hired by EPA to monitor media, conducted on EPA employees who might be “resistance” figures.
  24. Arthur A. Elkins, Jr.: EPA’s Inspector General.  He’s been asked to investigate the EPA’s no-bid hiring of Definers Public Affairs.
  25. Five: Number of major air safeguards being weakened or eliminated by the EPA: Clean Cars, Oil and gas methane pollution, Mercury and Air Toxics, Smog and Clean Power Plan.
  26. Climate Change: Global rise in temperatures, fueled by uptick in carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, that is triggering more extreme climate events.
  27. “Climate Change”: Phrase being purged from EPA’s website.
  28. “Red-Blue Exercise”: Method Pruitt wants to use to attack well-established scientific consensus on climate change.
  29. Benzene: Dangerous carcinogen that leaked through Houston neighborhoods during Hurricane Harvey without EPA acknowledgement at the time or afterwards.
  30. Arthur A. Elkins, Jr.: EPA’s Inspector General.  He’s reviewing EPA’s performance during Hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria.
  31. EPA Office of Public Affairs: Taxpayer-funded unit responsible for forcing reporters to file Freedom of Information Act requests for routine information, accusing them of stealing work from other outlets, and attacking them personally after they reported on Hurricane Harvey environmental threats that the EPA hadn’t yet found.
  32. Tar Creek, Oklahoma: Site of a health disaster where Scott Pruitt, as state attorney general, refused to prosecute or even release the state auditor’s report.
  33. Arthur A. Elkins, Jr.: EPA’s Inspector General.  He’s reviewing Pruitt’s call for a mining group to lobby Trump on the Paris climate treaty, which could violate ethics rules.
  34. “EPA has all the signs of an agency captured by industry.”  Congressman Paul Tonko at Pruitt’s first oversight hearing (a full 293 days after Pruitt took office).
  35. Exodus: (1) Second Book of the Torah and the Bible. (2) Departure of more than 700 EPA employees since the 2016 election and the Pruitt assault on the EPA.
  36. Smog, coal ash, lead, mercury, benzene, and carbon: Dangerous pollutants coming your way as Pruitt rolls back key environmental safeguards.
  37. What we’ll all be at more risk for: Brain damage, leukemia, asthma, lung cancer, heart disease, heart attacks, diabetes, bladder cancer and birth defects.
  38. Washington’s busiest person in 2018: Arthur A. Elkins, Jr., EPA’s Inspector General.

You can find even more in our “EPA’s Terrible 2017” wrap-up report.

Happy Holidays and a Safe and Healthy New Year from Your Friends at EDF!

 

Posted in News / Comments are closed

Public speaks out against Pruitt’s effort to reopen a loophole for super-polluting glider trucks

By Alice Henderson / Published: December 8, 2017

Public health experts, freight truck manufacturers and truck dealers sent a shared message to Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Scott Pruitt at a recent public hearing – don’t reopen a loophole for super-polluting glider trucks.

Glider trucks are new freight trucks that have used engines installed in them. Those older engines emit harmful soot and smog-causing pollutants at rates dramatically higher than trucks that comply with current emission standards.

Glider trucks, with their older engines, emit high levels of pollutants like cancer-causing diesel particulate, as well as oxides of nitrogen and particulate matter – which have been linked to severe human health impacts, including increased asthma attacks and exacerbation of heart disease.

Pruitt has proposed reopening a loophole in our national Clean Truck Standards that would allow glider trucks to pollute without restriction. This proposed rollback of common sense pollution limits is a slap in the face – not only to American families, who deserve clean air to breathe, but also to the heavy duty trucking industry, which has invested in cleaner technologies for years.

Freight truck leaders voice concerns about glider truck loophole

Volvo senior vice president Susan Alt testified at the public hearing that Pruitt’s proposal “makes a mockery” of their responsible investments in pollution control equipment and clean technologies.

Representatives from the American Trucking Associations, the Engine Manufacturers Association, and the Heavy Duty Fuel Efficiency Leadership Group echoed concerns that the proposed rollback would undermine their investment decisions for the past decade, upend the level playing field the industry needs for the well-being of their businesses, and jeopardize the regulatory certainty upon which they rely.

Freight truck dealers underscored that they hire and employ skilled technicians — in communities all across the country — to service and maintain modern, cleaner engines. Their businesses, and their employees, will be at risk if the loophole for glider trucks is reopened.

Pruitt issued his proposal based on flawed, incomplete information

EPA estimated in 2016 that glider truck emissions were as much as 40 times higher than modern engines.

The agency recently undertook more emission testing to refine its data. But Pruitt issued his proposal to repeal the glider provisions before EPA’s testing could be completed.

Instead, Pruitt’s proposal highlights poorly supported assertions from Tennessee Tech University, which conducted testing on glider trucks that found much lower emissions of oxides of nitrogen and particulate matter than EPA’s estimates.

Last week, EPA released its new, updated testing data, as well as a memo with further details about the Tennessee Tech findings that show flaws in the university’s analysis. This new information confirms the serious threat to human health posed by glider trucks.

EPA’s new test data suggests that the estimates it relied on before closing the glider truck in the first place may have been too conservative:

Under highway cruise conditions, [oxides of nitrogen] emissions from the glider vehicles were approximately 43 times as high, and [particulate matter] emissions were approximately 55 times as high as the conventionally manufactured tractors. (emphasis added)

EPA identified a number of deeply troubling flaws and biases in Tennessee Tech’s methodology, facilities, and equipment used to generate their data. Most notably, Tennessee Tech’s assertions that the tested glider trucks met EPA’s 2010 emission standard for particulate matter and performed equally as well as modern trucks were not based on any actual measurement of the pollutant – just visible inspection, a practice abandoned decades ago as wholly inadequate for measuring particulate matter from diesel engines.

Equally alarming, as the Washington Post has reported, the EPA memo acknowledges that Tennessee Tech has a financial relationship with a major glider manufacturer – Fitzgerald Glider Kits – that is pushing for EPA to roll back the pollution protections for its product. The testing facility used by Tennessee Tech is owned by Fitzgerald.

Pruitt puts clean air at risk

These documents reinforce what has been clear since Pruitt took office – the Administrator is ignoring his agency’s own science and expertise, and putting the health of American families at risk, with an onslaught of attacks against vital pollution protections – attacks that are endorsed by politically connected major polluters.

Diverse voices turned out in full force at the public hearing to rebuke the most recent example of this pattern of practice:

  • Terry Dotson of heavy-duty truck dealer Worldwide Equipment Inc. testified that his company could build glider kits, but chose not to because “we choose to do the right thing.”
  • Blanca Iris Verduzco, on behalf of East Yard Communities for Environmental Justice, spoke as a resident of South East Los Angeles, an industrialized community exposed to a lot of freight transportation pollution. She urged EPA to protect her community from health dangers, and not to roll back protections.
  • John Calvin Doub with TMI Truck and Equipment expressed concern for his three grandchildren, and talked about the breathing difficulties caused by air pollution. He cautioned EPA that until you have witnessed a child having an asthma attack, you don’t understand the full impacts of pollution from trucks.

EDF was represented at the hearing by Martha Roberts, Erin Murphy, Surbhi Sarang, and John Bullock. Their full testimonies are available here:

EPA is still accepting public comments on the proposed rollback of safeguards against glider truck pollution. You can send your comments through January 5th.

Posted in News / Read 1 Response

The accelerating market for zero emission trucks

By Jason Mathers / Published: December 1, 2017

Tesla Semi prototype. Photo: Smnt, Creative Commons

The recent reveal of the Tesla semi-truck is  garnering  attention for the role zero emission vehicles can play in the future of trucking.

Much of the excitement around zero emission trucks stems from the fact that medium-and-heavy duty trucks – critical tools of our modern economy that operate daily in our neighborhoods and communities — have outsized environmental and health impacts.

Trucks today emit dangerous pollutants, including:

Zero emission vehicles are exciting because of their ability to drive progress on all of these pollutants simultaneously.

A clear indicator of the emergence of zero emission trucks is the plethora of recent product announcements from major manufacturers:

Multiple large manufacturers are investing in electric trucks because they recognize a robust, long-term market for these products. These investments reinforce each other by building resilient supply chains, industry knowledge, and production scale.

Most zero emission truck announcements have been for urban or regional vehicle platforms. Urban areas stand to benefit greatly from the significant reduction in local air pollution offered by zero emission trucks because cities’ density means that many people will get to breathe cleaner air. Buses and delivery vehicles typically have modest daily range demands and predicable charging patterns.

Drayage vehicles should be another high-priority for electrification. These trucks run cargo in and out of marine ports and railyards, frequently traversing dense urban neighborhoods. Often these vehicles are among the oldest and highest polluting trucks on the road. Replacing them with zero emission solutions provides critical local air quality benefits to overburdened communities while also driving meaningful greenhouse gas reductions. In fact, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency estimates that up to 1,200 pounds of nitrogen oxides  and more than 100 pounds  of particulate matter could be reduced annually by replacing an old diesel drayage truck with a zero emission vehicle. More than 12 tons of carbon dioxide would also be reduced each year.

Zero emission solutions are needed for freight operations too. A recent ICCT analysis found wide-scale adoption of electric tractor-trailers in Europe would reduce climate emissions by 115 million tons in 2050 beyond a scenario that relied solely on maximizing diesel truck efficiency. The analysis illustrates a crucial point – in order to get the largest clean air and climate benefits from freight trucks, we will need both zero emission trucks and significantly more fuel efficient diesel trucks. Each vehicle configuration has an important role to play.

The U.S. Clean Trucks program, extended and strengthened in 2016 by the Obama Administration, is a model that other countries can follow for driving efficiency improvements. It sets long-term, protective standards. The latest round of the standards will cut more than a billion tons of carbon emissions and save truck owners $170 billion dollars. The program enjoys broad support among manufacturers, fleets, shippers and clean air advocates.

The Trump Administration has taken aim at key Clean Truck program provisions that drive improvements in trailer design and close a loophole for super-polluting trucks. Defending the popular and effective program from these pernicious attacks must be an imperative for the freight industry. No company wants its freight hauled by a truck that spews 40 times more pollution or contributes to an additional 1,600 premature deaths annually. Electric semi-trucks will of course be pulling trailers. These trailers will need to be designed with fuel efficiency in mind if electric semi-trucks are to deliver on their full potential.

Zero emission freight trucks need to be operated in a manner that minimizes lifecycle emissions across the entire freight system. Thus, green freight best practices are relevant for zero emission vehicles too. These vehicles will need to complement use of freight rail, which emits more than 80 percent less carbon per ton mile than conventional trucks. They will need to be regularly run with full loads to minimize lifecycle emissions per ton mile. They should be charged primarily by renewable energy. All of these actions, made by fleets, will be influenced by the demands of cargo owners.

It is time for companies and communities to pay attention to these zero emission solutions. These trucks have a clear near-term role in urban delivery. Embracing low and zero emissions drayage solutions will provide immediate and significant human health benefits for communities near ports and railyards. In the years ahead, ZEVs will even have a role in longer-haul operations.

Also posted in Cars and Pollution, Health / Comments are closed

EPA’s Pruitt Tries to Open a Loophole to Allow Super-Polluting Trucks on Our Roads

By Alice Henderson / Published: November 16, 2017

Have you ever seen a truck belching black soot as you drive on the highway and wondered, “isn’t that level of pollution illegal?”

We see less and less of that these days, thanks to common sense standards from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) that protect us from this harmful, excessive pollution.

But that progress is now at risk. The current EPA Administrator, Scott Pruitt, is trying to reopen a loophole that would allow the sale of super-polluting trucks that lack modern pollution controls.

The trucks in question are called “glider trucks.” They look new – but their engines are old and polluting. Anyone who likes to breathe air should be concerned.

Loophole would risk as many as thousands of lives a year

Pruitt’s proposed loophole would allow the sale of glider trucks – new trucks with old engines installed in them – without any modern pollution controls.

These super-polluting trucks emit harmful soot and smog-causing pollutants – including oxides of nitrogen, particulate matter, and cancer-causing diesel particulate – at a rate as much as forty times that of new engines. By 2025, glider trucks would comprise just five percent of the nation’s truck fleet, but they would cause one third of the air pollution.

Data that Pruitt’s own agency has collected shows that reopening the loophole could result in as many as 6,400 premature deaths by 2021 from oxides of nitrogen and particulate matter pollution. That assessment is actually conservative, as it doesn’t account for the health harms from cancer-causing diesel particulate pollution or from smog formation caused by these super-polluting trucks.

Benefiting the worst polluters at the expense of responsible companies

Pruitt’s action to reopen this loophole goes against the stated wishes of other truck manufacturers and dealers, who responsibly invested in pollution control equipment and depend on a level playing field for the well-being of their businesses and the Americans they employ.

For example, truck dealership Nuss Trucks commented that:

The original intent of selling gilder [trucks] has moved from a rebuilding mechanism to now mainly evading diesel emissions EPA mandates.

Volvo, the manufacturer of MAC Trucks, noted that the availability of “glider trucks” is creating:

an unlevel playing field for manufacturers of new vehicles designed and certified to be compliant to all current emissions, fuel efficiency, and safety regulations.

So why is Pruitt giving the glider industry special treatment over responsible trucking companies — and over the health of American families?

As recently reported by the Washington Post, Pruitt granted a glider industry request to reconsider the standards after a meeting with a major glider manufacturer in May.

That same manufacturer prominently hosted an event for Donald Trump early in his presidential campaign.

Super-polluting trucks are designed to evade pollution controls

Historically, only a few hundred glider trucks were sold each year. They were typically produced by truck repair shops when a customer wanted to salvage the undamaged engine from a wrecked truck by installing it into a new frame.

But after pollution limits on heavy-duty freight engines were updated in 2010, a small handful of companies recognized a loophole – an opportunity to sell old, dirty engines in new frames, and thereby evade modern pollution standards. The result was mass production of super-polluting trucks that do not come close to meeting current emission standards.

Glider truck manufacturers created a market that didn’t exist before 2010. They made a business out of sourcing large numbers of old, high-polluting engines to sell in new trucks, with sales likely surpassing 10,000 a year in the last few years. The pre-2002 engines they mainly use have essentially no air pollution controls, and cause the classic puff of black diesel smoke you hated to be stuck behind in traffic. (And with good reason, as diesel particulate is known to cause lung cancer.)

EPA took action in 2016 to close the loophole and bring glider truck sales back to pre-2010 levels.

The agency took pains to cause as little disruption as possible while still meeting its responsibility under the Clean Air Act to protect public health and welfare. It phased in the glider truck standards over a period of several years, and never outright banned the sale of glider vehicles (since it recognized the benefit to truckers in being able to salvage the engine from a damaged truck).

Under EPA’s common sense actions to close the loophole, beginning in 2018, glider manufacturers must cap production of high-polluting vehicles at 300 annually beginning in 2018. They may continue to produce additional glider vehicles as long as those meet the modern air pollution controls that all other manufacturers already have to meet.

A decision with devastating consequences for our health  

Pruitt announced his intent to revisit the just-closed loophole in August of this year. He has now released a new proposal to repeal emission requirements for these super-polluting trucks, indicating that he is moving forward with his regressive plan to reopen this loophole and put thousands of lives at risk.

Pruitt’s attempt to repeal these important safeguards reeks of political cronyism, and is being done at the expense of public health. Families and communities across America will be exposed to the dangerous pollution from thousands more of these dirty trucks on our highways. We all deserve better – especially from EPA, the agency with the core mission of protecting us from pollution.

Also posted in Cars and Pollution, Clean Air Act, Health, Policy / Comments are closed

A real Halloween horror story: the five scariest aspects of climate change

By Casey Ivanovich / Published: October 30, 2017

Halloween has arrived, and it’s time once again for goblins, gremlins, and ghost stories.

But there’s another threat brewing that’s much more frightening – because it’s real.

An unrecognizable world is quickly creeping up on us as climate change progresses – and the anticipated impacts are enough to rattle anyone’s skeleton.

Here are five of the scariest aspects of climate change. Read on if you dare ….

  1. Extreme weather is becoming more extreme

A changing climate paves the way for extreme weather events to live up to their name.

In 2017 alone we saw fatal events worldwide, including:

The fingerprints of climate change can be found on each of these events.

As global temperatures continue to rise, heat waves are expected to become more intense, frequent, and longer lasting.

Scientists also predict that rainfall patterns will continue to shift, increasing regional risk for widespread drought and flooding.

Montana, 2002. Photo: U.S. Forest Service

Drought conditions may also prompt wildfires to occur more frequently and within a longer fire season. The wildfire season in the western U.S. is already weeks longer than in previous years.

Hurricanes are also influenced by climate change. Rising sea surface temperatures, a moister atmosphere, and changing atmospheric circulation patterns have the potential to increase hurricanes’ power and travel paths.

Extreme weather intensification impacts human health and development in many ways – extreme heat events directly generate health hazards such as heat stroke, while drought and wildfires threaten crop and ecosystem stability.

The 2017 hurricane season has already demonstrated the shocking consequences of intensified hurricanes and flooding, with Hurricanes Harvey, Irma, and Maria killing more than 150 people and causing as much as $300 billion in damages in the U.S. alone.

  1. Tipping points loom in near future

A particularly alarming facet of climate change is the threat of irreversible changes to climate conditions, called “tipping elements.”

These components of the climate system earn their title from a possession of critical thresholds, or “tipping points,” beyond which a tiny change can dramatically alter the state of the system.

Many tipping elements have been identified by scientists, and some may have already passed their critical threshold. For example, a vicious cycle of sea ice melt has already been triggered, leading scientists to predict that Arctic summers will be ice-free before mid-century.

Imminent tipping points also exist for melting ice sheets, particularly those of Greenland and West Antarctica, where full ice sheet collapse could result in global sea level rise of up to 20 feet and 16 feet respectively.

Coral reefs too are rapidly approaching a grave tipping point. Essential relationships between algae and corals begin to break down as ocean waters rise in temperature and acidity. Without stabilizing these changes, the majority of global reef systems may collapse before global temperatures reach a two-degree Celsuis warming threshold.

  1. Coastal communities battle sea level rise

Sea level rise is one of the most visible impacts of climate change, as increased coastal erosion physically erases continental borders.

As the climate warms, ocean waters expand and ice sheets and glaciers melt. Both factors contribute to a rising sea level at an accelerating rate. Communities in Alaska and several Pacific Islands are already fleeing rising seas – relocating as their villages are engulfed and eroded.

Rising sea levels also intensify damages from extreme weather events such as hurricanes. A higher sea level allows storm surges to grow in height and volume, exacerbating flooding and associated damages.

As water levels continue to rise, more coastal communities will feel the consequences. Many major cities are located on coastlines, with almost 40 percent of U.S. citizens living in coastal cities.

Protecting people from this creeping threat will be difficult and costly – as we’ve already seen in the aftermath of coastal storms such as Superstorm Sandy.

  1. Humans are nearing uncharted climate territory

A globally averaged two-degree Celsius (or 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) of warming over preindustrial levels is the most widely suggested threshold we need to stay “well” below.

The threshold was first proposed by William Nordhaus in the 1970’s, in part because of its historical significance – the human species has never lived during a time in which global temperatures were equivalent to two-degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels.

The unprecedented nature of this benchmark provided a foundation for alarm that carried the two-degrees Celsius value into political and scientific discussions for decades.

In a changing climate, unprecedented events will become the norm.

In some cases, they already have.

As infectious diseases spread to previously untouched regions and an Arctic ozone hole threatens to open, people are beginning to catch the first glimpses of the new world we are creating – one that is in many ways more hostile and dangerous than the one we leave behind.

  1. Many American politicians deny the problem

Perhaps the only thing more terrifying than the impacts of climate change is the overwhelming denial of their existence by some political leaders in the U.S.

The Paris Agreement served as a major step forward in promoting climate change mitigation policy on an international scale, with almost every nation agreeing to tackle this looming threat.

Then in June, President Trump announced his intent to withdraw from the agreement. That means the United States will be one of only two countries – out of almost 200 – failing to participate in the accords.

The same efforts towards dismantling U.S. climate progress can be seen in recent national policy. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt (who recently claimed that carbon dioxide is not a major contributor to global warming) is perhaps the most visible of an exhausting list of leaders within the current Administration who deny climate science. The Administration is trying to undermine or reverse policies addressing climate change, including the Clean Power Plan, and information about climate change is vanishing from official agency websites.

The rest of the globe is striving to implement meaningful climate policy, including China’s unparalleled growth in renewable energy support. Soon the U.S. will be left in the dust in the race for a greener world.

Be afraid. Be very afraid. Then do something about it.

We can’t protect you from the monsters hiding under your bed. But combating the ominous impacts of climate change is a much more hopeful endeavor.

For more information on how you can help, click here.

 

Also posted in Arctic & Antarctic, Basic Science of Global Warming, Extreme Weather, International, Oceans, Policy, Science / Read 2 Responses

Yes, Administrator Pruitt, EPA does have the obligation to protect America from climate pollution

By Tomas Carbonell / Published: October 19, 2017

(This post was co-authored by EDF’s Ben Levitan)

The head of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is once again misleading the American people in an effort to avoid doing his job.

EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt was interviewed on Fox News this week, and questioned his legal authority and responsibility to protect the public from the pollution that causes climate change.

During that interview, Pruitt asked:

[W]hat authority has Congress given the EPA to engage in rulemaking to reduce [carbon dioxide]?

Pruitt made similar remarks at the Heritage Foundation earlier this week – peddling the discredited notion that the “Clean Air Act was set up to address local and regional air pollutants, not the global phenomena of [climate pollution].”

We’ve written about this extensively at EDF. We’re happy to go over it one more time to help Administrator Pruitt, since he seems to be having trouble understanding it.

  • That authority is in the Clean Air Act, which is a law that was passed by Congress.
  • We know that authority is in the Clean Air Act because the Supreme Court told us so.
  • The Supreme Court then said so again – and again after that.

So to sum up, we’ve been told by the High Court three times that the authority is indeed in the law that was passed by Congress.

Pruitt’s remarks come just over a week after he signed a proposed rule to abolish the Clean Power Plan — America’s only nationwide limit on climate pollution from fossil fuel power plants.

EPA is legally obligated to protect Americans from harmful climate pollution, but Pruitt’s destructive proposal would leave American communities exposed to greater climate risks, and cost thousands of American lives by increasing dangerous air pollution.

Pruitt’s words on Fox News, and even more so his actions, are appalling. The official who is charged with administering our nation’s clean air laws for the benefit of the American people – laws that the Supreme Court has now held on three separate occasions clearly apply to pollutants that are driving destructive climate change – should not be questioning his basic job description.

Communities and families across the country are already feeling the impacts of climate change through stronger hurricanes, increased flooding, more damaging wildfires, rising sea levels, worsened air quality, and more intense heat waves. Americans overwhelmingly want swift action to address this clear and urgent threat – not Pruitt’s distortions and delay.

Here’s more detail about Pruitt’s legal responsibilities:

Contrary to Pruitt’s claims, the Supreme Court has repeatedly and unequivocally affirmed that Congress gave EPA authority to regulate climate pollution:

  • In Massachusetts v. EPA (549 U.S. 497, 2007), the Supreme Court found “without a doubt” that climate pollution falls within the broad definition of “air pollutants” covered by the Clean Air Act. The Court ordered EPA to make a science-based determination as to whether those pollutants endanger public health and welfare. EPA finalized its determination 2009. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit categorically rejected a barrage of legal challenges to the determination, including one brought by Scott Pruitt when he was attorney general of Oklahoma.
  • In American Electric Power v. Connecticut (564 U.S. 410, 2011), the Supreme Court unanimously held that the Clean Air Act “speaks directly” to the problem of climate pollution from power plants – a point that even opponents of the Clean Power Plan conceded at oral argument in the case.
  • In Utility Air Regulatory Group v. EPA (134 S. Ct. 2427, 2014), the Supreme Court held that the Clean Air Act obligated EPA to ensure that new and modified industrial facilities apply the best available control technology to reduce their emissions of carbon dioxide.

Scott Pruitt’s latest statement questioning EPA’s authority not only contradicts the rulings of the Supreme Court, it departs from the views of former EPA Administrators who have served in administrations of both political parties.

As Christine Todd Whitman, EPA Administrator under George W. Bush, put it:

I think, as a matter of law, that carbon is a pollutant has been settled.

Pruitt’s comments to Fox News also contradict his own previous statements to Congress. During his confirmation hearing to become EPA Administrator, Pruitt told United States Senators that the Supreme Court rulings were the “law of the land” and needed to be “enforced and respected.”

In the Fox News interview, Pruitt also took aim at the Clean Power Plan, repeating his false claim that the Supreme Court held the plan to be unlawful.

In fact, the Supreme Court never issued an opinion on the merits of the Clean Power Plan. It never even heard the case.

The Supreme Court simply put the Clean Power Plan on hold until legal challenges played out in the courts. And since then, Pruitt’s EPA has gone to extraordinary lengths to prevent any court from ruling on the legal merits of the Clean Power Plan.

Just as Pruitt glosses over Supreme Court precedent he doesn’t like, he also seems to have invented a Supreme Court ruling that he desires.

Pruitt’s continued claims that the Clean Power Plan is unlawful are also at odds with the views of leading legal experts – including the Attorneys General of eighteen states, former Republican Administrators of EPA under Presidents Nixon, Reagan, and Bush, and leading drafters of the Clean Air Act. They have all stood up in federal court to defend the fundamental legality of this vital climate and health safeguard.

Pruitt also took a moment in his interview with Fox News to question the health benefits associated with the Clean Power Plan – which include as many as 3,600 avoided deaths each year and thousands of avoided heart attacks and asthma attacks.

As many experts have documented, Pruitt’s EPA has deployed deceptive gimmicks to hide the consequences to human health of repealing the Clean Power Plan. Those gimmicks include assuming, contrary to the conclusions of the American Heart Association, the World Health Organization, the National Research Council, and EPA’s own scientific advisors, that there are zero benefits to reducing air pollution beyond certain levels.

Pruitt made those claims even though EPA acknowledged in its proposed repeal that the Clean Power Plan would achieve pollution reductions that would protect the health of our children.

This isn’t the first time Scott Pruitt has distorted the law and science in order to dismantle key climate and public health protections. Along with the Clean Power Plan, Pruitt has attacked pollution standards for oil and natural gas facilities, climate pollution standards for cars, and standards for heavy-duty trucks.

Americans should be outraged at Scott Pruitt’s repeated misleading statements on settled questions of law and science.

Also posted in Clean Air Act, Clean Power Plan, EPA litgation, Health, Policy, Setting the Facts Straight / Comments are closed