Adam Beitman, adam.beitman@sierraclub.org or 202-670-5585
NEW YORK CITY - Forty national civil rights, labor, conservation and environmental organizations representing millions of members and supporters across the United States have taken out a series of full page ads Wednesday calling for the resignation or firing of EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt. On Monday, the Government Accountability Office reported that some of Pruitt’s behavior violates the law.
The ads appear in the main news sections of The New York Times, the New York Post (which Donald Trump receives each day), and the largest newspaper in Pruitt’s home state of Oklahoma, The Oklahoman.
** Link to the Ad **
These new nationwide organizations calling for Pruitt’s ouster add to a growing chorus, including:
Editorial boards ranging from The Houston Chronicle and The Joplin Globe to The Washington Post and The LA Times
Over 100 Democrats in the House & Senate
At least three Republican members of the House
Increasing public pressure from other Republicans including House Oversight Chairman Trey Gowdy who suggested Pruitt should become ‘a monk’ if he wanted to avoid having his feelings hurt, rather than taking first class flights at taxpayer expense.
THE FOLLOWING ORGANIZATIONS ARE REPRESENTED ON THE LETTER:
National Audubon Society - NAACP - Union of Concerned Scientists - SEIU - Physicians for Social Responsibility - Oceana - Sierra Club - Earthjustice - Green For All - Natural Resources Defense Council - League of Conservation Voters - Hip Hop Caucus - GreenLatinos - Citizens' Climate Lobby - Ocean Conservancy - The Wilderness Society - National Parks Conservation Association - Clean Water Action - Greenpeace USA - American Rivers - Defenders of Wildlife - Environment America - Moms Clean Air Force - Latino Victory Project - Alliance of Nurses for Healthy Environments - Oil Change International - Montana Environmental Information Center - Alliance for Climate Education - Brighter Green - Partnership for Policy Integrity - Gasp - SustainUS - Carmelite NGO - Alliance for Affordable Energy - Power Shift Network - Rhode Island Interfaith Power & Light - iMatter Youth - Elders Climate Action - Green the Church - Climate Wise Women - Friends of the Earth
SIGNATORY ORGANIZATIONS PROVIDED THE FOLLOWING STATEMENTS:
SEIU, Executive Vice President Luisa Blue:
"Scott Pruitt's extravagant spending of the public's money makes crystal clear what we already know from his policies: he just doesn't care about the American people. As the largest union of healthcare workers, SEIU members care for people with asthma, cancer and others who have been impacted by the environment. Pruitt's actions to pull back environmental protections will quicken the devastating impact of climate change, putting the profits of polluting corporations ahead of the health and safety of our families. Pruitt’s actions are an attack on SEIU members and their families who live in communities that already struggle for clean air to breathe and clean water to drink."
Union of Concerned Scientists, President Ken Kimmell:
“While Scott Pruitt clearly violated ethical standards and bilked taxpayers, he inflicted far worse injury on our children, families, and communities by sidelining science and abandoning the EPA’s public health and environmental mission.”
Latino Victory Project, President Cristóbal J. Alex:
“Scott Pruitt wasted taxpayers’ dollars on luxury travel and soundproof phone booths while cutting vital EPA programs, directly hurting Latinos across the United States. Latinos live on the front lines of the climate change crisis, with half of all U.S. Latinos living in the country’s most polluted cities and Latino children at greater risk of dying from asthma than white children. The job of the EPA Administrator is to protect our natural resources and the health of all Americans, and Pruitt is clearly not up to the task.”
Earthjustice, President Trip Van Noppen
“Beyond his mounting ethical lapses Scott Pruitt has made it his mission to dismantle the many safeguards Americans depend on for clean water, clean air and more with little respect of the law. Scott Pruitt needs to go and until then we will see him in court.”
GreenLatinos, President Mark Magana
“Instead of doing his job to protect our health and environment – especially in marginalized communities and communities of color – Scott Pruitt has wasted hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars on luxury travel and unapproved pay raises for close aides, and has become the subject of multiple independent government investigations. He has endangered our communities with reckless rollbacks and repeals of lifesaving health safeguards, making our air dirtier and our water more dangerous to drink. He’s putting families at risk, and it’s been time for him to resign.”
Ocean Conservancy, CEO Janis Searles Jones
“In the 14 months that he’s been EPA Administrator, Pruitt has intentionally and methodically dismantled protections for our ocean, clean water and clean air. Among his many misguided decisions, he’s proposed a budget that would completely eliminate essential EPA functions including keeping our beaches safe from pathogens, monitoring contaminants in the fish we eat and gutting the marine pollution program. It’s time for Scott Pruitt to go. We cannot afford an EPA administrator who actively undermines the health of our ocean.”
Clean Water Action, President Bob Wendelgass:
“When Scott Pruitt isn't doing everything he can to try to weaken protections for clean water and public health, he's wasting taxpayer money or flouting the rules to pad the pockets of his friends and protect the bottom lines of corporate polluters. His destructive agenda and his corrupt behavior go hand-in-hand -- he thinks he can get away with both if he keeps giving special interests what they want. It's dangerous behavior from a public official and it has to stop. Scott Pruitt needs to go.”
Physicians for Social Responsibility, Jeff Carter
“As a public official, Scott Pruitt has shown a lot more interest in whatever perks and advantages he can extract from his position than in advancing the mission of the agency he was tasked to run. He attacks environmental rules and regulations with a prosecutor’s zeal, but with a view of the law not as an instrument of justice, but as a card in a stacked deck, designed to further empower and enrich special interests at the expense of health, the environment, and the less powerful.”
Hip Hop Caucus, Rev Lennox Yearwood Jr., President & CEO
"Pruitt puts his ego and polluter profits over people. It's outrageous that he thinks he can waste our taxpayer dollars with no consequences. What's even more tragic is that he continues to roll the dice with our lives. His actions continue to undermine our health and the future of the planet. He needs to go now."
National Parks Conservation Association, President & CEO Theresa Pierno:
“From day one, Scott Pruitt has demonstrated time and again that his goal is not to hold
the very polluters jeopardizing our air, waters and national parks accountable, but instead to protect them. The Environmental Protection Agency should do just that—protect the environment. The agency, and all it was created to safeguard, deserves a leader befitting of this critical work. As we feared at his confirmation, and as he has shown in the time since, Scott Pruitt is not that person.”
Sierra Club, Executive Director Michael Brune:
“Scott Pruitt is the definition of the swamp, with new ethical and abuse of power scandals breaking virtually every day for the past two weeks. Its past time for Pruitt to resign or be fired, particularly now that some of his most absurd actions are being ruled illegal. Every day Scott Pruitt stays at the EPA is another day he embarasses Donald Trump, and our entire country.”
Natural Resources Defense Council, President Rhea Suh:
“With each new investigation, Scott Pruitt’s disregard for ethics and the rule of law is becoming increasingly egregious and unacceptable. And so is his blatant hostility to the central mission of the EPA, which is to protect public health and the environment. Enough is enough. It’s time for him to go.’”
Greenpeace USA, Executive Director Annie Leonard
“Scott Pruitt’s brazen disrespect for both the environment and our democracy is beyond offensive--it’s one of the most catastrophic consequences of the Trump administration. Scott Pruitt is insulting every person in America by living a life of luxury on the taxpayer’s dime while committed to destroying our environment, our air, our water, and our climate. It’s time for Scott Pruitt to resign, or be fired, before he does any more damage to our country.”
iMatter Youth, Maddie Adkins, Core Team:
“Future generations will have to deal with the consequences of climate change. If the administrator of the EPA cannot be trusted to make decisions that will preserve the planet and protect the futures of our country’s youth, then he needs to go.”
Alliance of Nurses for Healthy Environments, Executive Director Katie Huffling
"As a public health agency, the EPA's mission is to protect human health and the environment. In his tenure at the EPA, Scott Pruitt has rolled back essential public health safeguards, which are putting communities at risk for negative health impacts from climate change and exposures to dirty air and water. The communities and families nurses care for deserve an EPA Administrator who is committed to putting public health first. Pruitt is not that person."
SustainUS, Executive Coordinator Garrett Blad:
“As a public official, Scott Pruitt is trusted to protect the common good. Instead, he is doing everything in his power to damage the lives of young people in this country by handing federal regulating over to fossil fuel executives and lobbyists, giving out bonuses to his friends, and wasting public money to play by his own rules. Scott Pruitt cannot be trusted to safeguard our health or our nation’s democratic principles and should be removed. ”
Montana Environmental Information Center, Deputy Director Anne Hedges
”Scott Pruitt is making Montana’s pollution problems worse. In places such as Colstrip, Montana there are 800 acres of leaking coal ash ponds that have polluted ground and surface waters. The passage of the federal coal ash rule by the Obama Administration was a welcome relief and promised to finally get a handle on the problem in Montana and across the nation. Now Pruitt is trying to undo that rule and put polluters in the driver’s seat – the same polluters who caused the problem in the first place. It’s unconscionable, but that seems to be Pruitt’s middle name. This is just one example of many. He is unethical, imprudent, and more concerned about protecting polluters than public health. It’s time to draw the line.”
Gasp, Executive Director Michael Hansen:
“Scott Pruitt cannot be trusted to lead the agency tasked with protecting our air, land, water, and health. Time and again, he has shown himself to be openly hostile to healthy air, clean water, and basic science. By undermining public health safeguards and undoing critical environmental protections, Scott Pruitt has put all of us at increased risk for cancers, asthma, lung disease, and other illnesses. Pruitt should never have been put in charge of the EPA, and we now have ample evidence to prove it. Scott Pruitt has to go.”
Jamie Rappaport Clark, president and CEO of Defenders of Wildlife:
“Wildlife rely on clean water, clean air and a balanced ecosystem for their survival. Scott Pruitt’s policies at the EPA threaten all of these. He has dismantled environmental protections and abused his position as Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency. It’s time for Scott Pruitt and his policies to go.”
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About the Sierra Club
The Sierra Club is America’s largest and most influential grassroots environmental organization, with more than 3 million members and supporters. In addition to helping people from all backgrounds explore nature and our outdoor heritage, the Sierra Club works to promote clean energy, safeguard the health of our communities, protect wildlife, and preserve our remaining wild places through grassroots activism, public education, lobbying, and legal action. For more information, visit www.sierraclub.org.