Scott Pruitt Needs to Go Back to Law School

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- On Fox News last night, Scott Pruitt questioned what authority Congress has given the EPA to reduce carbon pollution, again suggesting he’ll attack the proven scientific and legal principles supporting EPA’s duty to protect the health of the public from dangerous greenhouse gas pollution.

“We’ve gotta ask and answer the question: what authority has Congress given the EPA to engage in rulemaking to reduce CO2. The past administration did not do that; our administration is,” Pruitt said.

Pruitt’s remarks suggest he is unaware or ignoring the existence of both the Clean Air Act and the Supreme Court decisions (here, here, and here) that both affirm the EPA’s authority to regulate carbon pollution and require the agency to do so.

In response,  Sierra Club’s Chief Climate Counsel Joanne Spalding released the following statement:

"If Scott Pruitt is actually unaware of the strong, binding legal authority the EPA has to curb carbon pollution under the Clean Air Act, he needs to resign and go back to law school. If Pruitt is willfully ignoring his duty as EPA administrator to curb carbon pollution, he should be removed from office before he endangers any more lives. Congress, the Supreme Court, and the EPA’s own experts already settled this issue long ago: EPA may not shirk its legal duty to protect the public from dangerous emissions that harm our health. Therefore, Pruitt’s destructive efforts to gut the law to help corporate polluters will earn him a humiliating legal defeat if he persists in attacking this long-standing precedent.”