Washington, D.C. - U.S. Senator Bob Casey (D-PA) released the following statement on President-elect Trump’s nomination of Scott Pruitt as the next head of the EPA:
“President-elect Trump’s nomination of Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt as the next head of the Environmental Protection Agency are very troubling. Attorney General Pruitt’s views on environmental protection are unambiguous- he’s against it. A 2014 investigative report from the New York Times detailed how, under Scott Pruitt, the Attorney General’s office in Oklahoma did the bidding of major companies that would pollute the air our children breathe and the water they drink. The job of the Administrator of the EPA is to fulfill the agency’s mission to “protect human health and the environment,” not to do the bidding of major polluters. Attorney General Pruitt is also leading the effort to overturn the Clean Power Plan, which is vital to getting control of our energy future and creating clean energy jobs. Pennsylvania has a long history of respect for the environment. Article 1, Section 27 of our state constitution says:
“The people have a right to clean air, pure water, and to the preservation of the natural, scenic, historic and esthetic values of the environment. Pennsylvania's public natural resources are the common property of all the people, including generations yet to come. As trustee of these resources, the Commonwealth shall conserve and maintain them for the benefit of all the people.”
I do not have confidence, based upon Attorney General Pruitt’s record, that the EPA under his leadership would be willing to enforce our environmental laws like the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act.”
