From the President, just a few minutes ago.
I have accepted the resignation of Scott Pruitt as the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency. Within the Agency Scott has done an outstanding job, and I will always be thankful to him for this. The Senate confirmed Deputy at EPA, Andrew Wheeler, will…
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 5, 2018
…on Monday assume duties as the acting Administrator of the EPA. I have no doubt that Andy will continue on with our great and lasting EPA agenda. We have made tremendous progress and the future of the EPA is very bright!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 5, 2018
Of course the left is having a field day, HuffPo writes:
Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt’s controversial tenure ended amid a whirlwind of ethics scandals and at least 18 federal investigations.
Full text of his resignation letter:
Mr. President, it has been an honor to serve you in the Cabinet as Administrator of the EPA. Truly, your confidence in me has blessed me personally and enabled me to advance your agenda beyond what anyone anticipated at the beginning of your Administration. Your courage, steadfastness and resolute commitment to get results for the American people, both with regard to improved environmental outcomes as well as historical regulatory reform, is in fact occurring at an unprecedented pace and I thank you for the opportunity to serve you and the American people in helping achieve those ends.
That is why it is hard for me to advise you I am stepping down as Administrator of the EPA effective as of July 6. It is extremely difficult for me to cease serving you in this role first because I count it a blessing to be serving you in any capacity, but also, because of the transformative work that is occurring. However, the unrelenting attacks on me personally, my family, are unprecedented and have taken a sizable toll on all of us.
My desire in service to you has always been to bless you as you make important decisions for the American people. I believe you are serving as President today because of God’s providence. I believe that same providence brought me into your service. I pray as I have served you that I have blessed you and enabled you to effectively lead the American people. Thank you again Mr. President for the honor of serving you and I wish you Godspeed in all that you put your hand to.
Your Faithful Friend,
Scott Pruitt
http://freebeacon.com/politics/exclusive-scott-pruitts-resignation-letter/
Pruitt deserves enormous credit for bringing realism and useful purpose to an overly activist agency that lost its way in the quagmire of the environmental doomsday religion. It was a very hard job and he has achieved a lifetime’s value in just a few short months. I hope future leadership can and do further his agenda. Get rid of the CO2 endangerment finding, stop regulating the gas that feeds all life on earth, return to a sane evidence-based regulatory regimen for those things that properly belong to EPA, stop using the EPA to deindustrialize the US and to promote the far left progressive liberal agenda.
he bottled it. symptomatic of most politicians today. no bottle for a fight.
The BBC is, of course, all over this story – headline news and comment pieces up already. They’ve never shown such interest in the resignation of the head of a US federal body until the past year, and showed no interest in Jackson’s departure. Why could this be, I wonder…?
Most people are more likely to celebrate their victories than their losses.
I understand Scott Pruitt had to put the safety of his family first.
I offer my services to be a Trump appointtee at EPA.
20 years in the military including time in SpecOps,
I had friends who gave everything.
I’m still here, with a pension. Makes me want to do more.
That’s one reason I post here at WUWT… the Good Fight.
The EPA is one dirty house in dire need of a deep cleaning for the sake of our Constitution and the People.
Me, I’d tell the haters to Bring It!
I’d relish the dark ops fight.
Joel O’Bryan, PhD.
Do you have GOP reps and senators?
Have them propose you.
You’ve already been vetted and cleared at least TS.
Your pension might be able to afford you a studio apartment in the DC suburbs, without having to resort to favors from industry.
Could live out in Manassas, though it would be a brutal commute up I66 to the Beltway.
Joel,
With all sincerity, Thank You for your service.
Joel, are you prepared to have EVERY one of your posts on WUWT, and any other blog or web site, scrutinized, de-contextualized, flip-flopped, scrambled, fried, and castrated over and over again in the media (both social and otherwise)? Oh, and to be compared to ANYONE else who posted on the same forum? That’s what will happen. And whether or not you’re a good person, a patriot, or anything else will not matter one whit.
Sadly Pruitt is gone, but no surprise. To survive the onslaught of establishment in Washington, or even state capitols, you must not only be clean as new driven snow but you must ensure that you watch not only your own back but all those might be loyal to you. You cannot control all those around you and if some of them are on the dark side they ultimately will get you. The Democrats, the Deep State at EPA, the environmental establishment were just not going to allow Pruitt to survives as Administrator. Appreciate even now that he is gone from EPA that will not be enough. They will continue to demand he be investigated. We will continue to hear and read about “terrible” things he did at EPA. Pruitt was ripping at the very essence of what the EPA had become over the past decade therefore he must be punished.
Rubbish. You actually think Trump makes his firing decisions based on what Democrats think? Or the “Deep State” you referred to? Or organizations like Greenpeace, WWF, etc?
Nonsense. He was a crook and got caught. End of story. Stop trying to defend a guy who ripped off the taxpayer.
Simon
Has he been prosecuted and convicted?
He made rookie mistakes. Democrats know how to get away with this stuff; Republicans don’t. Also, Democrats go straight for the jugular; Republicans don’t.
Anyone who has been in the public sector and especially a position such as Attorney General of a state should have been more mindful of his political optics. Taking on the EPA and the Climate Change narrative of the left, plus tearing apart the architecture of the regulatory state was bound to make one a target. If they cannot make what you are doing the issue, they will make you the issue. It appears Pruitt did some dumb things that just fed ammo to his enemies. In battle, when one unit takes too many casualties, you pull them out and rotate another into the battle line. Pruitt did his part. Time for another.
Meanwhile using the DOJ, FBI and FISA warrant system to attempt to overthrow the 16′ election is their moral imperative.
Wheeler has a good grasp of climate fraud activism but I’m sorry to see Greenshirts and compliant leftist media collect a scalp of any kind. The President continues to play kiss-in-the-ring with the green fringe. “Renegotiate” Paris??
How about ending the US involvement in the UN Climate Framework and ending any chance of another globalist atrocity such as the Paris Prison Planet roadmap?
It was the WH that nixed “red team/blue team” debates. Pruitt did a good job regardless of some poor optics that gave them a target.
Agree. But, in politics optics are everything. It is all about what kind of “narrative” can I spin. Facts be damned!
OMG, there’s that idiotic millennial use of the word “optics” again.
No one is going to ask me to be the EPA Administrator, but if I was the Administrator, I’d do at least two things:
1) I’d try to meet for equal times with industry and environmentalists, and
2) I’d try to make as many meetings have both industry and environmentalists in the same meeting.
I don’t see how anyone who has seen the system work–as I have–could say that we couldn’t spend significantly less money and still have significantly *better* results.
Wouldn’t work, Mark. The enviros would just shout down anyone who didn’t agree with them. There would be no constructive meeting.
I think on balance this is not good news. But I will wait to see.
So, by pushing Pruitt out with harassment, they think they succeeded. Then, they get an Inhofe’s staffer substitute and figure out it was better before their harassment of Pruitt! Oh the pain……LOL!!!
http://amp.dailycaller.com/2018/07/05/jim-inhofe-staffers-epa/?__twitter_impression=true
From WUWT TV a while ago!
The Left may have won this battle, but slowly, Americans are realizing Leftists’ fanatical attacks against patriots trying to reduce the $2 TRILLION/YEAR being wasted by the private sector on Federal regulation compliance costs is essential for US’ economic viability.
WHEN (not if) the CAGW sc@m is officially disconfirmed, the blowback against the Left will be epic…
Tick-tock, tick-tock….
This was just a skirmish. The battle continues and real progress is being made dismantling the ‘green’ socialist agenda, corruption, and adverse regulations wrought during the Obama regime.
“Wheeler! Next Man Up!”
The problem, as I’ve pointed out before, is that eventually Democrats will control everything again, and will re-do everything Trump is undoing, and then some. As much as I agree with the policy changes, they won’t last.
Had taxpayer paid staff seek a Chik-Fill-A franchise for his wife.
Stayed in a DC condo owned by the wife of a lobbyist with business before the EPA for $50 a night (see what you can find in DC for $50 a night if you think that’s not a gift).
Spent $1560 of taxpayer money on 12 pens.
Had a $43,000 sound proof phone booth installed in his office….. What is this?? Get Smart??
And now claims from a Trump supporting whistle-blower that he was falsifying records of who he was meeting with and why.
He had his director of scheduling and advance, Millan Hupp, on taxpayer paid time, seeking to buy a used Trump hotel mattress!
If you have been even a mildly public figure in a targeted industry, as I used to be, you expect threats, but when they turn into actions the going gets tougher. Death threats make you ask if it is worth it all. Then as family, wife, young children start to get depressed, resignation has to be considered.
I liked what I read of Pruitt’s achievements and with sadness at seeing him leave, hope that pressures will now lighten.
Police etc could treat these insidious threat crimes more seriously, but then they already have much unpleasant conduct to cope with. Geoff
Too heavy on the theology, too light on warnings about the enviro extremists and their assault on America.
Assault on America? You talking about Pruitt?
Simon
No. You.
I nominate Anthony Watts to be the next Generalissimo of the EPA.
Prof. Pat Michaels for EPA Administrator!
I;m amazed by the number of people saying they don’t care about the ethical lapses because of the great things he was doing at the EPA
It’s like saying you don’t mind if your star quarterback was a wife-beater (or worse) so long as he keeps winning.
Very few people even making the pragmatic point: If you are going to take on powerful enemies, don’t be so careless in your private life and give them such an obvious target.
Totally agree, Andy. Again I don’t think what Pruitt did was far from what other cabinet officials have done over the years, but every little thing the media could find and pound into the heads of the gullible just meant he had to be extra mindful of his actions, and he wasn’t. He was naive.
He may have been naive. More importantly, he was corrupt. If he wasn’t, his naivety wouldn’t have mattered.
AndyL
Has Pruitt been prosecuted and convicted?
HotScott
Is that where you draw your ethical standard?
Anything not actually illegal and proven in cout of law is acceptable?
AndyL
My ethical standard is never to condemn a man who is not lawfully convicted. Innocent until proven guilty.
In fact, that’s the ethical standard of every civilised nation.
Are you saying you’re uncivilised
There are lots of things that are unethical that aren’t against the law. Are you saying you never have an opinion about anyone’s ethics if what they do isn’t against the law, and proved in court?
Philip Schaeffer
“There are lots of things that are unethical that aren’t against the law.”
That’s why they fall into the category of ethics, because they’re not unlawful.
Under age sex is immoral and illegal in the west, but some cultures accept there is a natural signal when a female is mature enough to be fertile. Often at 12 years old. I don’t like the idea, but I won’t condemn them based on my perception of morality or ethics.
“That’s why they fall into the category of ethics, because they’re not unlawful.”
OK, so we’ve established that there are some things that are wrong that are not illegal.
“Under age sex is immoral and illegal in the west, but some cultures accept there is a natural signal when a female is mature enough to be fertile. Often at 12 years old. I don’t like the idea, but I won’t condemn them based on my perception of morality or ethics.”
So, what would you do if you found a man having sex with your 12 year old daughter?
Philip Schaeffer
Must you continue to demonstrate your ignorance.
“we’ve established that there are some things that are wrong that are not illegal.”
No we haven’t, you said that, I didn’t.
I don’t live in a culture that finds ‘under age sex’ acceptable. Therefore, it’s not within my gift to do anything about it if it happened here, that decision is taken out my hands by the society I live in.
If I lived in a culture where it was legal, I would presumably have been brought up to believe in the concept and do nothing. Not that there would be anything I could legally do.
“No we haven’t, you said that, I didn’t.”
?? Isn’t the difference between ethics and laws about what is right and wrong vs what is legal and illegal?
If nothing is wrong, then how do ethics come into it?
“That’s why they fall into the category of ethics, because they’re not unlawful.”
Maybe I’m misunderstanding you. Could you give an example of something that is unethical but not wrong?
From the Oxford living Dictionary
ethics
PLURAL NOUN
1. usually treated as plural Moral principles that govern a person’s behaviour or the conducting of an activity.
‘medical ethics also enter into the question’
‘a code of ethics’
1.1 The moral correctness of specified conduct.
‘many scientists question the ethics of cruel experiments’
2. usually treated as singular The branch of knowledge that deals with moral principles.
Schools of ethics in Western philosophy can be divided, very roughly, into three sorts. The first, drawing on the work of Aristotle, holds that the virtues (such as justice, charity, and generosity) are dispositions to act in ways that benefit both the person possessing them and that person’s society. The second, defended particularly by Kant, makes the concept of duty central to morality: humans are bound, from a knowledge of their duty as rational beings, to obey the categorical imperative to respect other rational beings. Thirdly, utilitarianism asserts that the guiding principle of conduct should be the greatest happiness or benefit of the greatest number
‘neither metaphysics nor ethics is the home of religion’
Is there any mention of legal or illegal, right or wrong?
Point 1.1 answers your question.
Had you ever bothered to actually read and learn something instead of ascribing your distorted left wing notions to what you pluck out of thin air, you just might sound credible.
So, can you actually give an example of something that is unethical but not wrong?
Philip Schaeffer
[Snip. Please refrain from making personal insults. This conversation can be had civilly. -mod]
“1.1 The moral correctness of specified conduct.
‘many scientists question the ethics of cruel experiments’”
The testing of pharmaceutical and beauty products on animals?
Get it now?
Some might consider it unethical, but in the interest of human health, necessary, and therefore not wrong. Others have different views on it.
[Snip]
In general, I agree that legally we are innocent until proven guilty. But I think the point Philip is making is that we don’t simply have to accept an individual’s behavior if it’s technically legal but immoral or unethical.
I would argue that the law describes the minimum standard we set for society. It seems perfectly fair and reasonable to require our leaders to hold themselves to a higher standard than mere legality.
Thus, while Pruitt might not be guilty of any criminal behavior, his unethical behavior (to the extent that the reports are true) renders him unfit to continue in his public office.
I honestly don’t see what’s so controversial about this position. Seems pretty fair and reasonable to me.
rip
rip
And I would largely agree with you.
However, what I object to is someone building a case against another simply on the grounds of evidence that doesn’t pass the scrutiny of a legal entity.
Nor do I entirely agree with the concept that our leaders should “hold themselves to a higher standard than mere legality.” Our politicians are, by definition, ‘ordinary men’, it’s the one environment that requires no qualifications, so the lowest of the low can, quite rightly, achieve high office. Yet whilst prostitution is legal in the UK, politicians are vilified for engaging in the practise of paying for sex. So just where is the line that describes what an ordinary man can do, and what a politician can do?
And I’ll cite here the case of Max Mosley, son of Oswald Mosely, the British Fascist sympathiser, and organiser of fascism in the UK in the 1930’s. In the late 2000’s Max was caught by the media engaging in a sex orgy with prostitutes, dressed in ‘uniforms’. Justice Eady ruled that despite one of the attendees wearing a military uniform there were no Nazi connotations to the orgy. Yet Mosely was hounded by the press because of the uniform implication and his father’s morals (actually, political beliefs), not his. Where is the morality of the MSM, which goes entirely un-prosecuted?
The morality, or otherwise, of an issue can be identified and isolated from any crime committed in a suitable legal environment. If the crime is immoral, fine, convict someone, but no one can be justly convicted on the basis of questionable morals alone. Least of all by an uninformed, and usually ill informed, public. That process is normally undertaken by the peers of the individual if they are found to lack moral fibre overall, because they represent a risk to their institution.
Nor must we pre judge, nor pre empt a decision, nor should we tolerate trial by media, nor the court of public opinion. Least of all trial by social media, the most pernicious, judgemental, irresponsible, and possibly immoral medium the world has ever known.
And whilst Pruitt is held accountable by ill educated and ill informed individuals on these mediums, they happily ignore the passive, aggressive behaviour of those harassing him and threatening his family. They are as subject to the boundaries of both morality and legal conduct as Pruitt is, but whilst he is condemned, the left are happy to ignore the behaviour that delivered us the persecution practises of Stalin and Hitler.
I form no opinion on Pruitt’s alleged digressions, be they legally or morally based, because I don’t have the full facts to hand. Similarly, I hold no opinion on Hilary Clinton, for the same reasons.
And I object to being harangued by Philip Schaeffer, a notably legally unqualified individual, who simply refuses to accept that none of us on this blog have the ability to condemn anyone unless we have either the full facts or, the case has been presented to a legal entity for scrutiny, and judgement passed.
I don’t believe for a nanosecond Schaeffer has read the entire contents of the emails presented as media evidence against Pruitt, in an accusation that is now, I believe, 15 years old, likely long since put to bed by the law. I believe even less that he has access to, or sight of the case for Pruitt’s rebuffal, because it simply wouldn’t cross his mind there could be such a thing.
“Some might consider it unethical, but in the interest of human health, necessary, and therefore not wrong. Others have different views on it.”
Well, I would put it to you that if it is not wrong then it can’t be unethical, and vice versa. Ethics is about moral correctness, and moral correctness is about right and wrong.
Philip Schaeffer
You’re running round in circles and ending up your own backside with your puerile logic.
In your own words “if it is not wrong then it can’t be unethical, and vice versa.” Therefore, if Pruitt wasn’t prosecuted for past activities, he’s not wrong and, by your own definition, his actions are not unethical.
Which is precisely what I said when you started on your bizarre quest for an argument.
But is it moral or ethical to harass a man, and threaten his family, for doing his job? I contend not, yet I don’t see you screaming and stamping your little feetsies about that. All I see is you regurgitating an event from 15 years in Pruitt’s past that has long since been consigned to history. Were there any legal issues surrounding it, he would have been prosecuted. Yet you brandish a single piece of email ‘evidence’ and judge him, whilst others far more qualified than you, and in full possession of all the facts, have not prosecuted him.
No one can judge another on a moral, ethical, or legal basis unless they are in full possession of the facts. It’s that simple. You are not in full possession of the facts. And getting back to the original argument you have evidently long since forgotten, that’s smear.
Where does that place your moral or ethical standards, the same place your logic resides?
Try questioning your own ethics before that of others.
Please stop, you’re tedious, and flogging a dead horse.
He stayed in a DC condo owned by the wife of a lobbyist with business before the EPA for $50 a night (see what you can find in DC for $50 a night if you think that’s not a gift).
He has admitted this. He tried to say that it was fair market value. Anyone can do a search for similar rentals in DC to see plainly that this absolutely false. Especially with no lease, and only having to pay for the nights he actually stayed there.
If you can’t directly see the problem with that without a court to help you, then I really don’t know what to tell you. You’re lost.
Do you still maintain that it’s all just media reports with no real evidence? You said that earlier.
Philip Schaeffer
Please go away.
I have tried to point out to you that you are not in full possession of all the facts. If you’re going to judge someone you must consider the case for the defence as well.
You don’t because you have a personal problem with Pruitt which renders you unwilling to consider there is a case for his defence.
I have had enough of your babbling.
I’ve already heard his defense from the horses mouth. He said it was fair market value. I know that to be false.
“I have had enough of your babbling.”
Yes, well, I think “very highly” of you too, and you won’t go away, so I guess we can both keep wishing.
Sad day — thought he could survive but the opposition is desperate to save the advantages they’ve accrued on the basis of un-justifiable fear and deliberate deception. The greens will stop at nothing. Pruitt for Sainthood!
Scott Pruitt saved tax payers over $1 billion in a year and started to weed activists from the EPA . You better believe he was a target but given the microscope he was under he made a few bad choices
that the plants in the EPA blew out of proportion .
With all the threats why would you go out to a restaurant and invite nut jobs to harass you ?
I know it’s not right that he should be so concerned but the uncivil war is raging .
Regime change at work. Just imagine the pressure on Trump. The neocon/neolib British regime change policy brought to a government near you right on the 4th July. This did not stop in 1783.
This what the left are pining for:
http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/science-papers/originals/lisa-p-jackson-epa-administrator-fulfilling-the-un-mission
Perhaps Mueller and his small army of Lawfare techs should vet Wheeler. After all, they’re not biased.
I was hoping Mr. Pruitt would demand that carbon dioxide from this day forward be called a gas and not pollution.
… a vital gas. NOT a trace gas, NOT a pollutant, but a VITAL gas.
0.04 % by volume is all it takes to sustain most life as we know it. It, thus, is a powerful LIFE gas, NOT a killer gas.
Most of the skeptics here call it a trace gas, so you’re gonna have a hard time with that.
Prb’ly was offered a deal he couldn’t refuse. Or one of his kids picked up after school by a limousine w/strange people in suits inside, then dropped back at home — message received.