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Fund. But at some point when the nominee has spent his entire career attempting
to dismantle environmental protections, it becomes unacceptable. Thats why Mr.
Pruitt is the first E.P.A. nominee from either party that the Environmental Defense
Fund has opposed in our 50-year history.
Some experts say that while returning more authority to states can be
desirable in some cases, environmental protection is probably not one of them.
Smog and toxic chemicals that foul the air and waterways of one state may
originate from one or several others, necessitating federal oversight of pollution.
Pollution doesnt respect state boundaries, said Patrick A. Parenteau, a
professor of environmental law at Vermont Law School. States have limited ability
to regulate pollution from outside the state, and almost every state is downstream
or downwind from other pollution.
Case in point: the Green Country chicken battle that Mr. Pruitt inherited in
eastern Oklahoma. The phosphorus and nitrates in chicken manure were causing
algae blooms in the ponds, streams and lakes of the 1.1-million acre Illinois River
watershed, which reaches from Arkansas into Oklahoma.
In 2005, Attorney General Drew Edmondson of Oklahoma, Mr. Pruitts
predecessor, sued Tyson Food, Cargill Turkey and a dozen other major poultry
producers for damages caused by the pollution and to force them to change the
way they disposed of 300,000 tons a year of animal waste.
As Mr. Pruitt ran for election, at least $40,000 in contributions poured into
his campaign from nearly 30 executives at poultry companies named in the lawsuit
or attorneys at law firms representing them, including Mark Simmons, the founder
of Simmons Foods; Donald J. Smith, then the chief executive of Tysons Foods; and
Gary Weeks, a lawyer listed on the court papers as representing Georges, another
company targeted in the lawsuit, according to data assembled by the nonprofit
Environmental Working Group and confirmed by The New York Times. That
money represents about 4 percent of the total $1 million he raised in the 2010
campaign, records show.
After Mr. Pruitt took over, instead of pushing the federal judge for a ruling
that, seven years later, still hasnt been issued, he negotiated an agreement with
Arkansas and the poultry companies to conduct a study of the appropriate level of
phosphorus in the Illinois River.
Regulation through litigation is wrong in my view, Mr. Pruitt told The
Oklahoman newspaper in 2015. That was not a decision my office made. It was a
case we inherited.
J. D. Strong, director of Oklahomas Wildlife Department and the states
former Secretary of Environment, praised Mr. Pruitt for negotiating the settlement.
You cant force a judge to rule, Mr. Strong said. Pruitt didnt sit back and
wait or badger the judge for a ruling. He worked to get the states of Oklahoma and
Arkansas around the table.
A spokesman from Tyson Food noted that the contributions to Mr. Pruitts
campaign were made by the companys executives and employees including two
former chief executives and members of the Tyson family rather than by the
company itself.
Well point out that our employees are encouraged to participate in the
election process of public officials at all levels, and are at liberty to make personal
contributions to any campaign as they see fit, Worth Sparkman, the spokesman
for Tyson, said.
But Mr. Pruitt quietly allowed the expiration of a 2003 agreement that Mr.
Edmondson helped negotiate with Arkansas to reduce poultry waste pollution
and to monitor the progress without seeking another formal extension of the
deal. And Mr. Pruitt shut down the specialized unit of four attorneys and a criminal
investigator that had helped initiate the lawsuit against the 14 poultry companies.
That environmental unit had broad jurisdiction, forcing pork-producing
farmers to spend millions of dollars on their own cleanups and collecting tens of
millions of dollars to clean up toxic sites in the state, including poisonous waste left
at an abandoned lead and zinc mine known as Tar Creek.
Mr. Pruitt, in response to questions, provided a list of environmental
enforcement actions taken during his tenure, but the list includes cases that were
largely initiated under Mr. Pruitts predecessor, Mr. Edmondson.
A spokesman for Mr. Pruitt said that while the environmental unit had been
closed, environmental cases continued to be handled by the state solicitor generals
unit. Under the leadership of Attorney General Pruitt, this team has held bad
actors accountable and protected stewardship of Oklahomas natural resources.
But Mr. Edmondson said that prosecution of such environmental crimes fell as
a result of the shuttering of the unit. Under his tenure as attorney general, I dont
think environmental crimes have disappeared, Mr. Edmondson said of Mr. Pruitt,
in an interview. It is just the filing of cases alleging environmental crimes that has
largely disappeared.
Residents who live in eastern Oklahoma, where local ponds and streams are
still often clogged with algae, said they, too, were frustrated.
Phosphorus levels have declined considerably a total of about 70 percent
between 1998 and 2015 but the largest reductions took place before Mr. Pruitt
became attorney general, as wastewater treatment plants have been upgraded and
more poultry farmers have shipped chicken waste for proper disposal. Still, the
levels remain far above the state standard and the decline in pollution has been
slower than some hoped.
I want an attorney general and a head of our E.P.A. who is not averse to
protecting Oklahomas most outstanding waterways, said Ed Brocksmith, who is a
co-founder of a group called Save the Illinois River.
At the same time that he was retreating from his predecessors more
aggressive approach, Mr. Pruitt sent a series of letters to federal regulators that in
some cases were drafted by industry lobbyists and then put on his state
government stationary, open records obtained by The New York Times in 2014
showed. The letters pressed the federal government to back down on proposals to
tighten controls over energy production, such as oil and gas wells that can release
planet-warming methane.
Mr. Pruitt separately filed a series of lawsuits against the federal government,
challenging regulations intended to reduce the discharge of poisonous mercury
from coal-burning power plants, carbon dioxide blamed for climate change and
other emissions that federal authorities argued were causing unsightly haze in
Oklahomas air.
In total, Mr. Pruitt filed 14 lawsuits challenging federal environmental
regulations. In 13 of those cases, the co-parties included companies that had
contributed money to Mr. Pruitt or to Pruitt-affiliated political campaign
committees.
Mr. Pruitt separately has served as a leader of the Republican Attorneys
General Association, which since 2013 has collected $4.2 million from fossil-fuel
related companies, including Exxon Mobil, Koch Industries, Murray Energy and
Southern Company, which in many cases have also supported the lawsuits he has
filed.
Given the scale of his regulatory challenges, Mr. Pruitt turned to major
corporate law firms, which typically defend energy companies fighting these laws,
for help. In some cases, that assistance was offered free.
BakerHostetler, the Cleveland-based law firm whose clients have included
dozens of energy industry players, assigned five of its lawyers to help Oklahoma
overturn President Obamas Clean Power Plan, intended to combat climate change.
The law firm did not charge Oklahoma anything for the work, Mr. Pruitts office
confirmed.
David B. Rivkin Jr., the lead attorney from BakerHostetler who handled the
matter, said that the work was considered charitable, similar to when major law
firms give free legal advice to inmates at the Guantnamo Bay military prison.
Environmentalists scoffed.
The industries and companies, through their corporate lawyers, are renting
the states seal in order to make it look like their self-interested arguments are
being made by Scott Pruitt on behalf of a state, said David Doniger, director of the
Climate and Clean Air Program at the Natural Resources Defense Counsel. It is a
disgrace.
Even federal judges are skeptical.
Mr. Pruitt joined with Missouri and several other mostly rural states in one
federal suit to beat back Californias regulations requiring egg farms, including
those in Oklahoma, that wanted to sell in the state to seek more humane treatment
of hens. In rejecting the suit, the federal judge admonished the plaintiffs.
The court concludes plaintiffs have not brought this action on behalf of their
interest in the physical or economic well-being of their residents in general, Judge
Kimberly J. Mueller of the United States District Court wrote in her 2014 opinion,
but rather on behalf of a discrete group of egg farmers whose businesses will
allegedly be impacted.