MSNBC – The Rachel Maddow Show / The MaddowBlog

Why would an EPA chief need a car with ‘Kevlar-like seat covers’?

By Steve Benen     April 17, 2018

In this March 10, 2016 photo, Scott Pruitt, Oklahoma Attorney General, gestures as he speaks during an interview in Oklahoma City, Okla. Photo by Sue Ogrocki/AP

Pruitt waste of taxpayer money on soundproof booth broke law: GAO

Yesterday was not a good day for embattled EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt. We’ve known for a while that the Oklahoma Republican spent tens of thousands of taxpayer dollars on a soundproof phone booth for reasons that have never made any sense, but we learned yesterday that as far as the Government Accountability Office is concerned, the purchase violated federal spending laws.

But that doesn’t mean things can’t get worse for the far-right EPA chief. Take this new Washington Post report, for example:

“Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt upgraded his official car last year to a costlier, larger vehicle with bullet-resistant covers over bucket seats, according to federal records and interviews with current and former agency officials.

Recent EPA administrators have traveled in a Chevrolet Tahoe, and agency officials had arranged for Pruitt to use the same vehicle when he joined the administration in February. But he switched to a larger, newer and more high-end Chevy Suburban last June.”

The article added that the head of Pruitt’s security detail “subsequently approved the addition of Kevlar-like seat covers to the vehicle at a cost of hundreds of dollars.”

That’s the same security official, Pasquale “Nino” Perrotta, who’s reportedly “clashed – at least once physically – with top E.P.A. officials who challenged Mr. Pruitt’s spending, and has steered at least one E.P.A. security contract to a business associate.”

This is what’s become of the Environmental Protection Agency in the Donald Trump era.

For what it’s worth, it would be easier to justify “bullet-resistant covers” for Scott Pruitt’s seats if there were evidence of expansive security threats against the EPA chief, but there aren’t. The latest documents from the agency show those security threats don’t really exist. (The career EPA staffer who approved this evidence was removed from his post.)

And, of course, Pruitt’s “Kevlar-like seat covers” are also emblematic of Pruitt’s paranoia. As we discussed just yesterday, for example, the EPA chief also explored the possibility of getting a bullet-proof desk.

This fit into an amazing pattern. Pruitt, for example, has a massive, around-the-clock security detail. He’s spent thousands of taxpayer dollars on a professional sweep of his office searching for possible surveillance devices. And thousand more on a sound-proof phone booth. And thousands more on first-class air travel, apparently afraid of the riff raff who fly coach.

CNN reported that the EPA’s custodial staff is not allowed to enter Pruitt’s office on their own, and in the hallway around Pruitt’s office, “security employees check government IDs against a list of employees who are approved for access.”

And before you think Trump keeps this guy around because he’s ruthlessly effective at gutting environmental safeguards, let’s also not forget that reports on Pruitt’s competence have been greatly exaggerated.

Explore: The MaddowBlog and EPA

Esquire – U.S.

What Your Great Lake Needs Is a Leaky Oil Pipeline

Charles P. Pierce, Esquire          April 13, 2018 

From Esquire

Yes, there are disasters to every point on the compass, and all the way down, too. So many, in fact, that you miss stories like the one hipped to us by the continually invaluable Electablog in Michigan. Apparently, we came within a scary couple of feet of turning the Straits of Mackinac into an irreversible chemistry set. From The Detroit Free Press:

“Submerged cables that carried electricity between Michigan’s two peninsulas were shut down after leaking about 550 gallons of coolant fluid into the waterway that connects Lake Huron and Lake Michigan, officials said Tuesday. Jackie Olson, spokeswoman for American Transmission Co., which operates the cables, told the Associated Press the fluid is a mineral-based synthetic oil used for insulation that can be harmful if released into the environment. Joe Haas, district supervisor for the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality, told the Free Press on Wednesday the cables have been shut down and will be permanently decommissioned.”

This sounds pretty bad but, as the Freep also informs us, it could have been much, much worse. The leak was caused by a ship that sailed through the straits with its anchor deployed. The anchor came into contact with the superannuated power cables, and that’s how we got gallons of benzenes floating free between Lakes Huron and Michigan.

Not far from the underwater power lines is the Line 5 pipeline, owned by Enbridge, that carries oil and natural gas under the straits. You have to know what’s coming, right?

“The same “vessel activity” that appears to have damaged submerged electric cables in the Straits of Mackinac last week, causing a leak of 550 gallons of benzene-containing coolant, may have also caused three dents just discovered in the Line 5 oil and natural gas liquids pipeline, also underwater where lakes Michigan and Huron connect. Canadian oil transport giant Enbridge, which owns and operates Line 5, informed state officials late Tuesday of the dents, characterized as “very small” and posing “no threat to the pipeline,” Gov. Rick Snyder’s office said in a statement Wednesday.”

And why would anyone doubt Enbridge’s devotion to the environment?

These damn pipelines are 65 years old. They are underwater time bombs that inevitably will go off because they are pipelines and pipelines leak. And this one has been a sieve for decades. From MLive:

“Pipelines do not belong in the Straits of Mackinac, period,” said Sean McBrearty, coordinator of Oil and Water Don’t Mix, a coalition of nonprofit organizations, citizens and businesses opposed to oil continuing to flow through the underwater lines. “Our state’s economy, tourism, and way of life revolves around keeping our Great Lakes in a pristine condition. There’s simply too much at stake to keep Line 5 in operation.” Snyder called on Enbridge to accelerate both identification of anchor strike mitigation measures, as well as evaluation of alternatives to replace the Straits pipelines, measures called for in an agreement between Enbridge and state officials last November.”

I can’t tell you how relieved I am that this happened during Infrastructure Week.

Respond to this article on the Esquire Politics Facebook page.

Forbes – Energy #Trump’s America

Trump May Greenlight An $8 Billion Attack On Competitive Energy Markets

From The Environmental Defense Fund. Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own.

Written by Dick Munson, EDF’s Director, Midwest Clean Energy   April 11, 2018

Signage is displayed at the FirstEnergy Corp. Bruce Mansfield coal-fired power plant in Shippingport, Pennsylvania, U.S., on Wednesday, Dec. 6, 2017.  Photographer: Justin Merriman/Bloomberg

President Trump may soon grossly distort competitive markets for electricity. Last week, he announced his consideration of a request for “202(c),” by which he means an $8 billion proposal to bail out all merchant coal and nuclear plants in a region that spans across 13 Midwestern and Mid-Atlantic states.

The request comes from FirstEnergy, the Ohio-based utility giant that has sought billions of bailout dollars over the last decade to cover its bad business decisions. Although repeatedly rebuked by federal and state regulators, the company recently asked the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) to bail out coal and nuclear units in the PJM-grid operator region by invoking section 202(c) of the Federal Power Act. Using this power would require the Department to find that additional compensation to these plants is necessary due to an “emergency” on the grid. The audacious proposal would bail out not only FirstEnergy’s facilities, but more than 80 coal and nuclear units throughout PJM, the largest grid-operator region in the U.S.

The plea aims to increase electricity bills by a staggering $8 billion annually. It also would insulate old, dirty power plants from competition – protecting them from markets where more affordable resources like solar, wind and natural gas are helping to drive down electricity bills for Americans.

Independent generators and owners of wind farms and natural gas power plants recognize that massive preferences given to coal and nuclear will stifle innovation and modern technologies. According to NRG’s general counsel, the FirstEnergy proposal is “corporate welfare, and it is not something we should tolerate because all it does is make consumers pay more for power plants that should go through belt-tightening or leave the market.”

Manufacturers, farmers, and other consumers of electricity also oppose the plan, objecting to the higher costs for power that would result from the proposed bailout.

Even PJM calculated that FirstEnergy’s clunkers can close and the lights will stay on. In fact, the regional grid operator responded to FirstEnergy’s request with an unequivocal message: “This is not an issue of reliability. There is no immediate emergency.”

FirstEnergy’s proposal is very similar to one unanimously rejected recently by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. A DOE assistant secretary also said the agency “would never use” its emergency authority to keep uneconomic plants operating.

Yet such substantial opposition, evidence, and logic do not guarantee the expensive proposal’s demise. FirstEnergy launched its plea with a lobbying frenzy, including two of its high-powered representatives recently dining with President Trump.

America’s competitive energy markets are ushering in a new era of cleaner, cheaper, and more efficient electricity. But FirstEnergy’s dangerous proposal seeks to undermine competition by guaranteeing profits for uneconomic power plants and thwarting innovation and progress. Proponents of open markets need to make their voices heard, and soon.

Yet such substantial opposition, evidence, and logic do not guarantee the expensive proposal’s demise. FirstEnergy launched its plea with a lobbying frenzy, including two of its high-powered representatives recently dining with President Trump.

America’s competitive energy markets are ushering in a new era of cleaner, cheaper, and more efficient electricity. But FirstEnergy’s dangerous proposal seeks to undermine competition by guaranteeing profits for uneconomic power plants and thwarting innovation and progress. Proponents of open markets need to make their voices heard, and soon.

Associated Press

AP sources: EPA chief spent millions on security and travel

Michael Biesecker, AP             April 6, 2018

In this Jan. 18, 2017 file photo, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator-designate, Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt is seen on Capitol Hill in Washington, at his confirmation hearing before the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. Pruitt has spent millions of dollars in taxpayer funds on unprecedented security precautions that include a full-time detail of 20 armed officers, according to agency sources and documents reviewed by The Associated Press. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)

WASHINGTON (AP) — Environmental Protection Agency chief Scott Pruitt’s concern with his safety came at a steep cost to taxpayers as his swollen security detail blew through overtime budgets and at times diverted officers away from investigating environmental crimes.

Altogether, the agency spent millions of dollars for a 20-member full-time detail that is more than three times the size of his predecessor’s part-time security contingent.

New details in Pruitt’s expansive spending for security and travel emerged from agency sources and documents reviewed by The Associated Press. They come as the embattled EPA leader fends off allegations of profligate spending and ethical missteps that have imperiled his job.

Shortly after arriving in Washington, Pruitt demoted the career staff member heading his security detail and replaced him with EPA Senior Special Agent Pasquale “Nino” Perrotta, a former Secret Service agent who operates a private security company.

An EPA official with direct knowledge of Pruitt’s security spending says Perrotta oversaw a rapid expansion of the EPA chief’s security detail to accommodate guarding him day and night, even on family vacations and when Pruitt was home in Oklahoma. The EPA official spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation.

Perrotta also signed off on new procedures that let Pruitt fly first-class on commercial airliners, with the security chief typically sitting next to him with other security staff farther back in the plane. Pruitt’s premium status gave him and his security chief access to VIP airport lounges.

The EPA official said there are legitimate concerns about Pruitt’s safety, given public opposition to his rollbacks of anti-pollution measures.

But Pruitt’s ambitious domestic and international travel led to rapidly escalating costs, with the security detail racking up so much overtime that many hit annual salary caps of about $160,000. The demands of providing 24-hour coverage even meant taking some investigators away from field work, such as when Pruitt traveled to California for a family vacation.

The EPA official said total security costs approached $3 million when pay is added to travel expenses.

EPA spokesman Jahan Wilcox said late Friday that Pruitt has faced an “unprecedented” amount of death threats against him and his family.

“Americans should all agree that members of the President’s cabinet should be kept safe from these violent threats,” Wilcox said.

A nationwide search of state and federal court records by AP found no case where anyone has been arrested or charged with threatening Pruitt. EPA’s press office did not respond Friday to provide details of any specific threats or arrests.

Pruitt has said his use of first-class airfare was initiated following unpleasant interactions with other travelers. In one incident, someone yelled a profanity as he walked through the airport.

The EPA administrator has come under intense scrutiny for ethics issues and outsized spending. Among the concerns: massive raises for two of closest aides and his rental of a Capitol Hill condo tied to a lobbyist who represents fossil fuel clients.

At least three congressional Republicans and a chorus of Democrats have called for Pruitt’s ouster. But President Donald Trump is so far standing by him.

A review of Pruitt’s ethical conduct by White House officials is underway, adding to probes by congressional oversight committees and EPA’s inspector general.

Pruitt, 49, was closely aligned with the oil and gas industry as Oklahoma’s state attorney general before being tapped by Trump. Trump has praised Pruitt’s relentless efforts to scrap, delay or rewrite Obama-era environmental regulations. He also has championed budget cuts and staff reductions at the agency so deep that even Republican budget hawks in Congress refused to implement them.

EPA’s press office has refused to disclose the cost of Pruitt’s security or the size of his protective detail, saying doing so could imperil his personal safety.

But other sources within EPA and documents released through public information requests help provide a window into the ballooning costs.

In his first three months in office, before pricey overseas trips to Italy and Morocco, the price tag for Pruitt’s security detail hit more than $832,000, according to EPA documents released through a public information request.

Nearly three dozen EPA security and law enforcement agents were assigned to Pruitt, according to a summary of six weeks of weekly schedules obtained by Democratic Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island.

Those schedules show multiple EPA security agents accompanied Pruitt on a family vacation to California that featured a day at Disneyland and a New Year’s Day football game where his home state Oklahoma Sooners were playing in the Rose Bowl. Multiple agents also accompanied Pruitt to a baseball game at the University of Kentucky and at his house outside Tulsa, during which no official EPA events were scheduled.

On weekend trips home for Sooners football games, when taxpayers weren’t paying for his ticket, the EPA official said Pruitt flew coach. He sometimes used a companion pass obtained with frequent flyer miles accumulated by Ken Wagner, a former law partner whom Pruitt hired as a senior adviser at EPA at a salary of more than $172,000. Taxpayers still covered the airfare for the administrator’s security detail.

Pruitt’s predecessor, Gina McCarthy, had a security detail that numbered about a half dozen, less than a third the size of Pruitt’s. She flew coach and was not accompanied by security during her off hours, like on weekend trips home to Boston.

Pruitt was accompanied by nine aides and a security detail during a trip to Italy in June that cost more than $120,000. He visited the U.S. Embassy in Rome and took a private tour of the Vatican before briefly attending a meeting of G-7 environmental ministers in Bologna.

Private Italian security guards hired by Perrotta helped arrange an expansive motorcade for Pruitt and his entourage, according to the EPA official with direct knowledge of the trip. The source described the Italian additions as personal friends of Perrotta, who joined Pruitt and his EPA staff for an hours-long dinner at an upscale restaurant.

Perrotta’s biography, on the website of his company, Sequoia Security Group, says that during his earlier stint with the Secret Service he worked with the Guardia di Finanza, the Italian finance police.

The EPA spent nearly $9,000 last year on increased counter-surveillance precautions for Pruitt, including hiring a private contractor to sweep his office for hidden listening devices and installing sophisticated biometric locks for the doors. The payment for the bug sweep went to a vice president at Perrotta’s security company.

The EPA official who spoke to AP said Perrotta also arranged the installation of a $43,000 soundproof phone booth for Pruitt’s office.

At least five EPA officials were placed on leave, reassigned or demoted after pushing back against spending requests such as a $100,000-a-month private jet membership, a bulletproof vehicle and $70,000 for furniture such as a bulletproof desk for the armed security officer always stationed inside the administrator’s office suite.

Those purchases were not approved. But Pruitt got an ornate refurbished desk comparable in grandeur to the one in the Oval Office.

Among the officials who faced consequences for resisting such spending was EPA Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations Kevin Chmielewski, a former Trump campaign staffer who was placed on unpaid administrative leave this year.

The prior head of Pruitt’s security detail, Eric Weese, was demoted last year after he refused Pruitt’s demand to use the lights and sirens on his government-owned SUV to get him through Washington traffic to the airport and dinner reservations.

Follow Associated Press environmental reporter Michael Biesecker at http://twitter.com/mbieseck

Related: From HuffPost

In Carrey’s painting, a pipeline features very prominently:

Jim Carrey:

Esquire

Fox News (Yes, Fox News) Just Exposed Scott Pruitt as the Ultimate Swamp Creature

Even the president’s favorite network wasn’t buying his bullshit.

By Jack Holmes       April 5, 2018

Screenshot

Scott Pruitt has raced to frontrunner status in our favorite new reality show, America’s Next Top Swampmonster.

Like others in President Trump’s supposedly swamp-draining cabinet, the EPA administrator was known as a big fan of flying first-class at incredible taxpayer expense. In one instance, he flew top-shelf from Washington, D.C. to New York—a four-hour drive—for a mere $1,600. But this week, we learned Pruitt had designs on being captain of this cabinet’s Blue Angels, as EPA explored leasing a private jet for Pruitt on a monthly basis. It would have cost a mere $100,000 in taxpayer cash each month, according to The Washington Post, and so was abandoned.

That little bit of public service was obscured, however, by two more episodes in Pruitt’s No Good, Very Bad Week and a Half. The Atlantic reported Pruitt went to the White House seeking raises for two longtime aides he brought with him from the Oklahoma attorney general’s office. When the request was denied, Pruitt allegedly used an obscure provision in the Safe Drinking Water Act to grant the raises anyway—to the tune of over 20-grand and 50-grand respectively. Pruitt now denies any knowledge of the raises, and had them peeled back this week after they went public.

Getty Images

And finally, there’s the condo. ABC News broke the news that Pruitt got a sweetheart deal from the wife of a Washington lobbyist to rent a posh apartment, situated on prime D.C. real estate just steps from the Capitol, for just $50 a night. This is far below market rate. And Pruitt paid only when he stayed there. Considering the lobbyist in question represents ExxonMobil, among a host of other firms, this is a bit of obvious swampitude—to the point that even Fox News can’t abide it.

Pruitt sought comfort inside the president’s favorite television network Wednesday evening, but to his credit, correspondent Ed Henry pulled no punches and left Pruitt squirming and stammering in his chair:

Pruitt has done more interviews with Fox than all other networks combined, mostly because they’ll swallow his sell lines about the virtues of rolling back every environmental regulation, ever. This week, that included trashing a rule aimed at curbing vehicle emissions, perhaps to protect Americans’ freedom to inhale more smog. But Henry put Pruitt on the back foot throughout, starting with an exchange over the raises:

HENRY: You don’t know? You run the agency. You don’t know who did this?

PRUITT: I found out about this yesterday, and I corrected the action.

Pruitt throwing his staff under the bus is no surprise—he is, after all, a Trumpist. (Ben Carson threw his own wife under the bus.) But it doesn’t pass the laugh test that two of his closest aides got raises that proved extraordinary in more ways than one and Pruitt didn’t know a thing about it.

But then came the condo:

HENRY: President Trump said he would drain the swamp. Is draining the swamp renting an apartment from the wife of a Washington lobbyist?

PRUITT: I don’t think that that’s remotely fair to ask that question.

That just about says it all. Pruitt not only believes the rules don’t apply to him—he gets legitimately indignant when asked to be accountable to the public.

That didn’t shake Henry, though, and neither did Pruitt’s line about how the lease had been approved by EPA ethics officials. Henry reminded him that Pruitt only sought that approval when the cozy arrangement went public in the last week—months and months after it all went down. Pruitt did not care whether it abided by ethics rules until he was forced to. And then Henry got the administrator to admit he only paid for the apartment on nights he was staying there, the benefits of which the Fox host was forced to spell out to Pruitt:

HENRY: Your house in Oklahoma, you pay a mortgage on that. And when you don’t sleep there, you still pay the mortgage, right?

PRUITT: Not when I’m not using it. I mean, yes. This is a tremendous difference. I wasn’t using the facility, uh, Ed, when I wasn’t there.

Notice Pruitt’s cagey default reaction is just to make something up. No, I don’t pay my mortgage when I’m not there—wait, yes I do! He then explained that he wasn’t using the apartment when he wasn’t there, which is true and also has no bearing on the ethics.

The fact is Pruitt got a sweetheart deal on Washington real estate from the wife of a lobbyist, and at least one of that lobbyist’s clients got approval for a project from the EPA. This is a conflict of interest, an ethics disaster, and perfectly on-brand for the Trump administration.

Getty Images

Pruitt has always transparently operated on behalf of special interests. The New York Times got hold of his schedule book and found it filled with fancy dinners and expensive lunches with representatives from—and lobbyists for—the industries the EPA is tasked with regulating. Pruitt had a top-secret secure phone booth installed in his offices at the agency so that his communications couldn’t be monitored. It was supposed to cost $25,000 in taxpayer cash, but ended up at over $43,000. That was spent presumably so that Pruitt can more effectively Protect the Environment, and definitely not so he can coordinate with those same lobbyists and industry types.

Of all the swamp monsters summoned forth by the Trump Era, Pruitt may well be the most diabolical. He was party to a baker’s dozen of lawsuits against the EPA at the time he was nominated to lead it. As Oklahoma’s attorney general, he received a letter from a prominent energy company complaining about EPA regulations, then stamped his letterhead on it and sent it on to the EPA as official correspondence from this office.

Since becoming the head of the EPA, he has rolled back every regulation in sight, including the Clean Power Plan, which is the United States’ main initiative to comply with the Paris Climate Accords.

Getty Images

That ought to be the most damning dimension of his legacy, along with whatever harm he brings to the quality of air and water in the United States. One wonders how many more Flints there will be by the time Pruitt leaves office. Instead, his obvious swampitude will probably hold the public’s attention.

Pruitt believes he should be free to act however he pleases as a public official, feeding special interests and living in style on the taxpayer dime. That much is clear from the interview. Even worse: He is insulted when you dare ask him why. It’s not just the environment—the very principle of holding public servants accountable is under threat right now. Props to Ed Henry for keeping the tradition alive.

Daily Beast – Toxic Asset

Scott Pruitt Says His Lobbyist Landlord’s Clients Didn’t Have Business Before the EPA. They Did.

The EPA chief’s defense of his sweetheart rental is lacking some basic facts.

Sam Stein, Lachlan Markay     April 5, 2018

As he doggedly tries to save his job amid a mounting ethics scandal, Environmental Protection Agency chief Scott Pruitt has insisted that there was no formal or informal conflict of interest when he rented a room from high-profile Washington D.C lobbyist, J. Steven Hart.

“Mr. Hart,” Pruitt claimed in an recent interview with Fox News on Wednesday, “has no clients who have business before this agency.”

A review of lobbying disclosure forms and publicly-listed EPA records, however, suggests that Pruitt is either lying or is woefully unfamiliar with the operations of his own agency.

Far from being removed from any EPA-related interests, Hart was personally representing a natural gas company, an airline giant, and a major manufacturer that had business before the agency at the time he was also renting out a room to Pruitt. One of his clients is currently battling the EPA in court over an order to pay more than $100 million in environmental cleanup costs.

The New York Times previously reported that Hart’s firm, Williams & Jensen, represented a company that got a pipeline expansion project approved by the EPA. But that only scratches the surface of Hart’s deep involvement in the energy industry—and advocacy on behalf of clients with business before the agency that his one-time tenant leads.

Hart himself was part of a team of four Williams & Jensen lobbyists that has reported lobbying Pruitt’s EPA. They did so on behalf of Owens-Illinois, a glass bottle manufacturer that paid $39 million in 2012 to settle EPA allegations of widespread Clean Air Act violations by a subsidiary. In June 2017, while Pruitt lived at Hart’s DC condo, another of the company’s subsidiaries settled additional EPA allegations that it violated the same law.

“We know that Steven Hart’s firm had clients before the EPA,” said Craig Holman, Government Affairs Lobbyist for the good-government group Public Citizen. “So his insistence that there is no conflict of interest is just off the wall.”

Steven Hart Lobbying Form

RELATED IN POLITICS

Scott Pruitt’s Lobbyist Landlord Also Funded His AG Campaign

Pruitt’s Lobbyist-Owned Pad Was GOP Fundraising Hub

Fresh Ethics Allegations Reignite Push to Oust EPA’s Pruitt

Even clients of Hart’s who didn’t enlist him to lobby the EPA directly had at least tangential business before the agency.

Among them is industrial equipment manufacturer Stanley Black & Decker, which is currently in litigation with the EPA over its own environmental liabilities. In 2014, the EPA ordered the company to pay $104 million in cleanup costs at a super-fund site in Rhode Island. Black & Decker disputed the ruling, but estimated in its most recent annual shareholder report, it expects that it may eventually have to pay between $68 million and $140 million in remediation costs at the site. The case is currently working its way through federal court, an EPA official confirmed to The Daily Beast. And Pruitt himself has directly weighed in on the matter, elevating the super-fund site as a target for immediate and intense attention.

Hart’s other clients include Cheniere Energy, which as Fox’s Ed Henry noted operates liquified natural gas terminals on the Gulf Coast and is reportedly one of the best positioned companies for Pruitt’s American gas export campaign. “Steve has never represented them,” Pruitt insisted to Henry.

In fact, lobbying disclosure records show that Hart has personally represented Cheniere since Williams & Jensen signed the company as a client in 2004.

In a separate interview with The Daily Signal, the news arm of the conservative Heritage Foundation, Pruitt claimed that “[Hart’s] firm represents these [energy industry] clients, not him. There has been no connection whatsoever in that regard.”

In fact, Hart represents numerous firms in the energy space, in addition to Cheniere. Black & Decker subsidiary Stanley Oil and Gas “provides world-class pipeline services and equipment in more than 100 countries, offshore and onshore,” according to its website. Another Hart client, Smithfield Foods, manufactures energy through the use of animal waste collected at its hog production facilities. Hart’s lobbying on behalf of the company routinely includes advocacy on energy policy issues.

Other Hart clients have had business before the EPA on either ceremonial or non-energy related matters. Hart represents the Coca-Cola Company, which has landfill and bottling operations that have fallen under the EPA’s purview. Hart represents United Airlines, which is involved in an aircraft drinking rule program for which the EPA—while Pruitt was staying at Hart’s condo—issued self-inspection requirements. And until December 31 of last year, Hart represented the American Automotive Policy Council, a trade group formed by Chrysler, Ford Motor Company and General Motors; automakers that have numerous policy interests the overlap with the chief environmental protection agency in America.

A request for comment to Hart was not returned seeking clarity as to what, if anything, he did to advance his clients interests before the EPA. In some cases, however, it is clear that his clients fared poorly. This past week, for example, Pruitt announced that he would be rolling back Obama-era car emissions standards, a policy that both Ford and GM have been vocal about not supporting, as one plugged-in Hill source explained.

The EPA did not return a request for comment.

Vanity Fair – U.S.

Can Scott Pruitt Poison the Environment Enough to Save His Job?

Bess Levin, Vanity Fair            April 5, 2018 

The future of Trump’s favorite polluter looks hazy.

The past couple months have been less than ideal for pollution enthusiast Scott Pruitt. At first, headlines about his expensive (taxpayer-funded) travel habit were mostly indistinguishable from similar scandals plaguing other Trump administration Cabinet members. More recently, however, negative stories about the anti-E.P.A. administrator have been tumbling out of his agency on a near daily basis. In the past week alone, we learned that Pruitt was living in a top lobbyist’s D.C. townhouse for just 50 bucks a night—when similar accommodations would have set him back several multiples of that rate—and just happened to approve a deal for one of his landlord’s water-polluting clients to expand a pipeline project after it had the distinction of receiving the second-biggest fine in the history of the Clean Water Act. On Monday, word leaked to The Washington Post that Pruitt’s staff had considered leasing a $100,000-a-month private jet to accommodate his luxe “travel needs”; on Tuesday, sources whispered to The Atlantic that Pruitt had bypassed the White House to give substantial pay raises to two of his closest aides.

Up until recently, it appeared that Pruitt’s job, if not safe, was at least as secure as anyone else’s in an administration in which casual corruption is a venial sin and job security hinges on the whim of a mostly unhinged president. By Wednesday, however, the White House’s stance on the Pruitt Situation seemed to have shifted markedly. For the first time, spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders said publicly that “The president’s not” O.K. with the E.P.A. chief‘s actions. She also declined to confirm reports that Trump rang up Pruitt in recent days to offer support. “We’re reviewing the situation. When we have had the chance to have a deeper dive on it we’ll let you know the outcomes of that,” Sanders added. “But we’re currently reviewing that here at the White House.” To those familiar with the roundabout way that Donald Trump slowly exfoliates aides who become irritants, the chilly response looked like a kiss of death.

Perhaps recognizing the gravity of his situation, Pruitt attempted to control the damage Wednesday, with mixed results. “I’m dumbfounded that that’s controversial,” he told the Washington Examiner, referring to his lobbyist-sponsored living situation. Asked by Fox News if the arrangement contradicted Trump’s pledge to “drain the swamp,” Pruitt acted shocked: “I don’t think that that’s even remotely fair to ask that question.” In other interviews, he suggested that the leaks are part of a liberal plot against him, with his enemies willing to “resort to anything” to stop him from deconstructing Obama’s environmental regulatory regime. Speaking to The Washington Times, Pruitt said he was under attack by a “bastion of liberalism,” which apparently forced him to sign a rental agreement that virtually anyone could’ve told him was ethically problematic at best. In Axios, an unnamed Pruitt defender appeared to channel his view of the world, telling the outlet that “this is really about ideology, driven by folks on the left who don’t like” his agenda, and that the bad press is allegedly coming from a recently dismissed political appointee. (That person, when contacted by Politico, denied the accusations and suggested that the E.P.A. is trying to deflect attention by attacking people who have questioned Pruitt’s decisions.)

Over at the White House, Chief of Staff John Kelly is said to be extremely miffed he wasn’t warned in advance that Trump’s E.P.A. head was a ticking time bomb, telling Pruitt in a phone call that “the flow of negative and damning stories needed to stop.” “[It] was not a friendly buck-up call at all,” is how one administration official described the chat to the Daily Beast. Yet for all the major lapses in judgment—practically a job requirement for Trump staffers, given their track record—Pruitt still has one thing going for him: he’s been the most “effective” member of Trump’s Cabinet, which in this case means he’s proven especially adept at gutting the agency he was tasked with running 14 months back. Trump may not appreciate the negative attention Pruitt is getting—and he certainly hates the positive attention, such as a New York Times headline last month, “Scott Pruitt, Trump’s Rule-Cutting E.P.A. Chief, Plots His Political Future”—but he loves what Pruitt has done for his industry pals. “As long as [Trump] feels Pruitt is effective and on his side, he’s probably fine,” one source close to the administration told the Daily Beast.

Pruitt, for his part, made sure to lay things on particularly thick while announcing the rollback of Obama’s car emissions rules this week. “This president has shown tremendous courage to say to the American people that America is going to be put first,” he said at the gathering. With the rollbacks, Pruitt added, “the president is again saying America is going to be put first.” Time will tell whether Pruitt is still around by the time those rules go into effect.