Research Cited

In his role as Oklahoma’s attorney general, The Washington Post reported that Pruitt “regularly huddled with fossil fuel firms and electric utilities about how to combat federal environmental regulations and spoke to conservative political groups about what they called government ‘overreach,’ according to thousands of pages of emails made public.”

The emails demonstrated a partnership between Pruitt’s office and the fossil fuel industry, “with frequent meetings, calls, dinners and other events,” Nick Surgey, research director for the Center for Media and Democracy, told the Post.

The chief justice of Oklahoma’s Supreme Court on Tuesday gave the state’s new attorney general more time to produce thousands of documents related to the relationship that new Environmental Protection Agency leader Scott Pruitt had with energy companies.

— EPA administrator Scott Pruitt “occasionally” used private email to communicate with staff while serving as Oklahoma’s attorney general, despite recently telling Congress that he always used a state email account for government business. The AP: “Emails released under court order last week in response to a different public records request yielded additional examples where emails were addressed to Pruitt’s private account, including a 2013 exchange with a petroleum industry lobbyist who emailed Pruitt and a lawyer on the attorney general’s staff. That suggests Pruitt made his private email address available to professional contacts outside his office. It is not illegal in Oklahoma for public officials to use private email as long as they are retained and made available as public records. [Still], Pruitt’s use of the private account appears to directly contradict statements he made last month as part of his Senate confirmation.”

Pruitt is also facing scrutiny for a large batch of emails showing that he closely coordinated with fossil fuel companies to undermine federal environmental safeguards. The Center for Media and Democracy had requested those emails more than two years ago, but Pruitt’s attorney general’s office only turned them over after CMD filed a lawsuit and an Oklahoma judge ruled that Pruitt had been illegally withholding the documents.

Last week, we learned more. Additional records released – under court order, after an “abject failure” to respond to a two-year-old open records request from the Center for Media and Democracy – further underscore Pruitt’s troubling pattern of transactional relationships.

The Oklahoma Supreme Court on Tuesday delivered a win for EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt, halting the scheduled release of thousands of additional emails from Mr. Pruitt’s time as the state’s attorney general.

Earlier this month the attorney general’s office complied with a lower court’s order and made public more than 7,500 pages of emails. Many of them contained communications between Mr. Pruitt, his deputies and oil-and-gas companies.

U.S. EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt has an email problem.