Investigating Power
GIG: Speaking of protecting the environment, plenty of people doubt whether new U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt will be up to the task, given his cozy relationship with the fossil-fuel industry, as revealed in a recently released batch of more than 7,500 emails.
So far, 28 states have passed resolutions calling for a Constitutional Convention to add an amendment requiring the federal government to balance its budget – but Idaho isn’t one of them.
A state Senate resolution calling for a Constitutional Convention was defeated last week, although a House version is still in play. Only six more states are needed to hold a convention under Article Five of the U.S. Constitution.
The Oklahoma Supreme Court’s chief justice recently granted Oklahoma’s new attorney general more time to produce documents detailing the relationship between energy companies and new Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt.
The lie is also material politically. The Center for Media and Democracy is gradually releasing Pruitt’s emails, obtained pursuant to a court order in the hopes that the steady drip of embarrassing emails will garner public attention. Pruitt’s statement is material to his very office.
Climate, Democracy, Environment
And speaking of emails: “An environmental group and several Democratic senators are demanding a review of the personal email account of Scott Pruitt, the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, after he said during confirmation hearings that he never used that account for official business as Oklahoma state attorney general,” writes the Washington Post.
Climate, Democracy, Environment
The court-ordered release of tens of thousands of Pruitt’s emails, published as part of a lawsuit filed by the watchdog group Center for Media and Democracy (CMD), expose not just the former Oklahoma lawmaker’s cozy relationship with the fossil fuel industry—they also show that many of his official emails were copied to his personal account, contradicting his testimony to the Senate Public Works Committee, whom he told, “I use only my official OAG [office of the attorney general] email address and government-issued phone to conduct official business.”
It’s hard to keep up with it all. But alongside all the rightful focus on Sessions/Trump/Russia, here’s another percolating story of a Trump cabinet nominee lying in his confirmation hearing.
Climate, Democracy, Environment
Scott Pruitt, the EPA administrator, occasionally used private email to communicate with staff while serving as Oklahoma’s attorney general, despite telling Congress that he always used a state email account for government business.
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.
Climate, Democracy, Environment
U.S. EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt won’t have to turn over more documents detailing his relationship with the energy industry for now, after the Oklahoma Supreme Court yesterday stayed a watchdog group’s open records lawsuit.