Scott Pruitt may be gone from the EPA, but he didn’t take his bad policies with him when he left. And, as a lawsuit from Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) demonstrates—those policies are still without any scientific basis.
During an interview shortly after he took office in 2017, Pruitt made an astounding statement about global warming, claiming that human activity was not “a primary contributor to the global warming that we see.” The EPA has been following that policy by removing climate data from the public website, removing language of global warming or climate change from policies, and removing climate change as a factor when evaluating environmental impact. PEER immediately asked the EPA to put up or shut up, filing requests for any data that would support Pruitt’s statements. And the EPA responded promptly … by calling the requests “a trap” and refusing to comply. PEER responded to that response by filing suit. And the EPA responded to that by asking for the suit to be dismissed.
But the EPA lost in court. The suit continued. And in June a federal judge ruled in favor of PEER, ordering the EPA to hand over any supporting documents.
And now PEER has those documents. Twelve pages of them. Only those pages consist of nothing but marketing points and PR talking points. Not only do they contain no science to back up what Pruitt said, the documents that the EPA provided to demonstrate the scientific basis behind Pruitt’s statements on climate change don’t even contain anything about climate change.
“It appears Scott Pruitt’s positions were utterly unencumbered by facts,” stated PEER General Counsel Paula Dinerstein. “Amazingly, Pruitt had the gall to preach ‘sound science’ until his disgraceful exit.”
There’s no evidence, not in the notes he took with him, or anything prepared by the EPA, that what Pruitt spewed during his on-air interview was anything more than, appropriately enough, hot air. However, this isn’t the end of the matter. Following the lawsuit, the EPA has agreed to ask its “scientific experts” to scan their information not just for anything Pruitt might have used, but to see if there is anything out there … anything at all … to support the contention that human activity is not the primary driver of global warming.
So far they’ve produced nothing. But surely, deep in a “science lab” at the Heritage Foundation or Chamber of Commerce, some Republican politician turned climate expert is scribbling away.
“With respect to this portion of the search, the parties further agreed that EPA may limit its search to three offices: (1) the Office of Air and Radiation, (2) the Office of Research and Development, and (3) the Office of Policy. EPA will send a query to the identified climate scientists in the above three offices no later than August 1. The parties further agreed that in conducting this search EPA will not be required to disclose to PEER the individual climate scientists who are consulted in these offices…”
With the departure of Pruitt under a stack of still mostly uninvestigated scandals. Coal lobbyist Andrew Wheeler is the new improbable leader of the EPA. He has continued Pruitt’s traditions of using an agency chartered to protect the environment, as a means of enabling its destruction.
And science … it’s not clear if they need any, but they certainly do not have any on their side.