Friday, March 3, 2017

Email Dump Reveals EPA Chief Pruitt's Cozy Ties With Fossil Fuels Industry

http://www.commondreams.org/news/2017/02/22/email-dump-reveals-epa-chief-pruitts-cozy-ties-fossil-fuels-industry
"Thousands of pages of emails between newly confirmed EPA administrator Scott Pruitt and fossil fuel companies during his time as Oklahoma attorney general—released per court order on Tuesday night—confirm "a close and friendly relationship" between the man now charged with protecting the U.S. environment and entities seeking to hamper those efforts. The Oklahoma Attorney General's office on Tuesday released a batch of more than 7,500 pages of emails and other records, after a judge last week found Pruitt in violation of the state's Open Records Act for improperly withholding public records requested by the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD). The group made the documents public on Wednesday.  They show that Pruitt—who sued the EPA more than a dozen times as attorney general—"closely coordinated with major oil and gas producers, electric utilities, and political groups with ties to the libertarian billionaire brothers Charles G. and David H. Koch to roll back environmental regulations," according to the New York Times."