The Trump Administration's Conflicts of Interest: Scott Pruitt Edition

As with so many of Trump’s appointees so far, Scott Pruitt, the president-elect’s pick to lead the Environmental Protection Agency, has a long history of opposition to the very department he is expected to lead. As the attorney general for the state of Oklahoma, Pruitt spent his tenure fighting EPA regulations, including joining with several other Republican attorneys general in a number of lawsuits against the agency over the Obama administration’s plans to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

According to Democrats in the Senate, this history of antagonism toward the EPA involves conflicts of interest that could undermine his ability to execute his role with the organization. In a letter to the Office of Government Ethics, several Senators expressed concerns that Pruitt’s history of accepting large donations from fossil-fuel companies could impact his decisions. In particular, they pointed to his involvement in numerous Political Action Committees, most notably the Rule of Law Defense Fund, a nonprofit offshoot of the Republican Attorneys General Association that has received at least $175,000 in donations from the Koch brothers’ lobbying group Freedom Partners. Pruitt, his opponents say, has “blurred the distinction between official and political actions, often at the behest of corporations he will regulate if confirmed to lead [the] EPA,” and he and his staff “have worked closely with fossil fuel lobbyists to craft his office’s official positions.” Pruitt has announced that he will be stepping down from his position as chairman of the RLDF, and two PACs that support him plan to shut down; however, Protecting America Now, a recently-created organization supporting Pruitt, is expected to remain active, creating an avenue by which companies could seek to inappropriately influence his behavior in office.

Pruitt’s behavior as Oklahoma’s attorney general compounds concerns about Pruitt’s coziness with corporate donors. In 2010, Pruitt inherited from his predecessor and several other major poultry companies over the allegation that chicken manure was polluting Oklahoma’s water; the lawsuit could have resulted in tens of millions of dollars in damages. Pruitt, who received tens of thousands in campaign contributions from the poultry industry, chose to drop the lawsuit. Moreover, Pruitt helped bring against the EPA over federal regulations involved at least one company that had donated to Pruitt or a PAC from which he had benefited. , Pruitt twice joined lawsuits against the EPA on behalf of Murray Energy, an Ohio-based coal company that then donated to the Republican Attorneys General Association, an organization Pruitt chaired. In another instance, Pruitt sent a letter to the EPA alleging that federal regulators had overestimated natural-gas wells’ contribution to air pollution in Oklahoma; , however, “the three-page letter was written by lawyers for Devon Energy, one of Oklahoma’s biggest oil-and-gas companies, and was delivered to him by Devon’s chief of lobbying.”