CEI supports Trump's EPA administrator selection

The Competitive Enterprise Institute recently voiced its support for President-elect Donald Trump's choice of Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt for the position of Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) administrator.

“Unlike the last two agency chiefs, the next EPA administrator should work with, rather than against, the states,” CEI Senior Fellow William Yeatman said. “EPA’s authorizing statutes require that the agency work together with states to improve the environment. But over the last eight years, cooperative federalism has become coercive federalism, as the EPA has effectively replaced its state partners with environmentalist zealots from the ranks of green special interests. CEI would like to see the next EPA administrator return to working with states for the best steps forward on environmental policy.”

CEI characterized the EPA's environmental efforts under the current administration as derived from special interests, specifically citing the Clean Power Plan as an initiative of the Natural Resources Defense Council.

“Green pressure groups have come to think of EPA as their hereditary fiefdom,” CEI Senior Fellow Marlo Lewis said. “That could end if someone like Scott Pruitt becomes the administrator. Pruitt has been a leader in the pushback against EPA’s unlawful regulatory overreach and destructive war on coal. His nomination means that when it comes to environmental and energy policy, President-elect Trump not only talks the talk, he walks the walk.”