Volume 163, No. 13 covering the 1st Session of the 115th Congress (2017 - 2018) was published by the Congressional Record.
The Congressional Record is a unique source of public documentation. It started in 1873, documenting nearly all the major and minor policies being discussed and debated.
“NOMINATION OF SCOTT PRUITT” mentioning the Environmental Protection Agency was published in the Senate section on pages S422-S423 on Jan. 24, 2017.
More than half of the Agency's employees are engineers, scientists and protection specialists. The Climate Reality Project, a global climate activist organization, accused Agency leadership in the last five years of undermining its main mission.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
NOMINATION OF SCOTT PRUITT
Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, the question I bring to the floor today is what is Scott Pruitt hiding? Last week, the Environment and Public Works Committee held a hearing on President Trump's nominee to the Environmental Protection Agency. Today, for my 155th ``Time to Wake Up'' speech, I have unanswered questions about Mr. Pruitt's fitness for that role. His evasiveness at his hearing signaled nothing good about his ties to the industry he would regulate if confirmed, and the lack of curiosity about these industry ties from my Republican colleagues speaks volumes about the political clout of that industry.
One question stood out. Our new chairman, Senator Barrasso, posed the standard question of nominees to Mr. Pruitt in our hearing: ``Do you know of any matters, which you may or may not have disclosed, that might place you in any conflict of interest if you are confirmed?''
Mr. Pruitt answered: ``No.''
Scott Pruitt crawls with conflict of interest. He has conflicts of interest with the fossil fuel industry from his political fundraising. We just don't know how bad. He likely has conflicts of interest from confidential private meetings with fossil fuel companies at Republican Attorneys General Association get-togethers, but we just don't know how bad. There is almost certainly evidence of conflict of interest in his undisclosed emails with fossil fuel companies, but again we don't know how bad. He came clean on none of this in his confirmation hearing.
This chart is a simple, and a likely incomplete, representation of the many financial links reported between Pruitt and the fossil fuel industry. At the top are the companies and the entities that have supported Mr. Pruitt with political funding. Down below are the political organizations for which he has raised money.
Pruitt for Attorney General was his reelection campaign. The polluters gave to Pruitt for Attorney General. Oklahoma's Strong PAC was his leadership PAC, a separate political fundraising vehicle. The polluters gave to Oklahoma Strong.
There was another one here called Liberty 2.0, Mr. Pruitt's super PAC, but he closed it down so we don't list it. While it existed, his super PAC took nearly $200,000 in fossil fuel industry contributions. Mr. Pruitt served as the chair of the Republican Attorneys General Association in 2012 and 2013 and was a member of RAGA's executive committee through 2015. Between 2014 and 2016, RAGA received $530,000 from Koch Industries. It received $350,000 from Murray Energy. It received $160,000 from ExxonMobil, and it received $125,000 from Devon Energy.
Devon Energy, by the way, is the company whose letter Mr. Pruitt transposed virtually verbatim onto his official letterhead to send to the EPA as the official position of the Oklahoma attorney general.
During his hearing, Mr. Pruitt refused to provide details about any solicitations he made from regulated industries for the Republican Attorneys General Association. We know they got special attention from RAGA. Here is a confidential 2015 meeting agenda from RAGA when Pruitt was on its executive committee. I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record the meeting agenda page.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in the Record, as follows:
RAGA Summer National Meeting 2015, The Greenbrier, West Virginia
MEETING AGENDA
The Greenbrier; 300 West Main Street, White Sulphur Springs, WV; (855) 616-2441.
Saturday, August 1, 2015
A Cyber Lounge and Hospitality Suite are provided all day for your convenience by Rent-A-Center in the Chesapeake Bay Room,
5:40 PM--Lead Shuttles for West Virginia Host Committee Dinner. Location: Front Main Entrance of the Hotel.
6:00 PM-8:00 PM--West Virginia Host Committee Reception & Dinner; Location: Kate's Mountain Lodge; Special Guest: Homer Hickam--American author; Vietnam veteran, and a former NASA engineer. His autobiographical novel Rocket Boys: A Memoir, was a No. 1 New York Times Best Seller, and was the basis for the 1999 film October Sky.
Sunday, August 2, 2015
A Cyber Lounge and Hospitality Suite are provided all day for your convenience by Rent-A-Center in the Chesapeake Bay Room
7:00 AM-10:30 AM--Breakfast (on your own); Location: Main Dining Room; *Breakfast is included, please provide your room key to the waiter. Please note: denim and exercise attire are not permitted.
11:00 AM-12:30 PM--AG Business Meeting; *Attorneys General and Staff Only; Location: Eisenhower A & B.
12:30 PM-2:00 PM--RAGA ERC & Capital Club Lunch: What Difference Does It Make? Measuring the Success of Republican AGs; Location: Chesapeake Room; Speaker: Attorney General Pam Bondi, Florida.
2:00 PM-5:30 PM--Private Meetings with Attorneys General and Staff; *Attorneys General and Staff Only; Location: Eisenhower A & B.
2:00 PM-2:40 PM--Private meeting with Murray Energy:
*Attorneys General and Staff Only; Location: Eisenhower A & B.
2:50 PM-3:10 PM--Private meeting with Microsoft; *Attorneys General and Staff Only; Location: Eisenhower A & B.
3:15 PM-3:35 PM--Private meeting with Southern Company;
*Attorneys General and Staff Only; Location: Eisenhower A & B.
3:40 PM-4:00 PM--Private meeting with American Fuel Petrochemical Manufacturers; *Attorneys General and Staff Only; Location: Eisenhower A & B.
Mr. WHITEHOUSE. This confidential agenda mentions a private meeting with Murray Energy. It mentions a private meeting with Southern Company, and it mentions a private meeting with American Fuel Petrochemical Manufacturers, which represents a lot of these characters. Murray Energy, of course, is right there. Southern Company is right there, and the American Fuel Petrochemical Manufacturers organization, I am sure, represents the others.
This confidential meeting agenda is all we have about what took place in those private meetings. I asked Mr. Pruitt in our hearings about the content of these private meetings, and he wouldn't answer any questions. He doesn't want us to know what was discussed there with the big fossil fuel polluters--companies whose pollution he will oversee as EPA Administrator.
Pruitt was also a chairman of the Rule of Law Defense Fund. The so-
called Rule of Law Defense Fund is a dark money political operation that launders the identity of donors giving money to the Republican Attorneys General Association. As the New York Times said, the fund is a ``legal entity that allows companies benefiting from the actions of Mr. Pruitt and other Republican attorneys general to make anonymous donations, in unlimited amounts.'' It is a complete black hole of political cash.
In the hearing, Pruitt refused to shine any light into the dark money he solicited or received from these fossil fuel polluters or others for the Rule of Law Defense Fund--not whom he asked for money, not who gave money, not what they gave, nothing. This is an organization that appears to have a million-dollar-a-year budget so someone was busy raising a lot of money. How much exactly, from whom, and what was the deal? Scott Pruitt doesn't want our committee or this Senate or the American people to know.
Colleagues and I sent letters to the Office of Government Ethics and to the Environmental Protection Agency's top ethics official. Their responses indicate that their ethics rules predate Citizens United and its torrent of dark political money. Their regulatory authority on government ethics has not caught up with the post-Citizens United dark money world. Since their ethics authorities have not been updated for these dark money conflicts, if Pruitt doesn't disclose any of this information before the Senate, no one will know, and even those government ethics watchdogs may end up blind to conflicts of interest.
That doesn't mean there isn't a conflict of interest here. What it means is it is a hidden conflict of interest. That makes it our duty in the Senate to examine those relationships, except for the fact that the fossil fuel industry now, more or less, runs the Republican Party, so there is a scrupulous lack of interest in this fossil fuel industry dark money.
How badly does Mr. Pruitt want to hide his dealings with his fossil fuel patrons? An Open Records Act request was filed with the Oklahoma attorney general's office--Mr. Pruitt's office--for emails with energy firms, fossil fuel trade groups, and their political arms, with companies like Devon Energy, Murray Energy, and Koch Industries, and the American Petroleum Institute, which is the industry's trade association.
Let me share three facts about this Open Records Act inquiry: No. 1, the Open Records Act request was filed more than 745 days ago--over 2 years, 2 years. No. 2, Pruitt's office has admitted that there are at least 3,000 responsive documents to that Open Records Act request. Consider that fact alone for a moment. There were 3,000 emails and other documents between his office and these fossil fuel companies and front groups--3,000. No. 3, zero, exactly zero of those documents have been produced--745 days, 3,000 documents, zero produced.
Think how smelly those 3,000 emails must be when he would rather have this flagrant Open Records Act compliance failure than have any of those 3,000 emails see the light of day. Given the important financial interests of these groups before the EPA, do we really not think that 3,000 emails back and forth between him and his office and those groups might be relevant to his conflicts of interest as Administrator? Until very recently, Republicans had a keen interest in emails. Chairman Barrasso asked that important question: ``Do you know of any matters which you may or may not have disclosed that might place you in any conflict of interest if you are confirmed?'' Scott Pruitt answered:
``No.''
On this record, there is every reason to believe that his statement is false. Might having raised significant dark money from the industry that he would regulate create a conflict of interest? Let's say that he made a call to Devon Energy and said: I slapped your letter on my letterhead and turned it in as if it were the official work of the Oklahoma attorney general's office. Now I need a million bucks. And you can give it to the Rule of Law Defense Fund as dark money, without anyone knowing that it was you.
Might such a quid pro quo create a conflict of interest in his ability to carry out the duties of EPA Administrator in matters affecting Devon Energy? It is impossible to say that it would not be a conflict of interest.
Let's say that at those confidential private meetings with Murray Energy and Southern Company, something went on. Might something that takes place in private meetings with Big Energy interests that he is going to have to regulate create a possible conflict of interest? They paid to be there. They wanted something. Might that not give rise to a conflict of interest?
And who knows what conflicts of interest would be divulged if his office were not sitting on 3,000 undisclosed emails with fossil fuel industries that he will be regulating as EPA Administrator?
I challenge anyone to come to this Senate floor and tell me with a straight face that there is nothing that those emails could reveal that might create a conflict of interest for the man discharged with regulating the companies on the other end of those emails. ``No'' just doesn't cut it as an answer from Mr. Pruitt when there is still so much that he is hiding.
I yield the floor.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. PETERS. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mrs. Fischer). Without objection, it is so ordered.
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