Pruitt’s other early actions show a pattern of arbitrarily staying, suspending, or delaying important existing health and environmental safeguards in total disregard for the rule of law and regular procedure.
Each time, he’s violated the Administrative Procedure Act and our clean air, clean water, or pesticide safety laws.
Without any legal authority for a blanket delay, and without taking any public comment, Pruitt told the governors he’ll push back by a year the October 2017 deadline for designating the areas of the country that don’t meet the ozone standard.
That gives industry an extra year to curb its smog-causing pollution.
Ten years after NRDC and others first petitioned EPA to ban this dangerous chemical linked to learning disabilities in children, EPA was under court order to make its decision by March 2017.
Accident prevention rules required by the Clean Air Act were finally about to come into effect this year.
Environmental organizations have sued to block Pruitt’s blatant evasion of the rule of law.
Last year EPA updated landfill pollution standards for the first time since the 1990s.
It’s basic “rule of law” 101 that EPA Administrator Pruitt can change existing standards only through the same rulemaking process that it took to create those standards in the first place.
That’s why NRDC and our environmental and labor partners are taking Scott Pruitt to court, again and again.