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Pruitt sets new low for ethics at EPA

Rogue Valley

Rogue Valley

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Pruitt sets new low for ethics at EPA

Trump_EPA_74487.jpg-3720a.jpg

With his spending, travel, sweet housing arrangement and treatment of his staff,
EPA chief Scott Pruitt reflects all that's rotten in Washington.

April 22, 2018

Not too many people took then-candidate Donald Trump seriously when he famously campaigned to "drain the swamp" as president. But that shouldn’t give this administration a free pass to excuse the behavior of Scott Pruitt, the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency whose spending, travel, sweet housing arrangement and treatment of his staff reflect all that’s rotten in Washington. Pruitt has been dogged for weeks by reports of his private housing deal, hiring practices and costly travel at taxpayers’ expense. His heavy spending on office furniture and travel, and insistence on tight security and other perks, caused career agency staff and even a Trump appointee to push back. At least four high-ranking EPA officials who raised concerns over his management were later demoted or reassigned, or they asked for new jobs. Officials say agency morale has plummeted as career staff see Pruitt, a climate change skeptic, marginalize the role that scientists play in the agency’s decision making process. The federal government’s top ethics official was so alarmed by the reports that he wrote to the EPA’s designated ethics officer this month, calling attention to three areas of concern and urging the agency to investigate.

Pruitt’s expenses for travel and security also raised questions, given his frequent trips "to his home state at government expense," about whether Pruitt was "using his public office for personal gain." And the ethics office cited as "extremely concerning" reports that Pruitt had reassigned or demoted staff who attempted to ensure that the administrator’s actions were legal and proper. Pruitt reportedly spent tens of thousands of dollars on first-class airfare and charter flights. He reportedly sought a bulletproof SUV, wanted to expand his security detail to three times the size of his predecessor’s and asked his security detail to use lights and sirens when tooling around to speed up the journey. The Government Accountability Office determined that the EPA broke federal laws by installing a $43,000 soundproof phone booth in Pruitt’s office. Pruitt was a terrible pick to protect the nation’s air, water and environmental health. But his anti-environmental agenda aside, his abuses of authority are a betrayal of public trust and an embarrassment even to this White House. The bubble of secrecy he has created and his tin ear to ethics has made him a poster boy of the swamp Trump promised to drain. The ethics office was right to suggest this case is tailor-made for an investigation by EPA’s inspector general. But it also calls out for the president to set at least a minimum standard of conduct for his Cabinet. That was his promise, after all, and Pruitt is his man.
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By any ethical metric, Pruitt is little different than the corrupt siloviki and oligarchs that populate Putin's mafia-state government.

A fossil-fuel industry creature, Pruitt is rolling back many EPA regulations protecting our air/water/land resources so industry can enjoy higher profits.

Despite the open corruption and total disregard for ethical norms, Trump is "happy" with Scott Pruitt as EPA Administrator and says he's doing a "fantastic job".
 
Rogue Valley said:
Pruitt sets new low for ethics at EPA

Trump_EPA_74487.jpg-3720a.jpg

With his spending, travel, sweet housing arrangement and treatment of his staff,
EPA chief Scott Pruitt reflects all that's rotten in Washington.



By any ethical metric, Pruitt is little different than the corrupt siloviki and oligarchs that populate Putin's mafia-state government.

A fossil-fuel industry creature, Pruitt is rolling back many EPA regulations protecting our air/water/land resources so industry can enjoy higher profits.

Despite the open corruption and total disregard for ethical norms, Trump is "happy" with Scott Pruitt as EPA Administrator and says he's doing a "fantastic job".
Click to expand...

Draining the swamp

lol
 
Rogue Valley said:
Pruitt sets new low for ethics at EPA. With his spending, travel, sweet housing arrangement and treatment of his staff,
EPA chief Scott Pruitt reflects all that's rotten in Washington. By any ethical metric, Pruitt is little different than the corrupt siloviki and oligarchs that populate Putin's mafia-state government. A fossil-fuel industry creature, Pruitt is rolling back many EPA regulations protecting our air/water/land resources so industry can enjoy higher profits. Despite the open corruption and total disregard for ethical norms, Trump is "happy" with Scott Pruitt as EPA Administrator and says he's doing a "fantastic job".
Click to expand...

So much for draining the swamp.... :roll:

Pruitt was a big spender here in Oklahoma ('overseen' by a government run by so-called conservatives)

Talk about elitist's spending the taxpayer's money like it is found money... :doh

I guess the new GOP mantra is "We don't care how morally or fiscally bankrupt a politician is as long as they does our bidding" ... :peace
 
Rogue Valley said:
Pruitt sets new low for ethics at EPA

By any ethical metric, Pruitt is little different than the corrupt siloviki and oligarchs that populate Putin's mafia-state government.

A fossil-fuel industry creature, Pruitt is rolling back many EPA regulations protecting our air/water/land resources so industry can enjoy higher profits.

Despite the open corruption and total disregard for ethical norms, Trump is "happy" with Scott Pruitt as EPA Administrator and says he's doing a "fantastic job".
Click to expand...

One difference is Pruitt is a pathetic figure. The oligarchs actually had to earn their positions. Getting to the top in Russia actually requires some skill and cunning, and often a kind of brutality to literally kill off competitors and enemies. Same was true of many of the "siloviki."

Pruitt was appointed head of EPA, basically a run of the mill bureaucrat, and acts like he's the director of the CIA or NSA. He basically takes orders from his betters in private industry, is their little errand boy, and apparently believes doing that makes him a big shot. It's almost sad....
 
Rogue Valley said:
Pruitt sets new low for ethics at EPA

Trump_EPA_74487.jpg-3720a.jpg

With his spending, travel, sweet housing arrangement and treatment of his staff,
EPA chief Scott Pruitt reflects all that's rotten in Washington.



By any ethical metric, Pruitt is little different than the corrupt siloviki and oligarchs that populate Putin's mafia-state government.

A fossil-fuel industry creature, Pruitt is rolling back many EPA regulations protecting our air/water/land resources so industry can enjoy higher profits.

Despite the open corruption and total disregard for ethical norms, Trump is "happy" with Scott Pruitt as EPA Administrator and says he's doing a "fantastic job".
Click to expand...

Pruitt's responsible for undoing the signifigant EPA over reaches that occurred under the last administration, so of-course the Left has put s bullseye on his back
Those unprecdented Federal power grabs were far worse than anything Pruits done
It won't matter, if Pruitt leaves, Trump will appoint someone else to undo Obama's environmental legacy
 
One thing that makes no sense to me is Pruitt is reputed to have had the government pay for ~$14K worth of charter flights out of DC and using "lights and siren" to get through traffic in order to make the flights. That no sense to me because I've flown plenty of charter flights; such flights depart on the passenger's schedule, not the airplane operator's.

Seem to me too that much of what Pruitt's been doing is listening to various executives gripe about this or that regulation and then ordering EPA staffers to scrap the regulation(s). It sounds to me like Pruitt treats his job as one of incessant favor granting rather than anything having to do with protecting the environment.

From where I sit, that makes Pruitt a reprobate patsy.
 
Fenton said:
Pruitt's responsible for undoing the signifigant EPA over reaches that occurred under the last administration, so of-course the Left has put s bullseye on his back
Those unprecdented Federal power grabs were far worse than anything Pruits done
It won't matter, if Pruitt leaves, Trump will appoint someone else to undo Obama's environmental legacy
Click to expand...

He's an errand boy for the fossil fuel industry. SAD!!

It's always fascinating to watch conservatives excuse or justify anything so long as they're Republicans. IOKIYAR is generally cited as a joke, but we see with Trump it's a very accurate stereotype.
 
Put a fox in charge of the hen house, and who is surprised to see a well fed fox and fewer chickens?
 
Rogue Valley said:
Pruitt sets new low for ethics at EPA

Trump_EPA_74487.jpg-3720a.jpg

With his spending, travel, sweet housing arrangement and treatment of his staff,
EPA chief Scott Pruitt reflects all that's rotten in Washington.



By any ethical metric, Pruitt is little different than the corrupt siloviki and oligarchs that populate Putin's mafia-state government.

A fossil-fuel industry creature, Pruitt is rolling back many EPA regulations protecting our air/water/land resources so industry can enjoy higher profits.

Despite the open corruption and total disregard for ethical norms, Trump is "happy" with Scott Pruitt as EPA Administrator and says he's doing a "fantastic job".
Click to expand...



There has not been anybody so antithetical to protection of the environment since James Watt of the Interior Dept. and Anne Gorsuch (mother of Justice Gorsuch) of the EPA under Reagan. Pruitt outdoes them both put together.
 
JasperL said:
He's an errand boy for the fossil fuel industry. SAD!!

It's always fascinating to watch conservatives excuse or justify anything so long as they're Republicans. IOKIYAR is generally cited as a joke, but we see with Trump it's a very accurate stereotype.
Click to expand...

Just like Obama's EPA head was a errand boy for the Green energy industry , amiright ?
 
Fenton said:
Just like Obama's EPA head was a errand boy for the Green energy industry , amiright ?
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You're avoiding the point with your "BOTHSIDES!!!" quip. Pruitt is who we're talking about and HIS "job" is to do what his paymasters tell him to do. So he's a pencil pushing errand boy, a bureaucrat. Why is he pretending to be a super spy, who needs 24/7 protection, bullet proof transport, super secret phone booths to make his calls, and a bullet proof DESK? :2rofll:

And when he's not trying to order stuff suitable for the head of NSA or the POTUS, he's flying around in first class, or private jet, or military transport when we pay for it, and coach when it's on his dime, and ordering fancy new desks more suitable for a CEO than a pencil pushing government bureaucrat.

It's pathetic really, and of course you have to defend him, because that's what Trump acolytes do. The guy is acting like a decades long member of the swamp, but he's Trump's guy so who cares, right?
 
JasperL said:
One difference is Pruitt is a pathetic figure. The oligarchs actually had to earn their positions. Getting to the top in Russia actually requires some skill and cunning, and often a kind of brutality to literally kill off competitors and enemies. Same was true of many of the "siloviki."

Pruitt was appointed head of EPA, basically a run of the mill bureaucrat, and acts like he's the director of the CIA or NSA. He basically takes orders from his betters in private industry, is their little errand boy, and apparently believes doing that makes him a big shot. It's almost sad....
Click to expand...

You are 100% correct. For those of you who think Trump gives a damn about Flint's water, or your water, or anybody else's water, watch the film "What Lies Upstream," a documentary that literally shows industry lobbyists repealing a bill to keep Charleston's water safe after it was contaminated by chemicals that the public was told were safe but cause birth defects and who knows what else (really - the chemical's effects are largely unknown). The head sponsor of the bill didn't even know who wrote it. Trump appoints Pruitt, he goes ahead and fires everybody whose job it is to keep your water and this Earth clean. He is literally killing people with his actions.

The fact that him wasting money is the topic of conversation here is sad. The Trump administration is ten times worse than any other administration in history in terms of protecting the environment. When they said "drain the swamp," they meant drain it and put it in your tap water. These are the actions of a mafia run executive branch and I am not exaggerating. It's just that the mafia here is pro-industry lobbyists - Trump - Pruitt - state government.

a decade from now, we'll be seeing the highest population of individuals who are sick, dying, or with permanent neurological damage because of Pruitt. I want to start a thread about it but the sad thing is that Trump supporters don't care because they don't seem to understand that protecting the Earth also means protecting their health.
 
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