On Friday February 17, 2017, the Senate confirmed Scott Pruitt, an American lawyer and Republican politician from the state of Oklahoma , as the 14th Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency.
In response to the nomination, Pruitt said, “I intend to run this agency in a way that fosters both responsible protection of the environment and freedom for American businesses.”
Most Democrats and environmental groups are fiercely opposed to Mr. Pruitt, who has often sued the EPA as Oklahoma’s attorney general to block clean air and water regulations from being enforced. They also have questioned his close ties to the fossil fuel industry, which has donated to Mr. Pruitt’s various political action committees.
Republican leaders have cheered Pruitt as someone who can strike a balance between protecting the environment and ensuring that economic growth isn’t slowed by onerous regulations.
Edward Scott Pruitt was born in Danville, KY in 1968 and grew up in Lexington. He attended Georgetown College (KY) and graduated in 1990 with bachelor’s degrees in political science and communications. Mr. Pruitt then moved to Tulsa where he attended the University of Tulsa (OK) to earn a Juris Doctor in 1993. Mr. Pruitt entered into private practice in Tulsa where he specialized in constitutional law, contracts, insurance law, labor law, and litigation and appeals. He entered in politics in 1998, representing Tulsa and Wagoner Counties in the Oklahoma Senate from 1998 until 2006 and serving as Attorney General of Oklahoma from 2010 to date.