Keeping promises

EPA media relations informs us:

SYCAMORE, Pa. – U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt visited the Harvey Mine in Sycamore, Pa., today, to meet with coal miners and announce EPA’s Back-to-Basics agenda. The agenda reinforces Administrator Pruitt’s commitment to refocusing EPA on its intended mission, returning power to the states, and creating an environment where jobs can grow.

“What better way to launch EPA’s Back-to-Basics agenda than visiting the hard-working coal miners who help power America. The coal industry was nearly devastated by years of regulatory overreach, but with new direction from President Trump, we are helping to turn things around for these miners and for many other hard working Americans,” said Administrator Pruitt. “Back-to-Basics means returning EPA to its core mission: protecting the environment by engaging with state, local, and tribal partners to create sensible regulations that enhance economic growth.”

Administrator Pruitt spoke with coal miners about the President’s recent Energy Independence Executive Order, which directs EPA and other federal agencies to review the Clean Power Plan and revise regulatory barriers that impede energy independence, including unnecessary burdens on coal miners and coal-fired electric utilities.

Read more here.

Senate confirms Scott Pruitt as head of EPA

Sundance reports,

Yes, today the Senate finally confirmed Scott Pruitt to head the Environmental Protection Agency; a rogue agency completely out of sync with any semblance of normal environmental protection. Between bites of their sustainable algae cakes, drum circle activists throw themselves into apoplectic fits….

The vote was 52-46. Senators Heidi Heitkamp (D-ND), and Joe Manchin (D-WV) voted for Pruitt. Republican Susan Collins of Maine voted against him.

The Senate now takes a week off allowing professional activists to regroup before returning on February 27th to vote on: • Commerce nominee Wilbur Ross, • Interior nominee Ryan Zinke, • Housing and Urban Development nominee Dr. Ben Carson, and • Energy nominee Rick Perry.

Read more here.

"The wages of eight years of liberal overreach"

Doug Ross has this quote from Charles Krauthammer,

"[Scott] Pruitt’s is the most important nomination because it is a direct attack on the insidious growth of the administrative state. We have reached the point where EPA bureaucrats interpret the Waters of the United States rule — meant to protect American waterways — to mean that when a hard rain leaves behind a pond on your property, the feds may take over and tell you what you can and cannot do with it. (The final rule excluded puddles — magnanimity from the Leviathan.)

On a larger scale, Obama’s Clean Power Plan essentially federalizes power generation and regulation, not coincidentally killing coal along the way. This is the administration’s end run around Congress’ rejection of Obama’s proposed 2009-2010 cap-and-trade legislation. And that was a Democratic Congress, mind you.

Pruitt’s nomination is a dramatic test of the proposition that agencies administer the law, they don’t create it. That the legislative power resides exclusively with Congress and not with a metastasizing administrative bureaucracy... For some, this reassertion of basic constitutionalism seems extreme. If so, the Obama administration has only itself to blame. Such are the wages of eight years of liberal overreach." --Charles Krauthammer

Oklahoma attorney general Scott Pruitt for EPA administrator

Ed Straker writes at American Thinker,

Donald Trump made another excellent nomination, of Oklahoma attorney general Scott Pruitt for EPA administrator. But you wouldn't know it by reading the mainstream media, who criticized Pruitt for being "too friendly" to fossil fuel producers in his fight against Obama energy regulations.

Mr. Pruitt didn't just ally himself with oil and gas companies; he allied himself with every consumer who uses oil and gas and wants to continue to do so at affordable prices

"Big oil" not only gives us a high standard of living, but powers machines and devices that manufacture medicines and keep us alive.

Read more here.