Pruitt’s Clean Air Promises Ring Hollow as EPA Eases Smog Protections

"The EPA has taken at least 15 major actions on air pollution—all to delay, weaken or repeal protections, and all opposed by leading public health groups."

"It is a seemingly pro-environment promise in an administration with almost none of them.

In speech after speech, Scott Pruitt, the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, has vowed to double down on a pledge to improve America's air and water. He's promised to do so by working with states and following the 'rule of law.'

'Let's get back to the fundamentals of what we should be about as an agency,' he declared to supporters at this year's Conservative Political Action Conference.

Pruitt has repeated the promise even as the EPA has been leading a unprecedented unraveling of not just climate regulation, but of the agency's basic clean air and water mandates. Under Pruitt, the EPA has ignored or denied pleas from several states to address ground-level ozone, or smog, a pollutant at the core of the agency's work since its inception 48 years ago. ...

Over the past 13 months, Pruitt's EPA has taken at least 15 major actions on air pollution—all to delay, weaken or repeal protections, and all opposed by the American Lung Association and other health groups—according to an analysis by the office of Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.)."

Marianne Lavelle reports for InsideClimate News March 21, 2018.