U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE

28–838 WASHINGTON : 2018

THE MISSION OF THE U.S. ENVIRONMENTAL 

PROTECTION AGENCY 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON ENVIRONMENT 

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND 

COMMERCE 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED FIFTEENTH CONGRESS 

FIRST SESSION 

THURSDAY, DECEMBER 7, 2017 

Serial No. 115–85 

( 

Printed for the use of the Committee on Energy and Commerce 

energycommerce.house.gov 

(II) 

COMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND COMMERCE 

GREG WALDEN, Oregon 

Chairman 

JOE BARTON, Texas 

Vice Chairman 

FRED UPTON, Michigan 

JOHN SHIMKUS, Illinois 

MICHAEL C. BURGESS, Texas 

MARSHA BLACKBURN, Tennessee 

STEVE SCALISE, Louisiana 

ROBERT E. LATTA, Ohio 

CATHY MCMORRIS RODGERS, Washington 

GREGG HARPER, Mississippi 

LEONARD LANCE, New Jersey 

BRETT GUTHRIE, Kentucky 

PETE OLSON, Texas 

DAVID B. MCKINLEY, West Virginia 

ADAM KINZINGER, Illinois 

H. MORGAN GRIFFITH, Virginia 

GUS M. BILIRAKIS, Florida 

BILL JOHNSON, Ohio 

BILLY LONG, Missouri 

LARRY BUCSHON, Indiana 

BILL FLORES, Texas 

SUSAN W. BROOKS, Indiana 

MARKWAYNE MULLIN, Oklahoma 

RICHARD HUDSON, North Carolina 

CHRIS COLLINS, New York 

KEVIN CRAMER, North Dakota 

TIM WALBERG, Michigan 

MIMI WALTERS, California 

RYAN A. COSTELLO, Pennsylvania 

EARL L. ‘‘BUDDY’’ CARTER, Georgia 

JEFF DUNCAN, South Carolina 

FRANK PALLONE, JR., New Jersey 

Ranking Member 

BOBBY L. RUSH, Illinois 

ANNA G. ESHOO, California 

ELIOT L. ENGEL, New York 

GENE GREEN, Texas 

DIANA DEGETTE, Colorado 

MICHAEL F. DOYLE, Pennsylvania 

JANICE D. SCHAKOWSKY, Illinois 

G.K. BUTTERFIELD, North Carolina 

DORIS O. MATSUI, California 

KATHY CASTOR, Florida 

JOHN P. SARBANES, Maryland 

JERRY MCNERNEY, California 

PETER WELCH, Vermont 

BEN RAY LUJA ́ N, New Mexico 

PAUL TONKO, New York 

YVETTE D. CLARKE, New York 

DAVID LOEBSACK, Iowa 

KURT SCHRADER, Oregon 

JOSEPH P. KENNEDY, III, Massachusetts 

TONY CA ́ RDENAS, California 

RAUL RUIZ, California 

SCOTT H. PETERS, California 

DEBBIE DINGELL, Michigan 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON ENVIRONMENT

JOHN SHIMKUS, Illinois 

Chairman 

DAVID B. MCKINLEY, West Virginia 

Vice Chairman 

JOE BARTON, Texas 

TIM MURPHY, Pennsylvania 

MARSHA BLACKBURN, Tennessee 

GREGG HARPER, Mississippi 

PETE OLSON, Texas 

BILL JOHNSON, Ohio 

BILL FLORES, Texas 

RICHARD HUDSON, North Carolina 

KEVIN CRAMER, North Dakota 

TIM WALBERG, Michigan 

EARL L. ‘‘BUDDY’’ CARTER, Georgia 

GREG WALDEN, Oregon (ex officio) 

PAUL TONKO, New York 

Ranking Member 

RAUL RUIZ, California 

SCOTT H. PETERS, California 

GENE GREEN, Texas 

DIANA DEGETTE, Colorado 

JERRY MCNERNEY, California 

TONY CA ́ RDENAS, California 

DEBBIE DINGELL, Michigan 

DORIS O. MATSUI, California 

FRANK PALLONE, JR., New Jersey (ex 

officio) 

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C O N T E N T S 

Page 

Hon. John Shimkus, a Representative in Congress from the State of Illinois, 

opening statement ................................................................................................ 2 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 4 

Hon. Paul Tonko, a Representative in Congress from the State of New York, 

opening statement ................................................................................................ 5 

Hon. Greg Walden, a Representative in Congress from the State of Oregon, 

opening statement ................................................................................................ 8 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 8 

Hon. Frank Pallone, Jr., a Representative in Congress from the State of 

New Jersey, opening statement .......................................................................... 9 

WITNESSES

Scott Pruitt, U.S. EPA Administrator .................................................................... 11 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 13 

Answers to submitted questions ...................................................................... 94 

SUBMITTED MATERIAL

Letter of December 14, 2011, from the Committee to the U.S. Environmental 

Protection Agency, submitted by Mr. Walden ................................................... 73 

Letter of May 4, 2012, from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to 

the Committee, submitted by Mr. Walden ......................................................... 77 

Statement of the American Geophysical Union, submitted by Mr. Tonko ......... 82 

Statement of the Asbestos Disease Awareness Organization, submitted by 

Mr. Pallone ........................................................................................................... 83 

Statement of Safer Chemicals Healthy Families, submitted by Mr. Pallone ..... 85 

Letter of August 28, 2017, from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency 

to Ranking Member Pallone, submitted by Mr. Ca ́ rdenas ............................... 88 

Letter of October 17, 2017, from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency 

to Ranking Member Pallone, submitted by Mr. Ca ́ rdenas ............................... 82 

Report entitled, ‘‘Fumes Across the Fence-Line,’’ by the NAACP and the 

Clean Air Task Force, November 2017, submitted by Mr. Tonko 1

Report entitled, ‘‘’Swamped’ 200 Ways in 200 Days,’’ by Democracy Reform 

Task Force, August 8, 2017, submitted by Mr. Sarbanes 2

Report entitled, ‘‘’Still Swamped’ 300 Ways in 300 Days,’’ by Democracy 

Reform Task Force, November 16, 2017, submitted by Mr. Sarbanes 3

Report on asbestos, submitted by Mr. Shimkus .................................................... 92 

1 The information can be found at: https://docs.house.gov/meetings/if/if18/ 

20171207/106701/hhrg-115-if18-20171207-sd011.pdf. 2 The information can be found at: https://docs.house.gov/meetings/if/if18/ 

20171207/106701/hhrg-115-if18-20171207-sd006.pdf. 3 The information can be found at: https://docs.house.gov/meetings/if/if18/ 

20171207/106701/hhrg-115-if18-20171207-sd005.pdf. 

(1) 

THE MISSION OF THE U.S. ENVIRONMENTAL 

PROTECTION AGENCY 

THURSDAY, DECEMBER 7, 2017 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, SUBCOMMITTEE ON ENVIRONMENT, COMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND COMMERCE

Washington, DC. 

The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 10:00 a.m., in room 

2123 Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. John Shimkus (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding. 

Members present: Representatives Shimkus, McKinley, Barton, 

Blackburn, Harper, Olson, Johnson, Flores, Hudson, Cramer, 

Walberg, Carter, Duncan, Walden (ex officio), Tonko, Ruiz, Peters, 

Green, DeGette, McNerney, Ca ́ rdenas, Dingell, Matsui, and Pallone 

(ex officio). 

Staff present: Ray Baum, Staff Director; Mike Bloomquist, Deputy Staff Director; Samantha Bopp, Staff Assistant; Adam 

Buckalew, Professional Staff Member, Health; Allie Bury, Legislative Clerk, Energy/Environment; Karen Christian, General Counsel; Kelly Collins, Staff Assistant; Jerry Couri, Chief Environmental Advisor; Zachary Dareshori, Staff Assistant; Jordan Davis, 

Director of Policy and External Affairs; Wyatt Ellertson, Research 

Associate, Energy/Environment; Margaret Tucker Fogarty, Staff 

Assistant; Adam Fromm, Director of Outreach and Coalitions; Ali 

Fulling, Legislative Clerk, Oversight & Investigations, Digital 

Commerce and Consumer Protection; Jordan Haverly, Policy Coordinator, Environment; Zach Hunter, Director of Communications; 

A.T. Johnston, Senior Policy Advisor, Energy; Peter Kielty, Deputy 

General Counsel; Ben Lieberman, Senior Counsel, Energy; Mary 

Martin, Deputy Chief Counsel, Energy & Environment; Drew 

McDowell, Executive Assistant; Brandon Mooney, Deputy Chief Energy Advisor; Mark Ratner, Policy Coordinator; Annelise Rickert, 

Counsel, Energy; Christopher Santini, Counsel, Oversight & Investigations; Dan Schneider, Press Secretary; Peter Spencer, Professional Staff Member, Energy; Madeline Vey, Policy Coordinator, 

Digital Commerce and Consumer Protection; Evan Viau, Legislative Clerk, Communications & Technology; Hamlin Wade, Special 

Advisor, External Affairs; Everett Winnick, Director of Information 

Technology; Priscilla Barbour, Minority Energy Fellow; Jeff Carroll, Minority Staff Director; Jacqueline Cohen, Minority Chief Environment Counsel; Jean Fruci, Minority Energy and Environment 

Policy Advisor; Evan Gilbert, Minority Press Assistant; Caitlin 

Haberman, Minority Professional Staff Member; Rick Kessler, Minority Senior Advisor and Staff Director, Energy and Environment; 

2 

John Marshall, Minority Policy Coordinator; Jon Monger, Minority 

Counsel; Alexander Ratner, Minority Policy Analyst; Andrew 

Souvall, Minority Director of Communications, Outreach and Member Services; Tuley Wright, Minority Energy and Environment Policy Advisor; C.J. Young, Minority Press Secretary; and Catherine 

Zander, Minority Environment Fellow. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. JOHN SHIMKUS, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF ILLINOIS 

Mr. SHIMKUS. The subcommittee will now come to order. Before 

I begin my opening statement, I want to make a general announcement to members about the process today. After months of trying 

to find a mutually acceptable date for a hearing, the committee was 

able to finally get agreement with the administrator to join us and 

we announced it. At the end of last week, however, the committee 

learned Mr. Pruitt was being summoned to meet with his boss, the 

President, for 90 minutes around lunch. 

Rather than agreeing to start the whole process over and/or the 

hearing earlier and to have a defined end time, or push the entire 

hearing to a late afternoon start time, or try to find another mutually acceptable date, we have come to an agreement which we understand is not ideal, but gives members maximum flexibility to 

personally question the administrator about the Agency’s missions. 

Therefore, we will proceed with opening statements, the administrator’s testimony, and members’ questions until 11:00 a.m. We will 

recess at that time and reconvene at 2:00 p.m. in 2322 which is upstairs. We expect the administrator will stay with us until committee members who are present or want to ask questions have 

been given their turn to ask questions. 

I will also note that there is going to be a voting period in this 

last block and we are going to try with the help of my colleagues 

to keep the hearing going through that vote series. I have done it 

before years ago. It is a juggling, but we are going to try to get that 

done. 

Administrator Pruitt, I want to thank you for joining us today 

and discussing issues the Environment Subcommittee has jurisdiction over. Notably, the Clean Air Act, CERCLA, which is a Superfund act, the Solid Waste Disposal Act, the Safe Drinking Water 

Act, and Toxic Substances Control Act, one that this committee is 

very proud of passing in the last Congress. 

A few years ago, we began an effort to tackle updating and authorizing a number of these laws and have been waiting for the opportunity for you and someone from your agency to be here so that 

we can discuss the Administration’s position on these important 

changes to the laws and how EPA implements them. We are also 

tasked with the oversight of these EPA programs and we look forward to being able to start conducting oversight hearings soon. 

Today, we would like to start dialogue with you about your vision 

and priorities for the EPA. You noted at the outset of your tenure 

at the EPA that your goal was to refocus EPA on its intended mission, return power to the states and create an environment where 

jobs can grow. And your agenda focused on the three Es: environment and protecting the environment; economy, sensible regulations that allow economic growth; and engagement, engaging with 

3 

state and local partners. You also stated that EPA would ‘‘operate 

with the statutes that Congress passes and not reimagining authority to pick winners and losers.’’ That sounds like you are headed in the right direction. 

We support analyzing regulatory barriers to determine whether 

they create unnecessary burdens or impede job creation and we 

want to work with you to make sure that the EPA develops and 

implements regulations that protect the environment while promoting growth and creating jobs. You said it best in a statement 

you made when you kicked off your back to the basics agenda earlier this year. We can and will achieve a clean air and a clean 

water and we will also have strong economic growth and job creation at the same time. 

We have some specific areas of focus that we would like to discuss today and continue to work with you and your staff as we go 

forward. The first is Superfund cleanup. You have indicated that 

Superfund cleanup is a priority of the Agency and that several 

clean up efforts have been ‘‘restored to the rightful place at the center of the Agency’s core mission.’’ 

You have also noted that you intend to figure out ways to cut 

through bureaucratic red tape that has slowed the cleanup of 

Superfund sites and that EPA is creating a list of the top ten sites 

that the Agency can aggressively address. We want to work with 

you on these efforts and work together to figure out what Congress 

can do to help make Superfund cleanups more efficient. 

The next issues are the Toxic Substances Control Act and the 

Safe Drinking Water Act. Last year, this committee was responsible for overhauling TSCA and we are interested in the appropriate and the timely implementation of the rules that are the outgrowth of the new law. We also look forward to work with the 

Agency as we have reauthorized funding and make improvements 

in the law to improve compliance with the Safe Drinking Water 

Act. 

Last but not least, the Clean Air Act. Our members are actively 

engaged on several air issues like the Clean Power Plan, the EPA’s 

recent ozone standard which has created obstacles to new infrastructure development and manufacturing. We also want to look 

into addressing the challenges relating to obtaining air permits required for new construction and expansions of the existing facilities 

under EPA’s New Source Review program. 

Administrator Pruitt, the long and the short of it is that we have 

an agenda packed with legislative and oversight activities and we 

need the EPA to be engaged participants that work with us as we 

move forward. We need to be assured that the Agency will send us 

witnesses for legislative and oversight hearings and in turn we will 

work with you to figure out where Congress needs to act to help 

you accomplish your mission, the Agency’s goals of providing regulatory certainty, balancing environmental benefits and economic 

practicalities, and restoring confidence to regulated entities across 

the country. 

Thank you for coming up here and we look forward to continuing 

this conversation in the new year. And with that I will yield back 

my time and turn to my friend from New York, Mr. Tonko, for 5 

minutes. 

4 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Shimkus follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF HON. JOHN SHIMKUS

The Subcommittee will now come to order. 

Before I begin my opening statement, I want to make a general announcement 

to members about process for today. After months of trying to find a mutually acceptable date for a hearing, the Committee was able to finally get agreement from 

Administrator Pruitt to join us and we announced it. At the end of last week, however, the Committee learned Mr. Pruitt was being summoned to meet with his boss, 

the President, for 90 minutes around lunch. Rather than agreeing to start the hearing earlier and have a defined end time, push the entire hearing to a late afternoon 

start time, or try to again find another mutually acceptable date, we have come to 

an agreement which we understand is not ideal, but gives members maximum ability to personally question the Administrator about the Agency’s mission. 

Therefore, we will proceed with opening statements, the Administrator’s testimony, and Member questions until 11am. We will recess at that time and reconvene 

at 2pm in 2322. We expect the Administrator will stay with us until Committee 

Members who are present and want to ask questions have been given their turn 

to ask questions. 

Administrator Pruitt I want to thank you for joining us today and discussing 

issues the Environment Subcommittee has jurisdiction over, notably, the Clean Air 

Act, CERCLA, the Solid Waste Disposal Act, the Safe Drinking Water Act, and the 

Toxic Substances Control Act. A few years ago, we began an effort to tackle updating and reauthorizing a number of these laws and we have been waiting for the opportunity for you or someone from your Agency to be here so that we can discuss 

the Administration’s position on these important changes to the laws EPA implements. We are also tasked with oversight of these EPA programs and we look forward to being able to start conducting oversight hearings soon. 

Today we would like to start a dialogue with you about your vision and priorities 

for EPA. 

You noted at the outset of your tenure at EPA that your goal was to refocus EPA 

on its intended mission, return power to the states, and create an environment 

where jobs can grow, and your agenda focused on the three E’s: 

Environment: Protecting the environment; 

Economy: Sensible regulations that allow economic growth; 

Engagement: Engaging with state and local partners. 

You also stated that EPA should ‘‘operate within the statutes that Congress 

passes and not reimagine authority to pick winners and losers.’’ 

That sounds like you are headed in the right direction. We support analyzing regulatory barriers to determine whether they create unnecessary burdens or impede 

job creation and we want to work with you to make sure that EPA develops and 

implements regulations that protect the environment while promoting growth and 

creating jobs. You said it best in a statement you made when you kicked off your 

‘‘back to basics’’ agenda earlier this year, ‘‘we can, and we will achieve clean air and 

clean water and we will also have strong economic growth and job creation at the 

same time.’’ 

We have some specific areas of focus that we would like to discuss today and continue to work on with you and your staff going forward. 

The first is Superfund cleanup. You have indicated that Superfund cleanup is a 

priority of the Agency and that several cleanup efforts have been ‘‘restored to their 

rightful place at the center of the agency’s core mission.’’ You have also noted that 

you intend to figure out ways to cut through the bureaucratic red tape that has 

slowed the cleanup of Superfund sites and that EPA is creating a list of the top ten 

sites that the agency can aggressively address. We want to work with you on these 

efforts and work together to figure out what Congress can do to help make Superfund cleanups more efficient. 

The next issues are Toxic Substances Control Act and the Safe Drinking Water 

Act. Last year, this Subcommittee was responsible for overhauling TSCA and we are 

interested in the appropriate and timely implementation of the rules that are the 

outgrowth of the new law. We also look forward to work with the Agency as we reauthorize the funding and make improvements in the law to improve compliance 

with the Safe Drinking Water Act. 

Last, but not least, the Clean Air Act. Our members are actively engaged on several air issues like the Clean Power Plan and EPA’s recent ozone standard, which 

has created obstacles to new infrastructure development and manufacturing. We 

also want to look into addressing the challenges relating to obtaining air permits 

5 

required for new construction and expansions of existing facilities under EPA’s New 

Source Review program. 

Administrator Pruitt, the long and short of it is that we have an agenda packed 

with legislative and oversight activities and we need EPA to be an engaged participant that works with us as we move forward. We need to be assured that the Agency will send us witnesses for legislative and oversight hearings and in turn, we will 

work with you to figure out where Congress needs to act to help accomplish the 

Agency’s goals of providing regulatory certainty, balancing environmental benefits 

and economic practicalities, and restoring confidence to regulated entities across the 

country. Thank you for coming up here and we look forward to continuing this conversation in the new year. 

With that, I yield back my time and now yield to my friend from New York, the 

Ranking Member of the Subcommittee, Mr. Tonko. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. PAUL TONKO, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF NEW YORK 

Mr. TONKO. Thank you, Mr. Chair. And thank you, Administrator Pruitt. Thank you for being here this morning. However, I 

fully expected that you, Mr. Administrator, as a proud Oklahoman, 

would have been here Sooner. 

[Laughter.] 

Mr. TONKO. All right. In all seriousness, Mr. Administrator, I 

hope this is the first of many appearances, regular appearances before our Energy and Commerce Committee. Your predecessors 

came before this committee frequently and I can tell you it wasn’t 

because they liked being berated every other 5 minutes for a few 

hours, it was because they understood that they had a responsibility to be accountable to Congress. 

So I expect moving forward you will provide administration witnesses, responses to letters, and technical assistance quickly when 

we ask. I know many members have serious concerns about the direction of EPA in the past year which is why there is so much interest in today’s hearing. Members will raise questions about how 

you have chosen to be a steward of taxpayer funds, who has had 

access to you, and the growing influence of industry at the Agency. 

Members will also question the rollback of a number of safeguards that were put into place to protect human health. In July, 

the New York Times published an article, ‘‘Counseled by Industry, 

Not Staff, EPA Chief Is Off to a Blazing Start,’’ which reported 

more than 30 environmental rules being delayed or undone. And 

often these public health safeguards are being undone with little 

or no legal or scientific justification. 

I think it is worthy noting that, historically, the majority of EPA 

rules have withstood legal challenges, including challenges led by 

you in your capacity as Oklahoma’s attorney general. EPA’s decisions should be guided by sound science, not corporate interests 

and these concerns touch every office under your charge—clean 

water, air quality, contaminated lands, chemical safety, pesticides 

to name a few. 

From my view, rules across the Agency are being undone capriciously with little regard to the human impacts or the science that 

went into developing them. In fact, many states and industries 

were partners during the process when these rules were developed. 

Frankly, I believe EPA has all the signs of an agency captured by 

industry. You shouldn’t need to be traded on the New York Stock 

6 

Exchange or need an invite to a private steak dinner at a Trump 

hotel in order to get an audience with the EPA administrator. 

I am particularly concerned about Agency actions on climate 

change. The Fourth National Climate Assessment Climate Science 

Special Report, a thorough, comprehensive report by the federal 

government, has reaffirmed what the scientific community has long 

known, climate change is real, primarily caused by human activity, 

and a serious threat to our people and our economy. 

Despite this scientific consensus, EPA has begun to roll back 

rules at the behest of special interests to address greenhouse gas 

emissions which have been developed over many years, backed by 

science, and include economic impact studies. This is just one example in a trend of dismissing the role of science at EPA. 

Scientific integrity of the Agency must be protected. Instead, we 

have witnessed the proposed elimination of research funding and 

eroding of technical and scientific capacity. The dismissal of qualified members of the Scientific Advisory Board the removal of information from EPA’s website and the censorship of Agency scientists 

from participating in public events are incredibly troubling. 

Finally, I want to take a minute to recognize the work done by 

EPA’s career employees. I know these dedicated public servants 

joined the Agency to protect human health and the environment 

and are to be commended for their hard work in this difficult environment. 

But as the workforce is reduced, as the advice of the experts is 

ignored, and as morale at the Agency decreases, I know there will 

be an inclination to pursue other career opportunities. Our country 

cannot afford to lose the institutional knowledge at an agency as 

important as EPA or fail to attract the next generation of qualified, 

dedicated public servants. I want to thank EPA’s employees, know 

that your work is greatly appreciated by members here and beneficial to Americans across our great country. 

Back to basics does not mean starving the Agency of its resources 

and personnel that it needs to do its job. It does not mean giving 

lip service to protecting clean air and water while rolling back dozens of essential rules. EPA’s success has been about making steady 

progress over time and EPA has proven to be a resilient agency in 

the past, but this year we have witnessed a number of alarming 

decisions and I hope we will get answers to better understand some 

of those decisions today, Mr. Administrator. 

And again we welcome you before this committee. Thank you so 

much and I yield back, Mr. Chair. 

Mr. SHIMKUS. The gentleman yields back his time. The chair now 

recognizes the chairman of the full committee, Mr. Walden from 

Oregon, for 5 minutes. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. GREG WALDEN, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF OREGON 

Mr. WALDEN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Good morning, Mr. Administrator. We are delighted to have you 

before the House Energy and Commerce Committee. I think this is 

your first oversight hearing on The Hill and we are delighted that 

we could have you here to tell us what is going on at the EPA, to 

take our questions and to hear what we have to say. I am obviously 

7 

disappointed the President called you out in between, but I appreciate the fact you will be here this morning and come back this 

afternoon and continue to participate in this process. 

With this I am going to yield briefly to my friend from Oklahoma 

who would like to formally introduce you to the committee, and 

with that I will yield 30 seconds to Mr. Mullin from Oklahoma. 

Mr. MULLIN. Thank you, Chairman Walden. Thank you, Chairman Shimkus, for allowing me to participate. I have the great 

privilege of introducing Oklahoma’s own Scott Pruitt to our EPA 

administrator. Thank you, sir, for being here. 

First, I want to thank Mr. Pruitt for making himself available for 

today’s hearing. Administrator Pruitt and his team have worked 

tirelessly to bring the EPA back to its core mission, protecting our 

environment in common sense ways with input from our states, 

local government, and tribes to a collaborated approach which is a 

breath of fresh air. Nobody wants to take care of our backyards 

more than us in our states. That is why I want to thank Mr. Pruitt 

for doing what is right by having the input of those with interests 

there. 

Mr. Pruitt, thank you for coming here today. Thank you for making the whole state proud. I appreciate you and I yield back to 

Chairman Walden. 

Mr. WALDEN. I thank the gentleman for his introduction of our 

witness today. And as you know, Administrator Pruitt, the committee you are appearing before today is charged by the House of 

Representatives with legislative and oversight responsibilities for 

the bulk of the statutes that the EPA implements. We may not 

write the check to the EPA—the appropriators claim to do that— 

but we are your authorizing agency or committee. 

It has been almost 10 months since you were sworn in as administrator of an agency that turned 47 this past Monday, so today I 

would like to begin with what will hopefully be a continuing conversation about the agency that you oversee, your vision for it, and 

what challenges you face. I am particularly intrigued by your back 

to basics concepts and your stated intent to return EPA from its 

freewheeling administrative pursuits to its mission of protecting 

air, soil, and water and doing so according to explicit dictates of 

Congress. I hope that this view of governing will guide your EPA, 

rather than efforts to end run Congress in the Federal Register or 

on the courthouse steps. 

I also want to discuss the goals you are establishing for the programs at EPA and the metrics you intend to use to measure their 

progress. In particularly, I want to know that you have a plan to 

address staffing issues identified by the Agency’s Inspector General 

for over the last 2 decades. This is a 20-year-old problem you are 

inheriting, but it is one I think we both take seriously. 

So we appreciate your commitment to budget transparency and 

as we want to make sure the public knows how each law is being 

implemented and how the money is being spent, I expect that back 

to basics is not an abdication of environmental protection, but rather a rededication of mastering the most fundamental aspects of 

EPA’s mission. 

Whether it is cleaning up Superfund sites, ensuring that safe 

drinking water is being piped into people’s homes, or keeping air 

8 

clean and safe to breathe, this is the primary mission of the EPA. 

While these jobs may sound mundane, as any football fan will appreciate they are like the essential blocking and tackling techniques and so we appreciate what you are doing on all of that. 

I also want to thank you and your team for your attention to the 

Superfund cleanup in the Portland Harbor. While this area is not 

in my district, it is in my state and what happens at the Port of 

Portland has an impact on all Oregonians. You brought a fresh and 

a welcome approach to this complicated and costly cleanup. 

Unlike the prior administration, you have proven that this administration wants to actually clean up this environmental mess 

and do the work in a common sense manner in close working partnership with local stakeholders. To paraphrase an old song, if you 

can do it there you can do it anywhere. 

And so I thank you for being here. I thank you for your collaborative work on the Portland Superfund cleanup. We know we have 

more effort to achieve there, but everybody—well, not everybody, 

but most people affected by it including the port and city and everybody else saying thank you, now we feel like we have hope and 

a chance to get this done right, so thanks for your work there. 

With that Mr. Chairman, I would yield back the balance of my 

time to the committee. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Walden follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF HON. GREG WALDEN

Good morning, Mr. Administrator, we are glad to have you here this morning and 

we hope you will return often during your tenure. I am disappointed that your appearance must be interrupted by your meeting with the President, but I appreciate 

your willingness to come back and continue the discussion with our committee. 

Before I begin my remarks, I’d like to yield 60 seconds to Rep. Mullin so he can 

say a few words about a fellow Oklahoman. 

As you know, the committee you are appearing before today is charged by the 

House of Representatives with legislative and oversight responsibility for the bulk 

of the statutes that the Environmental Protection Agency implements. We may not 

write the check to EPA, but we decide where the agency’s money can best be spent. 

It has been almost 10 months since you were sworn in as the Administrator of 

the Environmental Protection Agency—an agency that turned 47 years old this past 

Monday. Today, I would like to begin what will hopefully be a continuing conversation about the agency you run, your vision for it, and what challenges you face. 

I am particularly intrigued by your ‘‘Back to Basics’’ concept and your stated intent to return EPA from its freewheeling administrative pursuits to its mission of 

protecting air, soil, and water—and doing so according to the explicit dictates of 

Congress. I hope that this view of governing will guide your EPA—rather than efforts to end run Congress in the Federal Register or on the courthouse steps. 

I also want to discuss the goals you are establishing for the programs at EPA and 

the metrics you intend to use to measure their progress. Particularly, I want to 

know that you have a plan to address staffing issues identified by the agency’s Inspector General over the last two decades and I would like to make sure that you 

are committed to budget transparency, so the public knows how much the agency 

is spending to implement each of the laws we passed. 

I expect that ‘‘Back to Basics’’ is not an abdication of environmental protection, 

but rather a rededication to mastering the most fundamental aspects of EPA’s mission—whether it’s cleaning up Superfund sites, ensuring that safe drinking water 

is being piped into people’s homes, or keeping air clean and safe to breathe. 

While these jobs may sound mundane, as any football fan will appreciate, they 

are like the essential ‘‘blocking and tackling’’ techniques that any football team— 

whether in Norman, Stillwater, Tulsa, or Eugene—must master if they expect to be 

successful. No matter how brilliant the offensive or defensive strategies may be, if 

the team cannot nail down the basics, success will be elusive. 

The public deserves to be protected and common-sense regulations are important 

and necessary. However, government solutions should be proportional to the probVerDate Nov 24 2008 16:03 May 29, 2018 Jkt 037690 PO 00000 Frm 00012 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 I:\MY DOCS\HEARINGS 115\HEARINGS\115-85 CHRIS
9 

lems they are tasked by congress to solve. I believe the EPA should focus on innovative problem solving and partnerships with the states and the private sector that 

leverage their resources and expertise. 

I want to thank you and your team for your attention to the superfund cleanup 

in the Portland Harbor. While this area is not in my district, it is in my state and 

what happens at the Port of Portland has an impact on all Oregonians. You have 

brought a fresh and welcome approach to this complicated and costly cleanup. Unlike the prior administration, you’ve proven that this administration wants to actually clean up environmental messes, and do the work in a commonsense manner in 

in close working partnership with local stakeholders. To paraphrase an old song, if 

you can do it there, you can do it anywhere. 

Thank you again for being here to discuss the agency’s mission and your vision 

for it. 

I look forward to working with you and seeing you back here in the future concerning our mutual efforts to protect the public and the environment. 

Mr. SHIMKUS. The gentleman yields back his time. The chair now 

recognizes the ranking member of the full committee, Mr. Pallone 

from New Jersey, for 5 minutes. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. FRANK PALLONE, JR., A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF NEW JERSEY 

Mr. PALLONE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have served in Congress alongside both Democratic and Republican administrations 

and in my experience the lack of transparency and cooperation 

from this Administration is completely unprecedented. The Environmental Protection Agency under Administrator Pruitt has consistently failed to respond to congressional oversight requests. In a 

few instances when we have actually received responses they are 

perfunctory at best. 

EPA has also refused to testify at legislative and oversight hearings and has refused to respond to some basic requests for technical assistance on legislation that has moved or is moving its way 

through this committee. Even today, after finally agreeing to appear before this authorizing committee some 10 months into his 

term, Administrator Pruitt is planning to leave after only 1 hour. 

And this is not the way any agency is supposed to interact with 

its authorizing committee. 

I would hope that this frustration is not only felt by committee 

Democrats and I would hope to see a change from both the EPA 

and the overall Trump administration. This lack of transparency 

applies not just to Congress but also to the press, the public, and 

even EPA’s career staff. The stories coming from the Agency paint 

a pretty bleak picture. While we know the Administration has 

wasted more than $58,000 of taxpayer money on private jets and 

noncommercial flights, Mr. Pruitt’s schedule has been largely kept 

secret and this week a major newspaper had to sue the Agency for 

access to this important public record. 

Meanwhile, EPA career staff have been excluded from meetings. 

When they do participate they are apparently blocked from bringing phones and even pen and paper with them. Moreover, Administrator Pruitt has reportedly used $25,000 of public funds to build 

a secret phone booth in his office to further isolate himself from the 

staff and any and all scrutiny. And why all the secrecy, one has 

to wonder. 

10 

Mr. Pruitt has also launched an unprecedented assault on independent science, purging academic scientists with no conflicts from 

Science Advisory Board and replacing them with industry employees. At the same time, he has ignored the advice and conclusions 

of his own scientific staff on numerous occasions. 

Today’s hearing is supposedly about the mission of the EPA. According to the EPA itself, the Agency mission is to protect human 

health and the environment and no one cares more about that mission than EPA’s career staff. Ignoring the staff, undermining the 

staff, and cutting the staff out of decisions, amounts to ignoring 

and undermining that mission, in my opinion. 

Administrator Pruitt has been on a press tour lately proclaiming 

his vision of what the EPA’s mission means and what it means to 

be an environmentalist and his words ring hollow because his actions have consistently and systematically undermined protections 

for human health and the environment. 

I have only 5 minutes, Mr. Chairman, so I can’t list all the actions the administrator has taken to undermine protections for 

public health and specifically for vulnerable populations including 

workers, children, and Native American tribes, but I want to give 

a few examples. 

First, pulling out of the Paris agreement; second, pulling back 

the Clean Power Plan; third, rolling back protections from toxic air 

pollutants including mercury, methane, and smog then handing implementation of the toxic chemicals reform law just signed into law 

last year over to industry lobbyists; reversing the decision to ban 

the toxic pesticide chlorpyrifos; delaying and undermining the risk 

management planning program that should protect workers and 

communities; and, finally, reversing course on Superfund financial 

assurance requirements putting more of the burden on taxpayers 

and less on polluters. 

With accomplishments like this, it is no wonder that the administrator is working so hard to hide his actions. But the American 

people need transparency and they deserve honesty from both the 

EPA and the White House and perhaps today’s hearing will be the 

beginning of a new, more transparent era. 

To his credit, Administrator Pruitt reached out to me in advance 

of this hearing and requested a meeting which we did have, but if 

the administrator wants to improve his relationship with the members of the committee, the steps he needs to take are clear. He 

needs to provide the documents we have requested and will request 

in the future. He needs to provide substantive answers to our oversight questions, and he needs to make himself and other EPA staff 

available as witnesses routinely. 

And if the administrator wants to earn the trust of the American 

people he needs to stop the secrecy and his war on science and reverse the systematic rollback of public protections. It is the mission 

of the EPA to protect the public health and the environment and 

not attack it. And I yield back, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. SHIMKUS. The gentleman yields back his time. 

Now we turn to our guest. We would like to welcome and thank 

you, our distinguished witness, U.S. EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt, for being here today. You will have an opportunity to give an 

opening statement followed by a round of questions from members. 

11 

We appreciate you being here and you are recognized for 5 minutes. 

STATEMENT OF SCOTT PRUITT, U.S. EPA ADMINISTRATOR 

Mr. PRUITT. Well, Chairman Shimkus, Ranking Member Tonko, 

Chairman Walden, Ranking Member Pallone, it is good to see you 

this morning, and other members that I have not had the chance 

to meet. I look forward to the discussion today. 

It was a year ago today that the President announced my nomination to the Environmental Protection Agency; thus began the 

process, the confirmation process which culminated in mid-February and began serving in that timeframe as well. 

It has been a very, very consequential and I think exciting 10 

months as I have been at the EPA. We have focused our efforts on 

three core principles as we are seeking to make decisions. As I said 

during the Senate confirmation process, rule of law would again 

take center as we make decisions around the responsibilities that 

I have as administrator. 

Fundamentally, my job as the administrator of the EPA is to administer statutes that you have passed as Congress to advance the 

objectives in those statutes from the Clean Air Act to the Clean 

Water Act across TSCA and CERCLA and a host of federal statutes. And rule of law matters, because as we act and adopt regulation, if we act untethered to a statute it creates uncertainty in the 

marketplace and those that have expectations placed upon them 

don’t know how to conduct themselves. And so rule of law is not 

something that is academic. It is not something that is just legal. 

It truly impacts how we do our job at the Agency. 

And secondly, I have tried to emphasize process. Process matters 

as well. It is this body that has required federal agencies, executive 

agencies to go through the EPA to adopt rules that are consistent 

with comment and informed discussions that take place over a period of time. 

Where a proposed rule takes place comment occurs, we respond 

to that comment on the record, and then finalize our decisions 

based upon the comments provided. Just one example, during the 

Waters of the United States rule of 2015 over a million comments 

were submitted to the Agency as that definition was adopted, and 

the Agency took the very, very important step of responding to 

each of those to make a decision. The same needs to take place 

today. And so we have incorporated changes at the Agency to respect process to make sure that citizens’ concerns across the country are heard and that we respond on the record to those concerns. 

And then, thirdly, and some of you have mentioned this in your 

opening comments as well, is a commitment to federalism. Federalism is something, again is not just a legal or academic concept, 

it is something that you have put into statutes, many statutes. You 

have prescribed authority to states across this country, because 

when we work together with states to achieve better outcomes with 

air and water quality it serves the citizens of your respective 

states. 

And I will say to you, 2 days after being sworn in as EPA Administrator, I had 18 to 20 governors in my office on a Sunday—Democrats and Republicans—Governor Dayton of Minnesota to Governor 

12 

Herbert to Utah. And we talked about a host of issues on air quality and water quality and Superfund and we began a journey that 

started in February. 

And I have visited almost 30 states since that time, visiting with 

governors and respected DEQs to advance the issues of the respective states. And the reason that is important is because the issues 

in Utah, the second most driest state in the country, are different 

than the water issues in Minnesota. And so we must work with our 

partners at the state level to achieve better outcomes and that has 

been a focus along with these issues of process and rule of law. 

I want you to know this dialogue that begins today is important 

to me. I have met with some of you individually. I have met with 

many of your colleagues across the rotunda in the Senate, both 

Democrats and Republicans, on issues that impact their states. I 

know that these are very difficult issues that we handle at the 

Agency. I seek to engage in a civil discourse with you. I seek to 

have a thoughtful discussion about how we can advance the objectives of what you have passed in these statutes and I appreciate 

the opportunity. And I do hope, Ranking Member Pallone, that we 

can begin a good discussion going forward into 2018 on these issues 

and look forward to the questions today. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Pruitt follows:] 

13 


28838.001
14 


28838.002
15 


28838.003
16 

Mr. SHIMKUS. The gentleman yields back his time. 

I also want to note that a full statement of the administrator has 

been placed into the record. I failed to say that earlier. And then 

I would like to recognize myself for 5 minutes to start the round 

of questioning. Again thank you for being here. 

At a recent Oversight Subcommittee hearing, EPA’s Office of Inspector General and the Government Accountability Office testified 

that EPA cannot ensure that it has the right people in the right 

places with the right skills and competencies to accomplish its mission. According to the Inspector General, EPA offices would probably achieve better results if they knew more precisely what the requirements were and what kind of people it needs to address them. 

In addition, EPA has not conducted a workload analysis in over 

20 years. It seems to me that a back to basics agenda for your 

agency must include this type of analysis to make sure the Agency 

is operating optimally. Can you assure me that you intend to perform this workforce analysis? 

Mr. PRUITT. Yes. We are actually engaged in that process now. 

There is a gentleman by the name of Henry Darwin that is the 

CEO at the Agency. He worked for Governor Ducey in the state of 

Arizona. We are actually partnering with Toyota to begin a Lean 

process at the Agency to evaluate management practices. The 

Agency for many years, and this is something that I found surprising, has not measured outcomes consistently. We are actually 

creating a dashboard of monitoring in air quality and water quality, Superfund remediation across the full spectrum of our responsibilities to measure progress in each of those areas on a weekly 

and monthly basis. 

And that has been incorporated into the program offices at the 

EPA, but it is also being incorporated in the regions across the 

country and that is one thing that I will share with you that I 

think has been very challenging as I have taken over this position. 

We have ten regions across the country, as you know, from San 

Francisco to Atlanta, Chicago, Boston, and there is a great deal of 

inconsistency with respect to permitting, compliance and assistance, enforcement in these issues with respect to how we administer the statutes. 

And we need, I think, a more coordinated, collaborative process 

to ensure that we don’t have different approaches in Region 8 in 

Denver versus Region 3 in Philadelphia, so that process is ongoing, 

Mr. Chairman. It is a very important process. And I think a performance based, metric based approach to these program offices 

that we are engaged in is so, so important because it enlivens, I 

think empowers employees. 

You mentioned, Ranking Member Pallone, the career staff at the 

Agency. I will say to you that as we have engaged in our Superfund 

focus I have had career employees come up to me and say thank 

you for awakening areas that have been dormant for a little while 

and they are very thankful for the focus that we have placed on 

some of those core missions. And the measurement and metrics 

that we are incorporating going forward is a part of this that you 

referenced, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. SHIMKUS. Thank you very much. That is important to me. 

One of the reasons why I care so much about the workforce issue 

17 

is the implementation of the Toxic Substance Control Act. In particular, I want to comment to the new chemicals. Since the law’s 

enactment, the Agency has needed to reassign staff from other offices to address a sizeable backlog in the new chemical application. 

Your team helped clear out substantially the backlog, but I fear 

as soon as the borrowed EPA workers go back to their regular jobs 

backlogs will come back to be the norm of the operation. What assurances can you give me that the new chemical applications will 

stay on a schedule for the future? 

Mr. PRUITT. Well, we had many, and I want to commend Congress on the good work that was done in updating TSCA. I mean 

that was a decade in the making and for you to do that was a very 

important thing for our office. There were deadlines that you put 

in that statute, as an example, rules that were supposed to come 

out by June of this year. I made a commitment during the confirmation process to meet those deadlines and we in fact did those 

rules under TSCA. 

The other area that you cite, Mr. Chairman, was the backlog. As 

you know, the changes you made in the TSCA statute required that 

before chemicals entered the flow of commerce our agency had to 

affirm or approve those chemicals. And there was a backlog of 

roughly 700 of those chemicals that were at the office before we arrived and we did actually clear that backlog out by July by dedicating resources there. It is a commitment going forward that we 

do that timely. We are adopting rules now to ensure that the process is defined so that folks know what is expected to meet the 

deadlines going forward. 

Mr. SHIMKUS. Let me cut down my last question to just a simple 

question on what is the—so we talk West Lake, this is parochial, 

West Lake in the St. Louis metropolitan area. Are you on track to 

issue the Record of Decision and can you give us a sense of timing? 

Mr. PRUITT. Yes, we are, Mr. Chairman. We are going to—we 

should be able to announce a decision in the month of January. 

There is proposals that I am looking at this month to make a decision on West Lake. It has been a long time coming, specifically 27 

years. It is a very important issue to the people of St. Louis. 

For those of you who don’t know on the committee, 8,000 tons 

of uranium comingled with 38,000 tons of solid waste dispersed 

over a very large geographical area, buried about 80 feet deep, and 

it has taken the Agency 27 years to make a decision on whether 

to excavate or cap the site. That is unacceptable and the decision 

is coming in the month of January. 

Mr. SHIMKUS. Thank you very much. 

Let me now turn to the ranking member, Mr. Tonko, for 5 minutes. 

Mr. TONKO. Thank you, Mr. Chair. 

And again welcome, Administrator. 

Mr. PRUITT. Thank you. 

Mr. TONKO. During your confirmation hearing you said that you 

‘‘have no firsthand knowledge’’ of the EPA’s Scientific Integrity Policy. However, you did commit to reviewing the policy and following 

federal guidance regarding scientific integrity. Now that you have 

had some time at the Agency, have you reviewed the EPA’s Scientific Integrity Policy? 

18 

Mr. PRUITT. Yes. We have reviewed that and implemented it at 

the Agency. 

Mr. TONKO. So have you reaffirmed the Scientific Integrity Policy 

to scientists as well as political appointees at EPA? 

Mr. PRUITT. It is a matter of priority to make sure that we have 

a scientific review of rules at the Agency that are objective, transparent, and peer-reviewed, and that is a commitment that we are 

enforcing at the Agency, Mr. Ranking Member. 

Mr. TONKO. OK. Thank you, sir. And an essential component of 

scientific integrity is strong safeguards against conflicts of interest. 

Have you required recusals among your staff, including yourself, 

when serious conflicts of interest occur? 

Mr. PRUITT. Absolutely. We have done that and we will continue 

to do that. And that is one of the areas that has been 

mischaracterized with respect to some of these advisory boards. 

Mr. TONKO. OK. Thank you, sir. I only have 5 minutes, so if I 

could move along. I have been very concerned by changes to EPA’s 

Science Advisory Board. These concerns are shared by the scientific 

community. Mr. Chair, I would like to enter this letter signed by 

over 1,000 scientists into the record as well as the letter from the 

American Geophysical Union which represents more than 60,000 

scientists. 

Mr. SHIMKUS. Yes, I am sure we will. Let me make sure my staff 

sees it and then we will. 

Mr. TONKO. OK. Thank you, Mr. Chair. 

Administrator Pruitt, do you believe scientists are a special interest group? 

Mr. PRUITT. I am sure I don’t understand the question, Ranking 

Member Tonko. 

Mr. TONKO. Well, are they a fundamental contribution to the 

Agency or seen as a special interest? 

Mr. PRUITT. Look, when we engage in rulemaking at the Agency 

we build a record. And scientists at the Agency, whether it is in 

the chemical shop, the air program office, it is important that we 

hear from our scientists internal to the Agency—— 

Mr. TONKO. Thank you. 

Mr. PRUITT [continuing]. But also those advisory committees in 

building the record and that is a point of emphasis, absolutely. 

Mr. TONKO. Thank you. Do you believe scientists that receive 

EPA grant money are less qualified to give technical advice to EPA 

than states or industry which may also have a financial relationship with the Agency? 

Mr. PRUITT. Well, I believe that these advisory committees as 

you know them are independent advisory committees to the Agency 

to equip us in making informed decisions about the efficacy of rules 

that we adopt. And these advisory committees, Ranking Member 

Tonko—— 

Mr. TONKO. It is—— 

Mr. PRUITT. May I finish? 

Mr. TONKO. Yes. 

Mr. PRUITT. The advisory committees—— 

Mr. TONKO. If you could just answer the question though too. 

Mr. PRUITT. I am. 

Mr. TONKO. OK. 

19 

Mr. PRUITT. These advisory committees had scientists serving in 

an independent capacity. Twenty of them made up three of the 

committees that have received $77 million from the Agency in 

grants. That causes a perception or an appearance of a lack of independence in advising the Agency on a host of issues. And we went 

to those scientists and advised them that they could continue serving on these advisory committees or receive the grants but they 

could not do both, to ensure the independence of the counsel they 

were providing to us in the rulemaking process. 

Mr. TONKO. Administrator, can you provide specific examples of 

a time when an EPA grant recipient on an advisory committee provided conflicted advice? 

Mr. PRUITT. I can say to you that as a grantee, we the grantor, 

Ranking Member, and we have an ongoing obligation to oversee 

those grants, that creates an appearance of a lack of independence 

and that was addressed with the policy that we instituted. And we 

can provide you examples, many examples of scientists who received grants over a period of time that were substantial and it 

called into question that independence and we addressed that to 

the policy that we implemented. 

Mr. TONKO. At the same time, does it make sense to ignore the 

advice of the very scientists that EPA determines are worthiest of 

grant funding? 

Mr. PRUITT. Well, we are not in fact. We simply said to those individuals that they could continue receiving the grants and advise 

the Agency in the counseling role or receive the grants and continue providing that authority we granted them to provide substance to the Agency going forward. 

Mr. TONKO. I would just hope that they would be seen as a very 

reliable source. EPA’s actions over the past year have led many 

people, myself included, to conclude that EPA’s current political 

leadership has been dismissing the role of science in its decision 

making. It appears that independent and Agency scientists’ recommendations are being ignored for the benefit of industry. It happens with chlorpyrifos, it happened with the Clean Power Plan, 

and it appears to be happening with TSCA. In many cases, scientific data are even being removed from EPA’s website. This is incredibly concerning. 

Will you commit to making scientific information, including information about climate change, prominently available on EPA’s 

website? 

Mr. PRUITT. Science is essential to our NOx program in review 

of those pollutants. It is essential as we make decisions on Superfund sites. It is essential as we review pesticides under statutory 

authority. It will remain central and core to what we do and is in 

fact central and core to what we are doing presently. 

Mr. SHIMKUS. The gentleman’s time has expired. The chair now 

recognizes the Chairman of the full committee, Mr. Walden, for 5 

minutes. 

Mr. WALDEN. I thank the gentleman. 

And again, Administrator Pruitt, thank you for being here and 

thank you for coming back later this afternoon when the President 

concludes his meeting with you. 

20 

To the Portland Superfund site as you know that was declared 

in 2000, 17 years later they finally have a Record of Decision. One 

of the concerns I have heard from folks that are involved in that 

is that there isn’t the personnel in the Portland area—— 

Mr. PRUITT. I am sorry. I didn’t hear, Chairman. 

Mr. WALDEN. There isn’t the personnel in the Portland area to 

fully implement the program, you have a lot of people up in Seattle. And I just draw that to your attention they are concerned 

about that and urge that you dedicate adequate resources to the 

Portland site so they can get going on that. And I know you are 

very committed to that whole cleanup operation. 

One of the other issues that has come up is the Clean Air Act 

has the exceptional events exception process. We have had all these 

wildfires. My gosh, they have these horrible wildfires again in California. We had them in the Northwest. It has been subject of some 

of our hearings here about how that process works today, the 

amount of time, money it takes to go through it to get an exception. 

What can you do to ensure a more timely, cost effective EPA 

process on exceptional event determinations? 

Mr. PRUITT. There is actually quite a bit of work, Mr. Chairman, 

with respect to ozone and exceptional events going on. Bill Wehrum 

is our only confirmed AA at this point for air. Bill is leading a task 

force review of both NSR but also these issues around background 

ozone, but in addition to exceptional events. We need to provide 

clarity in that area so that we know how these rules will be enforced and applied going forward. That clarity is not there presently and that is a focus of the Agency presently as we go into 

2018. 

Mr. WALDEN. We would like to work with you on that. It is important to a number of members on the committee. By the way, 

you said he is confirmed. How many confirmations are you still 

waiting for, for staff? How many do you have, confirmed people in 

place, and how many are you waiting for do you know? 

Mr. PRUITT. We have one. 

Mr. WALDEN. One what? 

Mr. PRUITT. One confirmed. 

Mr. WALDEN. Besides you? 

Mr. PRUITT. That is correct. 

Mr. WALDEN. And how many would be pending? 

Mr. PRUITT. Well, we have deputy, general counsel, all the program offices. We have CFO, we have several that need to be confirmed and hopefully that will occur soon. 

Mr. WALDEN. Wow. EPA air emissions data show how air pollutants have been steadily decreasing in the United States over time. 

Since 1990, carbon monoxide concentrations are down 77 percent, 

lead down 99 percent, nitrogen dioxide 54 percent, ozone down 22 

percent, coarse particulate matter down 39 percent, fine particulate 

matter down 37, sulfur dioxide down 81 percent. 

What role have advanced technologies such as hydraulic fracturing played at decreasing the nation’s air emissions? 

Mr. PRUITT. Well, I think it is substantial. You know, many don’t 

know that we are at pre-1994 levels today with respect to our CO2

footprint. We have reduced our CO2 levels from 2000 to 2014 by almost 20 percent largely through innovation and technology. We 

21 

have achieved a lot through mobile sources under the Clean Air 

Act for reduction of CO2, but with respect to stationary sources and 

other forms it has been primarily through innovation and technology. 

But you do highlight something, Mr. Chairman, that I want to 

say. We need to celebrate progress that we have made as a country 

with respect to our air quality. We have reduced those pollutants 

that we regulate under the Clean Air Act by over 65 percent. That 

is a good thing and we need to celebrate that. And that has been 

because of the actions you have taken here and that has also been 

because of the actions we have taken at the EPA. 

But it has also been because of the actions taken by the private 

sector in states across the country. It is a collaborative process that 

has achieved good outcomes with respect to air quality. We have 

much work to be done. Forty percent of the country live in areas 

that don’t meet air quality standards, about 120 million people. We 

need to focus upon that and it is an important metric that we are 

measuring at the Agency. 

But we do need to celebrate the progress we have made and that 

has been through innovation and technology in a very, very important way. 

Mr. WALDEN. Thank you, sir. In addition, our committee has submitted, I think, at least five letters to your agency seeking records 

and documents and information. In the past administration it was 

very, very difficult to get responses to many of our requests. We appreciate the fact that we have received more than a thousand 

pages of documents on grant management issues. I also want to 

say we appreciate the numerous bipartisan briefings you and your 

team have provided especially in light of the hurricanes that took 

place. We do appreciate that. 

So know that when we send a letter we want a response and we 

want it—you hear it from both sides I think that we expect all the 

agencies to respond to our requests so we can do our oversight 

work. And with that, Mr. Chairman, I would yield back the balance 

of my time. 

Mr. SHIMKUS. The gentleman yields back his time. The minority’s request for those letters to be accepted into the record, without 

objection, will be permitted. 

[The information appears at the conclusion of the hearing.] 

Mr. SHIMKUS. And with that the chair now recognizes the ranking member of the full committee, Mr. Pallone from New Jersey, 

for 5 minutes. 

Mr. PALLONE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

And I wanted to talk to you about, Mr. Administrator, about 

TSCA, because unfortunately under your leadership I think EPA is 

retreating from the important task of TSCA in regulating toxic 

chemicals. The framework rules for implementation of TSCA published in June are not consistent with the law in very dangerous 

and worrisome ways, in my opinion, and I think this is because 

Nancy Beck, a former lobbyist for the chemical industry, was allowed to completely rewrite the rules in flagrant violation of ethics 

rules. 

And I have written to you twice regarding Nancy Beck’s involvement in these rulemakings, but I have not gotten a response. So 

22 

let me ask you a few questions and I would like you to just answer 

yes or no. Did you ask Nancy Beck to recuse herself from the 

framework rulemakings? 

Mr. PRUITT. Nancy Beck like every employee at the Agency—— 

Mr. PALLONE. Just yes or no. I don’t have a lot of time. 

Mr. PRUITT. Ranking Member Pallone, I need the ability to answer your question and I will answer your question. Every—— 

Mr. PALLONE. Well, I just, can you say yes or no before you proceed with the answer? 

Mr. PRUITT. Nancy Beck went through ethics review by the ethics official at the Agency. 

Mr. PALLONE. So you did not recuse her. So let me ask you—— 

Mr. PRUITT. Mr. Ranking Member Pallone—— 

Mr. PALLONE. Well, you didn’t recuse her. 

Mr. PRUITT. That is something that we have career—— 

Mr. SHIMKUS. Let’s be respectful and let’s let people answer. 

Mr. PALLONE. I understand but—— 

Mr. SHIMKUS. But let’s answer shortly and concisely so the Ranking Member can—— 

Mr. PRUITT. We have career employees at the EPA that are ethics officials that review those issues. 

Mr. PALLONE. OK, look. Mr. Chairman, he refuses to answer the 

question. He obviously has not recused her, so I want to move on. 

I have asked you for copies of all of Nancy Beck’s ethics agreements and waivers. Will you provide those to the committee, yes 

or no? 

Mr. PRUITT. Absolutely. 

Mr. PALLONE. Thank you. The framework rules had already been 

completed and sent to various internal EPA offices for concurrence 

before Dr. Beck started at the Agency. We understand that they 

were completely rewritten after she started at EPA, by her. Now 

I asked you for a document tracking the changes she made to the 

rules. Will you provide that to the committee, yes or no? 

Mr. PRUITT. We will provide the information that is requested 

and make sure it is available. 

Mr. PALLONE. Thank you. Thank you, that is fine. I would like 

to quickly focus on one specific chemical undergoing review right 

now under the TSCA. 

Mr. PRUITT. I am sorry. I didn’t hear. 

Mr. PALLONE. I am sorry. I would like to quickly focus on one 

specific chemical undergoing review right now under TSCA and 

that is asbestos. Unfortunately, your EPA’s work on asbestos, in 

my opinion, clearly illustrates the problems in how you are implementing the act. 

TSCA requires EPA to look at the intended conditions of use for 

a chemical defined as the conditions under which a chemical is 

manufactured, processed, distributed, used, and disposed of. But in 

the scoping document for the asbestos risk assessment, your EPA 

has announced that you will look only at manufacturing processing 

and distribution and you will completely ignore asbestos that is 

being used and disposed of in this country. 

Let me just explain. The use and disposal of asbestos is the main 

source of risk from asbestos. If you ignore those things you will 

produce a risk assessment that fails to capture the risk to workers 

23 

and ordinary Americans and, in my opinion, will not be scientifically valid and will not be protective of public health. 

So my question really is this. Do you think you can just ignore 

certain things that are inconvenient for the industry? In other 

words you are saying we will look at the manufacturing process, 

distribution, but we won’t be looking at how it is used and disposed 

of in this country. Do you understand what I am asking? 

Mr. PRUITT. Yes, absolutely. And I think you raise a very valid 

concern. In fact, I had a conversation last week about this issue 

with the chemical office. I think you raise a very, very meaningful 

concern. 

Mr. PALLONE. All right. So hopefully, we will see action on looking at the use and disposal. Is that correct? 

Mr. PRUITT. That is a very important factor that we need to consider and that is something that I have already raised with the office that is overseeing this. 

Mr. PALLONE. All right. Well, I appreciate that. Thank you, Mr. 

Pruitt. The other concern I have is that now that Brazil has 

banned asbestos mining all of the asbestos that is going to continue 

to flow into the United States will come from Russia, OK, because 

Brazil has banned it. So again my concern is that the EPA is basically protecting Russian mining at the expense, I think, of American workers by saying that asbestos is going to continue to flow 

into the country but it can’t come anymore from Brazil. So would 

you just respond to that the fact that right now Russian mining is 

the only source for it and we continue to allow it. 

Mr. PRUITT. Well, I think that as you have indicated, this factor 

that hasn’t been considered up until this point that is something 

we are going to do going forward and I think that is very important. I am not really familiar with the import issue that you have 

raised. If there is an impact we can have on that I look forward 

to the discussion on how better we can influence that. I don’t know 

what role we would play in that regard, but look forward to that 

discussion. 

Mr. PALLONE. Well, I appreciate again your willingness to look 

at that, Mr. Administrator. Thank you. 

Mr. PRUITT. I think the primary issue is what you raised earlier 

which is the disposal issue I think is very valid and something we 

need to look at going forward. 

Mr. PALLONE. All right, thank you. 

Mr. Chairman, can I just ask unanimous consent to put into the 

record a letter from Linda Reinstein, who is executive director of 

the Asbestos Disease Awareness Organization, and a letter from 

the Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families coalition. 

Mr. SHIMKUS. Without objection, so ordered. 

[The information appears at the conclusion of the hearing.] 

Mr. PALLONE. Thank you. 

Mr. SHIMKUS. The gentleman’s time has expired. The chair now 

recognizes the former chairman of the full committee, Mr. Barton, 

for 5 minutes. 

Mr. BARTON. Thank you, Chairman Shimkus. I want to give 

Ranking Member Tonko A+ for the line of the day so far, his Sooner comment. That was—— 

Mr. PRUITT. That was very good. That was very good. 

24 

Mr. BARTON. Excellent. Mr. Administrator, at the very beginning 

of the Obama administration there had been a Supreme Court 

case, Massachusetts v. EPA, that said the Clean Air Act amendments didn’t specifically say that CO2 was or was not a pollutant, 

therefore it might be found to be a pollutant. As soon as President 

Obama came into office he asked the EPA for a findings document. 

This finding document was rushed through very quickly within 

about, I want to say, 60 days and surprise-surprise said that they 

found that CO2 was a pollutant. There was a career analyst at EPA 

that took exception to that and wrote a scathing report that ripped 

it apart. That analyst was discouraged from bringing his report forward and ultimately forced to retire. 

Are you aware of that finding document and, if so, do you have 

any plans to revisit it? 

Mr. PRUITT. Well, I am aware of the Mass. v. EPA decision as 

you indicated that occurred in 2007. There was work actually being 

done in 2008 by the Bush administration that was left to the 

Obama administration, and you are correct, Congressman, that the 

work done in 2009 was accelerated by the Agency. 

In fact, there was something done in 2009 that in my estimation 

has never been done since and not done before that event, where 

they took work from the U.N. IPCC and transported it to the Agency and adopted that as the core of the finding. So there was a 

breach of process that occurred in 2009 that many believe was not 

handled the proper way. But the Mass. v. EPA decision and the 

processes that followed involved both the Bush and the Obama administrations and that process was again in 2009, I think, short 

shrifted. 

Mr. BARTON. I would encourage you to go back and revisit the 

finding document and get the report that this career analyst put 

forward. If you can’t find it let me know, because I have it and it 

is very damning on what they found. 

My second question, I have been told that you plan at some point 

in time to set up a red team-blue team review of pending regulations where you have scientists basically engage in an internal debate pro the regulation, con the regulation so that you really get 

a balanced scientific understanding of the pending regulation. Do 

you plan to use a red team-blue team approach and if so when 

might we expect that to start? 

Mr. PRUITT. That is an ongoing review internally, Congressman. 

It is something that I hope to be able to do and announce sometime 

beginning part of next year at the latest. But that is something we 

have been working on for the last several months in trying to put 

that together and that would be a process that would be focused 

upon an objective, transparent, real-time review of questions and 

answers around this issue of CO2. 

I think one of the most important things we can do for the American people is provide that type of discussion, because it hasn’t happened at the Agency. As I indicated, the Agency borrowed the work 

product of a third party and we need to ensure that that discussion 

occurs and it occurs in a way that the American people know that 

objective, transparent review is taking place. And so that red teamblue team concept is something that is ongoing as far as an evaluaVerDate Nov 24 2008 16:03 May 29, 2018 Jkt 037690 PO 00000 Frm 00028 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 I:\MY DOCS\HEARINGS 115\HEARINGS\115-85 CHRIS
25 

tion and we may be able to get there as early as January of next 

year. 

Mr. BARTON. Good. I would commend you on that. And I think 

you know under the Obama administration EPA became more than 

just an enforcement agency. It more and more began to intervene 

in the policy arena, in many cases going further than at least those 

of us on the Republican side felt that they should go. 

Do you believe that before you set a standard you absolutely 

ought to check with the Department of Energy and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission so that you really get a balanced analysis of what is going on, and do you feel that as we take a look 

at the reauthorization of your agency and the Department of Energy that it might be necessary to try to rebalance that equation 

between the energy policy arena and the environmental enforcement arena? 

Mr. PRUITT. Well, as I indicated in my opening comments, Congressman, it is important that as we do our work at the Agency 

that we only do what Congress permits and authorizes us to do. I 

think the challenges over the last several years—it was mentioned 

in some of the opening comments about the Clean Power Plan. It 

was unprecedented for the U.S. Supreme Court to enter a stay 

against the Clean Power Plan, and as you know you don’t get a 

stay of enforcement on a rule unless there is a likelihood of success 

on the merits later. 

And so there was an understanding that the steps taken by the 

previous administration, building blocks 1, 2, 3 and 4, there was 

a reimagining of authority that took place under the Clean Air Act 

that caused a lot of confusion on what was authorized and what 

wasn’t. That is not the proper way to approach these issues and we 

are addressing that at the Agency in ensuring that we hew to rule 

of law in these processes to make sure that there is confidence in 

the rules that we adopt going forward. 

Mr. BARTON. My time has expired. I thank you, Administrator, 

for your answers. 

Mr. SHIMKUS. All right. And the gentleman yields back. An announcement for my colleagues, we are going to go to Congressman 

Ruiz. He will have the last 5-minute block of questions before we 

allow the administrator to get downtown, and then I will make an 

announcement about getting back promptly at 2:00 for the administrator and for us to follow up. So with that the chair now recognizes the gentleman from California, Mr. Ruiz, for 5 minutes. 

Mr. RUIZ. Administrator Pruitt, welcome to the committee. I am 

Dr. Raul Ruiz and it is a pleasure to meet you. I want to talk about 

particle pollution. Fine particle pollution is harmful to human 

health and can be deadly even at the very low concentrations. Hundreds of peer reviewed studies have found that these microscopic 

particles can reach the deepest regions of the lungs and actually 

enter the bloodstream. Exposure to fine particles is associated with 

premature death, asthma attacks, chronic bronchitis, decreased 

lung function, and respiratory disease. 

As an emergency medicine physician from the Inland Empire in 

California, which has some of the country’s highest levels of particle pollution, I have seen firsthand the impacts of exposure to 

dangerous levels of fine particle pollution and let me tell you it is 

26 

not nice. It is not a pleasant experience to treat kids who come in 

with asthma because of a bad air particle pollution day. 

The scientific consensus long recognized by the EPA during both 

Republican and Democratic administrations is that fine particle 

pollution is a non-threshold pollutant, meaning that there is no 

level of fine particle pollution exposure below which no harm occurs, including premature death. So Administrator Pruitt, do you 

agree that fine particle pollution is a non-threshold pollutant? 

Mr. PRUITT. Yes. And I would say to you that particulate matter 

under the NOx program, as you know we can’t engage in a costbenefit analysis there. It is all about health. 

Mr. RUIZ. Yes. 

Mr. PRUITT. And it is a very important role that we play in those 

criteria pollutants under the NOx program. 

Mr. RUIZ. Thank you. Administrator Pruitt, were you aware that 

the Bush administration used the health benefits associated with 

reducing this non-threshold pollutant to justify their 2003 Clear 

Skies legislation cosponsored by Senator Inhofe? 

Mr. PRUITT. I am familiar with the legislation. 

Mr. RUIZ. Yes, they did. 

Mr. PRUITT. I didn’t know about the cosponsoring aspect. 

Mr. RUIZ. They did. All right. And that the Bush administration 

relied on those same health benefits for its economic analysis for 

the 2004 Tier 4 rule to control emissions from nonroad diesel engines? That is a good thing. 

Mr. PRUITT. Yes, it is, Congressman. 

Mr. RUIZ. Yes, they did. They relied on that. Isn’t it true that the 

Bush EPA agreed that there are no safe thresholds for fine particle 

pollution related health effects including premature death in the 

2005 Clean Air Interstate Rule? 

Mr. PRUITT. I think you have stated it well, Congressman. 

Mr. RUIZ. They did. The recently confirmed Assistant Administrator for Air and Radiation, Mr. William Wehrum, played a key 

role in developing those rules during the Bush administration, and 

Andrew Wheeler, the nominee to be the deputy administrator handled the Clear Skies bill when he worked for Senator Inhofe. 

Administrator, are Mr. Wehrum and Mr. Wheeler wrong about 

fine particle pollution having no safe level? 

Mr. PRUITT. Wrong about what? 

Mr. RUIZ. That there is no safe level for particle pollution, so I 

don’t think they were wrong. 

Mr. PRUITT. I don’t think I stated that they were wrong. 

Mr. RUIZ. OK, great. So you agree that—— 

Mr. PRUITT. Yes. So I am not entirely sure what your question 

is. That Bill Wehrum is doing a fine job, is focused on these issues 

as is Andy when he is confirmed as deputy and I agree with your 

position that it is a very important criteria pollutant that we need 

to regulate on the NOx—— 

Mr. RUIZ. Wonderful. 

Mr. PRUITT [continuing]. In a very, very important way. 

Mr. RUIZ. So despite that, this well-established scientific reality, 

your proposed repeal of the Clean Power Plan, EPA assumes for 

the first time that there are safe levels of deadly fine particle pollution. That is a concern of mine. Did you rely on any new peer-reVerDate Nov 24 2008 16:03 May 29, 2018 Jkt 037690 PO 00000 Frm 00030 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 I:\MY DOCS\HEARINGS 115\HEARINGS\115-85 CHRIS
27 

viewed scientific studies to support reversing EPA’s position on fine 

particle pollution? 

Mr. PRUITT. As you know, Congressman, no, we did not base that 

upon—our withdrawal of the Clean Power Plan is largely based 

upon the jurisdictional issues of the Clean Air Act. 

Mr. RUIZ. OK. 

Mr. PRUITT. And all I have to have is a reasonable basis to withdraw a rule, a U.S. Supreme Court stay of the Clean Power 

Plan—— 

Mr. RUIZ. Well, that is obviously a point of difference in—— 

Mr. PRUITT. We did not base our withdrawal of the Clean Power 

Plan upon the issues that you have cited. 

Mr. RUIZ. OK. So I do think that the mission of the EPA was 

charged by the people to protect the health and the environment 

of the American people so that everybody, regardless of socioeconomic status, can enjoy a healthy environment and therefore 

live their life to full health potential. And this Clean Power Plan 

was part of that mission to make sure that we protect the environment so therefore we could protect the people’s health. 

And there is no reliance on any scientific studies whether they 

were peer-reviewed or non-peer-reviewed, as you just admitted, in 

withdrawing this. This was your interpretation of the jurisdictional 

matter of the EPA which we beg to differ, of course, because we 

are here to protect the American people’s health. 

Do you believe therefore that it was appropriate to reverse the 

EPA’s positions on the deadliness of fine particle pollution? Because there is the assumption here that now the EPA is saying 

that there is a threshold for that to happen. 

Mr. PRUITT. We did not reverse it, Congressman. And moreover, 

we are going to be introducing a replacement rule too in place of 

the Clean Power Plan. 

Mr. RUIZ. Before my time has expired—— 

Mr. SHIMKUS. Your time has just expired, but be quick. 

Mr. RUIZ. Let me submit this unanimous consent to place this 

2012 letter from EPA to Chairman Upton into the record, please. 

Mr. SHIMKUS. Again we will look at it and I am sure we will do 

it. 

Mr. RUIZ. Thank you. 

Mr. SHIMKUS. And the gentleman’s time has expired. 

I want to remind all my members that pursuant to my announcement at the start of the hearing, we are recessing now so Mr. Pruitt can attend a meeting with the President at the White House. 

Mr. Pruitt will be returning to the committee to answer member 

questions. We will convene at 2322 Rayburn House Office Building. 

This is for people who don’t know the operations here at 2:00 p.m. 

sharp, and stay as long it takes for every member who is present 

and wants to ask questions to be given their turn to ask questions. 

For our guests in the gallery, your seat here does not guarantee 

your seat when we resume the hearing. Seats will be allocated on 

a first come-first serve basis starting at 1:45. Should you wish to 

join the proceedings in 2322, and it is a smaller hearing room, you 

will need to be in line outside of 2322. And I apologize for the inconvenience and the committee stands in recess. 

28 

[Whereupon, at 11:00 a.m., the subcommittee recessed, to reconvene at 2:28 p.m., the same day.] 

Mr. SHIMKUS. The subcommittee will come to order. When we recessed, it was Mr. McKinley’s turn to be recognized. So with that 

I want to recognize the gentleman from West Virginia for 5 minutes. 

Mr. MCKINLEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you, Administrator, for coming and participating in this. Over the years we 

had asked your predecessors to come particularly as it relates to 

Section 321(a) to see the impact some of the regulations were having in the coal fields and they declined to do that. 

But I am particularly appreciative of the fact that a week ago or 

2 weeks ago the EPA, you sent—other folks came to West Virginia 

to get the impact of what these regulations are having, because it 

is pretty clear in the statute that we have to abide by the economic 

impact. We have to take that into consideration when rules and 

regs are promulgated. They didn’t do that. 

And I know you and I have had that conversation that you want 

to follow the law very clearly, and I know a federal judge has already ruled that the EPA in the past considered them discretionary 

and not mandatory. I think your position I have heard from you is 

that you think that they are mandatory and you intend to abide 

by them. Am I correct on that? 

Mr. PRUITT. Yes, Congressman. And we did in fact as you indicated send representatives to West Virginia as part of the proposed 

withdrawal. And I do think it is important that that is a rulemaking process. We have talked a little bit this morning about the 

withdrawal of the Clean Power Plan, and as I indicated earlier that 

is primarily jurisdictional as far as the basis for that withdrawal. 

But that is a rulemaking process, and so that rulemaking process 

means that we go out and solicit and receive comment from across 

the country. We are not just going to be in West Virginia. We are 

going to be in Gillette, Wyoming soon. We are going to be in San 

Francisco. We are going to be Kansas City. There is going to be a 

crosscurrent of viewpoints with respect to this issue and it is important we hear all voices and that process is ongoing. 

Mr. MCKINLEY. Well, I think I particularly appreciate the fact 

that you sent people to the coal fields to understand the impact of 

what those regulations were doing when 86,000 coal miners lost 

their job during the Obama administration and no one paid attention. No one came to those communities to find out what was going 

to be the impact of another regulation that was going to put them 

out of business. 

But part of the question is have they been able to debrief you? 

What were some of the salient issues? What were the points that 

were raised at the meeting in Charleston? 

Mr. PRUITT. Well, quite a few comments that were offered, it was 

multiple hours of information, and again a crosscurrent of information that we are reviewing. And I think that, Congressman, you hit 

on some very important matters with respect to the cost of the 

Clean Power Plan that wasn’t taken into consideration before and 

that is something that came out in the process in West Virginia. 

Mr. MCKINLEY. I know you have made a commitment. You said 

you are going back to blocking and tackling the fundamentals of 

29 

rulemaking. Is there something that we should be doing here in 

Congress to make sure that we don’t revert back to that old way 

of just following the ideology rather than science? 

Mr. PRUITT. Well, I think there are some things we have done 

recently that I think are very important to the process that I 

talked about earlier. For many years the APA, the Administrative 

Procedure Act that governs how we do rulemaking has not been 

really followed as closely as it should. We have used guidance as 

forms of rules at times which I think subverts the voices that need 

to be heard on substantive actions. We have engaged in regulation 

through litigation. We talked about a sue and settle practice at the 

Agency that literally has impacted state implementation plans 

across the country with air quality. 

And so there is much that we need to do to ensure that we respect that process and make sure that rulemaking is adhered to. 

Excuse me, the APA is adhered to as we are engaged in rulemaking. 

Mr. MCKINLEY. Well, in the time—or is there something you 

would suggest, because that has been on the books that they are 

supposed to do that but we saw 8 years where they did not follow 

that. Is there something that we should do to tighten up that? 

Mr. PRUITT. Well, I think that anytime an agency, and it is not 

just the EPA it is any agency of the executive branch that engages 

in litigation to change substantive requirements in the statute, you 

know, timelines that Congress sets or taking discretionary duties 

and making it nondiscretionary, as an example, that is something 

that should be dealt with by Congress. And I think speaking to 

that through codification is something that could be, I think it 

would be very helpful. 

Mr. MCKINLEY. OK, thank you. I yield back. 

Mr. SHIMKUS. The gentleman yields back his time. The chair now 

recognizes the gentleman from California, Mr. Peters, for 5 minutes. 

Mr. PETERS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you, Mr. Administrator, for being here. I wanted to ask you about the methane 

rule. EPA has an effort to control dangerous methane pollution 

from the oil and gas industry. The common-sense rule asks operators to put our natural gas resources to productive use rather than 

wastefully leaking them. I support the rule because it will boost energy supplies, reduce air pollution including smog, air toxins, 

greenhouse gases, and the estimated benefit of capturing methane 

emissions from the oil and gas industry is $2 billion annually. 

Do you support this rule and if not, without it what would you 

do to reduce wasted natural gas? 

Mr. PRUITT. Congressman, historically, the way the Agency has 

dealt with methane has been part of a VOC approach where volatile organic compounds as we have regulated the VOCs methane 

has been part of that bundle. What happened with that particular 

rule is the EPA for the first time pulled methane out of the bundle 

and regulated it separately. We haven’t taken any action on that 

as you know as far as the substantive rule itself. There are compliance dates that are forthcoming that have been extended and that 

has really been the focus up until now. 

30 

But I think there is a meaningful debate, discussions that should 

occur about whether the rule should be focused on a bundle approach, a VOC approach, or whether methane should be pulled out. 

As you know, methane is very valuable. Companies don’t like to 

flare methane because it can be captured and used in other ways 

and it is very marketable, if you will. And so I think having a rule 

in place that incentivizes that and ensures that we approach it pursuant to the statute is something we should look at. 

Mr. PETERS. OK. I think you and Secretary Perry have both 

made appearances on CNBC and on March 9th you said that carbon dioxide is not a primary driver contributing to recent climate 

change, and that said differently you said CO2 is not the only contributor to climate change. Do you agree that methane, nitrous 

oxide, and other greenhouse gases are air pollutants? 

Mr. PRUITT. Absolutely. Absolutely, and are more potent, actually, than CO2. Mr. PETERS. Right, so—— 

Mr. PRUITT. Methane is more potent than CO2 as you know in 

that regard. 

Mr. PETERS. So I have to say it seems to me, I knew you have 

emphasized the importance of points of process before, but if the 

object is to reduce methane, nitrous oxide, and other greenhouse 

gases what would be the strategy whether as part of a bundle or 

is not part of a bundle, how do you think we should go about controlling and reducing those greenhouse—— 

Mr. PRUITT. I think that distinction matters though, Congressman. 

Mr. PETERS. OK. 

Mr. PRUITT. I think as we look at the statutory framework and 

how methane should be regulated the question whether it should 

be part of the bundle is a significant question and so that is what 

we are evaluating. Again the focus in the first 10 months has been 

on those compliance dates, and as you know the rule is in effect 

presently and that has been the primary focus. As we go forward, 

the discussion and the focus will be on whether it needs to be a 

part of the bundle or not. 

Mr. PETERS. So I understand the procedural point you make 

about whether it is part of the bundle, but whichever avenue we 

take, whether it is part of the bundle or not, how would we go 

about reducing the emissions of methane gas? 

Mr. PRUITT. Well, you look at the wellhead, you speak to companies with respect to the flaring practices that have gone on historically, and there are best management practices and best practices 

that can be deployed by companies to ensure again there is not an 

incentive for companies to waste methane. It is something that can 

be used and it is very valuable. We need to recognize that and encourage and incentivize that. 

Mr. PETERS. Right. And I think one of the things that we have 

noticed is it has many benefits and the price of natural gas has 

gone down, so perhaps the incentive to lose that cheap gas isn’t as 

great as it might be to actually force the control of it. But you mentioned a couple of things like looking at the wellhead and so forth. 

Substantively, do you think that what is the methane rule is the 

right kind of approach to deal with that? 

31 

Mr. PRUITT. I think, Congressman, it is probably best that in the 

rulemaking process it is important that I don’t prejudge outcomes 

and I think that what will be important is taking comment on 

those issues as we go forward. 

Mr. PETERS. Do you intend to start from zero or do you intend 

to put out the methane rule for additional comment? How do you 

intend to land this plane? 

Mr. PRUITT. It is yet to be determined. 

Mr. PETERS. All right. Well, I would say I think we have made 

a lot of progress on it. I think that there is a lot of understanding 

within the industry that natural gas can be a better burning fuel 

than some fuels we use, but you have to control methane to really 

get the benefit out of it from a climate change standpoint and that 

is kind of where we should be. 

Mr. PRUITT. Thanks, Congressman. 

Mr. PETERS. Thank you. 

Mr. PETERS. The gentleman yields back his time. The chair now 

recognizes the gentleman from Texas, Mr. Olson, for 5 minutes. 

Mr. OLSON. I thank the chair. And welcome, Administrator Pruitt. My congressional district, Texas 22, may be the biggest one in 

America. Right now we have 850,000 people and growing quickly. 

The huge majority of these people wanted me to tell you thank you, 

thank you, thank you for making EPA what it should have been, 

an agency in D.C. that works with local governments, local private 

sector to get clear air and cleaner water. Thank you for that. 

They are frustrated by the last 8 years. The administration used 

the EPA that became a combatant that actually kept us from getting cleaner air and cleaner water, and they are thrilled to have 

you there. They got tired of things we can’t achieve as human 

beings, technology that is not available and yet it is demanded. 

They are tired of arranging lawsuits to sue and settle and that is 

now gone also. Thank you for that. 

There are many frustrations back home, one example, the RFS. 

As you know, sir, I have had long and serious concerns with the 

RFS. I hope this committee will act to take care of this matter 

quickly. But in the meantime, until we act, guess what, you are on 

point and you have a lot of leeway going forward. 

My question is how have the concerns about the ethanol blend 

wall, or even RIN prices, figured in your decisions about the 2018 

targets? 

Mr. PRUITT. Well, a couple things. Number one, I was very, very 

appreciative to the Agency of the work that was done to meet the 

deadline. Historically, as you know the November 30th deadline to 

publish those volume obligations has been missed and it creates 

uncertainty. People don’t know what is expected. It affects capital 

outlay, et cetera, and so it was very important to meet that November 30th deadline and we did in fact do that. 

As we have looked at volume obligations with respect to conventional cellulosic, bio-based diesel, the advanced categories, the focus 

is try, we try to focus our efforts on objective criteria whether it 

is production levels and/or demand. As an example, the most we 

have ever produced with cellulosic is about 180 to 190 million gallons domestically, yet the volume obligations, historically, by the 

agencies have been set around 300 million or so. 

32 

So when you set those levels artificially high it creates other 

problems elsewhere and so I think in the administration of that 

statute it is very important upon our agency to be as objective as 

possible at setting those volume obligations to reflect true production levels. 

Bio-based diesel, the capacity is about 2.6 billion I have heard, 

but the production levels have not eclipsed 2.1 billion. We imported 

about 700 million gallons from last year to meet that level, so there 

are a lot of questions obviously around the administration of RFS. 

Please know that we are committed to doing it pursuant to that 

statutory framework that you have established, but at the same 

time that statutory framework is very challenging because the levels that have been set by statute have never been met. And so we 

have got a lot of challenge there. 

Mr. OLSON. And as you know, Senator Barrasso asked EPA to 

complete a long overdue study on the environmental impact of the 

RFS. That is something that is required by the Clean Air Act. Any 

update on the progress of this study? 

Mr. PRUITT. Yes. Actually, I have been briefed on that within the 

last couple weeks and we have begun the process to provide that 

study to Congress. That is something that is statutory and something that needs to be done. 

Mr. OLSON. Thank you. And also talk about Hurricane—— 

Mr. PRUITT. I am sorry. Say it again? 

Mr. OLSON. Hurricane Harvey, sir—— 

Mr. PRUITT. Yes, yes. 

Mr. OLSON [continuing]. Hit my district hard. As you know, hit 

us twice basically, the most expensive hurricane in American history. Talking with Dr. Bryan Shaw, who heads up our Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, he is quite pleased with the 

working together with EPA during that storm. You guys deployed 

all over the Gulf Coast, on the coast, inland, and got acting pretty 

quickly. 

One concern is having money to go forward and one solution may 

be what is called the State Revolving Fund. Can that be used to 

address repairs in Texas? It is under your control and will you do 

that? 

Mr. PRUITT. Well, SRFs as you know have been used in a very 

good way to address infrastructure challenges at the state level and 

I think it is something that Congress ought to consider. 

Again I want to highlight something though with respect to Hurricane Harvey and Hurricane Irma and then what is going on in 

Puerto Rico. We embedded officials from EPA with local towns and 

cities across Texas, Florida as the storms approached in order to 

have real-time decisions made on the threats that it posed to drinking water, Superfund sites, chemical facilities, and the rest, and it 

was truly an example of federalism in action between the state, 

local towns and cities, and the U.S. Government working to address those issues. So I am very, very thankful for the leadership 

of Region 6, which is in Dallas and then obviously Region 4 as it 

relates to Florida. It was good work by their folks, employees, but 

also the folks at the state level. 

33 

Mr. OLSON. And speaking for Dr. Shaw, he would say great 

teamwork with the EPA. Thank you, thank you. One final thank 

you, the San Jacinto Waste Pits. 

Mr. PRUITT. Yes. 

Mr. OLSON. Harvey knocked them loose. All this benzene came 

out. 

Mr. PRUITT. Yes. 

Mr. OLSON. You stepped up and said we will stop this forever. 

So thank you for that. 

Mr. PRUITT. I think it is important, Mr. Chairman, and this is 

an example. We talked about the Superfund initiative at the Agency. San Jacinto is a site in Houston, Texas that is just off of I–10. 

It has dioxin that has been placed there and embedded for a number of years and it is near a harbor and barge traffic goes through. 

The Agency has been working with folks at the state level and 

responsible parties for a number of years and the solution has been 

to take a covering and put it over the site and then pile rocks on 

top of the site and it has been that way for 10 years. I was in 

Houston in mid-September and looked at the site and it is totally 

unacceptable to have that type of temporary situation because of 

potential hurricanes coming through and displacing those rocks. So we provided a permanent solution there, about $115 million 

of cost that responsible parties are going to bear to provide a permanent solution and the citizens, I think, have been very pleased 

with the outcome. 

Mr. SHIMKUS. The gentleman’s time has expired. Let me go to 

the other member from Texas, Mr. Green, for 5 minutes. 

Mr. GREEN. Thank you for being here today, Mr. Administrator. 

I used to have the San Jacinto Waste Pits but in Texas they keep 

changing our lines. I think it was in Pete Olson’s for awhile. Now 

it is in Brian Babin’s. Ted Poe had part of it. So, we change our 

lines in Texas. 

But I want to thank you for visiting right after Harvey and seeing what was there. And I appreciate EPA continuing to make sure 

we have a permanent fix there because that area is like you said, 

barge traffic, people crab and fish in that area and both the city, 

the county, and the state have signs up in Spanish, English, in Vietnamese that expectant mothers or small children should not eat 

the crabs or the fish. But I don’t know if that day you were there, 

but every time I go there everybody is fishing. 

So, but thank you and hopefully we can move that as quickly as 

possible because it is an industrial area but it also is a recreational 

area, because I water-skied in that water back when I was young. 

But is there a contradiction of priorities of EPA between the 

cleanup of the Superfund sites and the Agency’s commitment to the 

drastic cuts in the Superfund program? I know the EPA’s budget 

request was 30 percent cut in the Superfund program. I know that 

may not affect San Jacinto Waste Pits because we have a responsible party, but there are a lot of Superfund sites around the country that don’t have a responsible party. 

Mr. PRUITT. Well, it is a concern, Congressman. In fact, during 

the appropriations process, I conveyed to our committee that if 

monies were necessary to address those orphan sites—we have orphan sites that make up the Superfund portfolio—that I would 

34 

come and advise Congress and ask for those funds. I mean it is 

very important that as we go forward on Superfund cleanup that 

money not be the problem on how we get those cleanups. We need 

accountability there. 

I will tell you that in my time evaluating the Superfund portfolio 

there are very few orphan sites and most of it is just a lack of direction on how we should clean up. There are several examples, in 

Chicago. I think one of the members earlier today mentioned Portland. San Jacinto was one of those where there just simply wasn’t 

much direction on how to get accountability and how to get cleanup 

with these responsible parties. 

And so we are trying to do both, but I commit to you that if there 

are issues, deficiencies on funding with respect to that Superfund 

priority we will advise you and ask for help as we work through 

the appropriations process. 

Mr. GREEN. OK. Well, thank you. Because I know back in September the EPA Inspector General issued a report about the distribution of Superfund full time FTEs among the EPA regions does 

not support the current regional workloads. As a result, some regions have to prioritize work and are slowed down like you mentioned or discontinued. And are you aware of that OIG’s report? 

Mr. PRUITT. Yes. I have actually talked to the Inspector General 

about the Superfund issues going forward and we have looked at 

some management issues. How we bid projects, sometimes they are 

not competitively bid. We sometimes are getting bids that take— 

routinely I hear something will take 15 or 20 years. And I have 

pushed back saying that perhaps that is not how long it should 

take and maybe the bid is just trying to prolong things as far as 

receiving funding for 15 or 20 years in those contractors. 

So we are trying to get reform both in how we process and how 

we bid out and do remediation, but also making decisions early in 

the process to make sure that we get accountability on outcomes. 

Mr. GREEN. OK, since I come from the Houston area and the 

Houston ship channel, where we have five refineries, my next question. The EPA recently released its final ruling on renewable fuel 

standard that said 15 billion gallon standard for conventional ethanol. I know many of my refineries in my district and along the 

Gulf Coast were disappointed with this final number. 

Would you commit to lowering future RFS requirements to avoid 

this blend wall that we are having? And I know from Oklahoma 

you understand. 

Mr. PRUITT. Well, Congressman, I can’t commit to certain outcomes with respect to that process. That is a rulemaking process. 

But what I can tell you is what I shared earlier with the question, 

we will objectively determine each year what the production levels 

look like they are going to be. We are tracking those numbers now. 

Biodiesel has been as big of a challenge as conventional. We have 

routinely set that at 2.1 or higher. 2.1 was the last number before 

this year. And as I indicated, we imported 700 million gallons of 

bio-based diesel from Argentina to meet that 2.1 billion gallon 

limit. So we ought not be dependent upon the people of Argentina 

to meet a volume obligation that we are setting domestically so 

that is something that we will continue to look at, but we can’t prejudge those outcomes at this point. 

35 

Mr. GREEN. Well, and every time I talk to one of my refineries 

they talk about the problems of RINs and of course the chair of the 

committee is a great fellow from Illinois but we do have some differences on corn ethanol as compared to biofuel. 

Mr. PRUITT. But Congressman, it is a fair point and I will say 

to you it is a real issue as far as RIN reform. We need to get some 

accountability in the RIN market. There is a lot of speculation that 

goes on with respect to RINs. There are enforcement issues, fraud 

that occurs. In fact we just prosecuted a company, I think it was 

30 million plus as a fraud that occurred in the RIN market. There 

is a lot of work to be done to get reform and accountability in the 

RIN market. 

Mr. GREEN. I would be glad to work with you on that. Thank 

you. 

Mr. SHIMKUS. The gentleman’s time has expired. The chair now 

recognizes the gentleman from Ohio, Mr. Johnson, for 5 minutes. 

Mr. JOHNSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And Mr. Administrator, thank you for being here with us today. Let me first express 

my support for your comments on cooperative federalism. When 

issuing drastic regulatory changes like the Clean Power Plan, the 

previous administration did not take into account the people that 

would have been most truly affected by those regulatory changes 

and those are the hardworking coal miners, the power plant workers, and others throughout the industry supply chain, all of which, 

many of which live in eastern and southeastern Ohio where I live 

and represent. 

As you well know, the Ohio EPA along with many other states 

breathed a sigh of relief when the Supreme Court issued a stay of 

this rule that would have had a devastating effect on not only 

Ohio’s electricity generation and economy, but other states as well. 

That in my opinion is not cooperative federalism. Now EPA’s recent 

public hearing in West Virginia on the proposed repeal of the Clean 

Power Plan I think exemplifies the Agency’s willingness to listen 

to those that would have been most affected by the rule. 

No one cares more about the air we breathe nor the water we 

drink than those of us that live in regions where that kind of work 

goes on, places like eastern and southeastern Ohio where some of 

the best paying energy and manufacturing opportunities for jobs 

reside. There is a necessary balance to environmental protection 

and a process to share that responsibility with states and local 

leaders like you have suggested is a crucial and much needed 

change to how these regulations have been approached in the past. 

So I applaud your work in that regard. 

Mr. PRUITT. Well, if I could say, Congressman, and to give you 

an example about how it shouldn’t work, when I came into this position there were 700 approximate state implementation plans that 

many of your states had prepared on how to improve air quality 

where resources had been devoted, expertise delegated at the state 

level to improve air quality pursuant to those state implementation 

plans. They were sitting on a shelf at our agency that we had not 

acted upon and that is just simply not a good way to do business. 

We as an agency need to respond up or down on those kinds of 

plans to give input and direction back to states. We need to encourage and want to encourage states to take those kinds of steps. And 

36 

I think it was very disheartening over the last several years for 

that to take place. We are trying to remedy that. 

Mr. JOHNSON. Well, I thank you for that collaborative approach. 

I want to move on to another subject though that is important in 

our state, the deadlines under which the Brick MACT which were 

set up under, set under a 2015 EPA rulemaking are soon approaching. These regulations affect domestic brick and tile manufacturers 

among other small businesses typically located in rural communities, and in most cases are the primary source of jobs in those 

little small communities especially in my district. The EPA, your 

agency, recently announced its intentions to reconsider these regulations. Can you please elaborate on status and timing of the Agency’s reconsideration of the Brick MACT regulations? 

Mr. PRUITT. Well, as far as the timing it would be very difficult 

to provide that to you at this point, Congressman. I think we need 

to assess what that process will look like. It is not a rulemaking 

process, per se, but it approaches that and so that is something 

that we will have to evaluate. 

I apologize that I don’t have that answer, but—— 

Mr. JOHNSON. Can you look at it and get back to us? 

Mr. PRUITT. Sure. 

Mr. JOHNSON. OK, all right. That will work. Let me just make 

some comments about that. The last Brick MACT rule was enacted 

in 2003. Hundreds of millions of dollars spent by the industries to 

comply then later vacated by a federal court, but only after most 

brick manufacturers had already committed to facility modifications to comply and the money had been spent. 

So for all practical purposes, judicial review was meaningless in 

that case in terms of the economy and the jobs. Do you agree we 

don’t want to see a repeat of that kind of situation? 

Mr. PRUITT. Absolutely. And I think as we look at other, there 

are other examples, Congressman. Where that has happened where 

there has not been a stay of enforcement on a particular rule. 

Those that are required to meet the rule’s obligations take those 

steps and by the time that judicial review takes place it is somewhat hollow with respect to whether the rule was constitutional or 

lawful in the first instance. So I think it is very important that we 

work to get these things right so that that doesn’t happen. 

Mr. JOHNSON. I appreciate it. Mr. Chairman, I yield back a 5 

whole seconds, and I thank you for your service, Mr. Administrator. 

Mr. SHIMKUS. The chairman thanks him and the chair now recognizes the gentlelady from Colorado for 5 minutes, Ms. DeGette. 

Ms. DEGETTE. Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman. Administrator 

Pruitt, thank you for coming today. I am the ranking Democrat on 

the Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee of this committee 

and I will tell you, we all take our obligations very seriously. Effective oversight relies on receiving the information from the agencies 

that we oversee. 

And members of the committee have sent the EPA over 34 written requests this year including requests about the lack of transparency at the Agency, removal of climate data from the website, 

and other critically important topics. Now to date, Mr. Administrator, we have received no response to eight of these letters. Let 

me give you an example and I can give you copies of all of these. 

37 

On May 18th, members of this committee and the Committee on 

Science, Space, and Technology sent a letter requesting documents 

and additional information on EPA’s premature removal of qualified experts from EPA’s board of science counselors. Now we still, 

7 months later, have not received a response. 

Mr. Pruitt, can you commit to giving us a timely response to this 

request? 

Mr. PRUITT. Are you referring to BOSC? Is that what you are referring to, the Board of Scientific Counselors? 

Ms. DEGETTE. That is correct. 

Mr. PRUITT. Yes. We will provide whatever information you need 

there. 

Ms. DEGETTE. Thank you. 

Mr. PRUITT. I would disagree that it was a premature removal. 

Yes. 

Ms. DEGETTE. Well, no, no. I am not arguing with you about the 

substance. 

Mr. PRUITT. Yes. Yes. 

Ms. DEGETTE. I just need to get the information. 

Mr. PRUITT. Sure. 

Ms. DEGETTE. And then there are seven other letters that we 

have not gotten responses. Can you also commit that you will give 

us responses to those letters? 

Mr. PRUITT. If you inventory those. I have a—— 

Ms. DEGETTE. I will give you copies of all of them. 

Mr. PRUITT. Yes. Yes. 

Ms. DEGETTE. Now there are 22 other letters, Mr. Pruitt, that 

the minority at least feels have had incomplete response. For example, there was one on April 20th where Ranking Member Pallone sent a letter requesting a briefing on the budget requests and 

they got a five-sentence letter back that basically said we are developing the President’s budget based on the framework provided 

by the blueprint and gave no other information. It is hard for 

us—— 

Mr. PRUITT. What timeframe is that? I am sorry, Congresswoman. 

Ms. DEGETTE. It was April 20th. 

Mr. PRUITT. OK. 

Ms. DEGETTE. So it is hard for us to develop our oversight if we 

don’t have this information. I am going to work with other members of this committee on those other 22 letters to drill down and 

see what additional information we feel we need from the Agency. 

Can I get your commitment to please also respond to those and I 

will give that all to you? 

Mr. PRUITT. Yes, ma’am. And I will say we have got a group of 

individuals that—— 

Ms. DEGETTE. Thank you. Thank you very much. I only have 5 

minutes. I am so sorry. One of the things about the lack of information is the TSCA bill. And I will tell you, my buddy Mr. Shimkus and I and all of us on this committee, we worked really hard 

to revise TSCA and that is one of the crowning achievements, we 

think, of this committee. 

But since we did this on a bipartisan basis, the Obama administration proposed banning methylene chloride from use as a paint 

38 

stripper based on extensive evidence of unreasonable risk to human 

health, and so we haven’t heard yet from the EPA whether they 

are giving the public an indication about whether they are finalizing the rule. I just have a couple of questions around that. 

Have you personally met with Dow Chemical or the American 

Chemistry Council to discuss this rule while we are waiting for the 

update? 

Mr. PRUITT. No, ma’am. 

Ms. DEGETTE. OK. And will you commit to finalizing this TSCA 

rule for methylene chloride and doing so soon? 

Mr. PRUITT. I will commit to reviewing it and giving you an answer soon, yes. 

Ms. DEGETTE. That would be great. When do you think we can 

get an answer? 

Mr. PRUITT. I don’t know, but we will advise you soon after this 

meeting. 

Ms. DEGETTE. OK. That would be great, thanks. We will be on 

top of it, don’t worry. Now one last thing, a press account said that 

you installed a $25,000 soundproof booth in your office at EPA 

headquarters. Is that true? 

Mr. PRUITT. It is a secure phone line. 

Ms. DEGETTE. OK, so it is a SCIF, what we call a sensitive compartmental information facility; is that right? 

Mr. PRUITT. Yes. 

Ms. DEGETTE. And did you do that because part of the EPA’s 

mission involves classified information? 

Mr. PRUITT. Yes, ma’am, part of that but also communications 

with the White House. There are secure conversations that need to 

take place at times and that is—— 

Ms. DEGETTE. So you believe it is appropriate to use the SCIF 

to talk to the White House? 

Mr. PRUITT. I believe that there are secure conversations that 

need to take place that I didn’t have access to that—— 

Ms. DEGETTE. OK. So what percentage of your work would you 

say is conducted in this SCIF? 

Mr. PRUITT. It is hard to predict that—— 

Ms. DEGETTE. Well, is it 50 percent of your conversations? Is it 

75 percent? 

Mr. PRUITT. Cabinet level officials need to have access to secure 

communications. 

Ms. DEGETTE. Oh. I am talking about the one that you put into 

the EPA. How often do you use that SCIF? 

Mr. PRUITT. It is hard to predict in the future—— 

Ms. DEGETTE. 95 percent? 

Mr. PRUITT. I haven’t taken any calculations of that. 

Ms. DEGETTE. Well, when you use that—— 

Mr. PRUITT. It is necessary for me to be able to do my job. 

Ms. DEGETTE. OK, let me ask you. So you use that only for classified information or for communications with the President. Is 

that your testimony? 

Mr. PRUITT. It is used for secure communications that need to 

take place at the office. 

Ms. DEGETTE. And that is what you think is appropriate for a 

SCIF. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back. 

39 

Mr. SHIMKUS. The gentlelady yields back her time. The chair 

now recognizes the gentleman from Texas, I believe, Mr. Flores, for 

5 minutes. 

Mr. FLORES. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I thank you, 

Administrator Pruitt, for joining us today. I want to thank you for 

the EPA’s timely rollout of the RFS standards. I think it is the first 

time in the RFS that that was done, so I appreciate that. There is 

a bipartisan group of us here in Congress including Chairman 

Shimkus, Peter Welch, others, and myself that are working on a 

solution to this, the challenges of the current RFS statute also with 

respect to RIN reform, so we may need data and input from you 

and so be expecting a request from us on that. 

Moving to ozone for a minute, one of the challenges with ozone 

regs is that the 2008 standards were rolled out and then there 

were huge delays in the rollout methodology from the EPA and 

then the 2015 standards were levied out on top of that. That has 

created substantial uncertainty in our communities in terms of trying to comply with two standards essentially at one time. 

And then when you add to that there is a growing recognition 

that—well, before I get to that, today I think most people agree 

that most of the country even based on some of the EPA’s own 

modeling show that most of the country will be in compliance in 

7 years with both standards. 

And then you add to that there is a growing recognition that 

international pollution is causing several communities to not be 

able to meet the standards. There is actually a recent analysis by 

the Midwest Ozone Group of the EPA said that but for international contributions the United States east of the Rockies would 

attain the 2008 and 2015 standards by 2023. 

So a couple of questions in this regard, the first one is does it 

make sense to force new compliance burdens on states before existing controls have been implemented? 

Mr. PRUITT. Well, speaking generally to those pollutants that we 

regulate under NOx, I think the 5-year review process that we engage in should be a review and not necessarily just an automatic 

ratcheting down, because I think when you look at the 75 parts per 

billion versus the 70 parts per billion that was the focus of the 

ozone rule, there are issues that you describe. Air transport issues, 

background ozone, exceptional events I think came up earlier 

today. There are issues that we need to calculate and understand 

as those standards are set. 

So going forward, I think the 5-year review process should not 

be interpreted as an automatic ratcheting down. It should be a review of whether the levels are protective of human health. 

Mr. FLORES. OK. Do you think it makes sense for states or communities to be punished for ozone that is beyond their control that 

comes in from other areas or background ozone? 

Mr. PRUITT. No. And in the designation process, Congressman, 

we try to take that into consideration. There are areas in Wisconsin as an example that are facing compliance issues because of 

air transport issues. 

Mr. FLORES. Right. 

Mr. PRUITT. And we are trying to calculate that into the designation process as best we can. 

40 

Mr. FLORES. Good. In order to address the situations that we 

have just talked about, supplementally, in order to comply with my 

time limit, I would like you to tell me what you think Congress 

could do to help with this and also what EPA could do under its 

current statutory authority. 

Mr. PRUITT. Well, I think that, mentioning background ozone and 

background levels, I think there are certain parts of the country 

that really have—there is no economic activity that could occur and 

they still would be violative of the standard that has been set. So 

I think Congress assisting the EPA in how to address background 

levels would be substantially important. 

I think also the exceptional events, there is a lot of confusion, 

better put, lack of clarity on how to apply exceptional events in the 

designation process and otherwise and so I think some clarity 

around that would be much appreciated. 

Mr. FLORES. OK, great. We are working on that. I wanted to take 

a second of my remaining time to ask for your help with an agricultural herbicide that is called glyphosate. I think it is more commonly known as Roundup by the manufacturer. 

Last month, HHS released an agricultural health study that determined that this particular chemical does not cause cancer, again 

does not cause cancer, and that is similar to a study, the outcome 

of a study that the EPA made this past March. The challenge is 

that the state of California and the International Association for 

the Research of Cancer claiming that it does and that creates uncertainty among our agricultural community as well as the manufacturer of this particular herbicide. 

And of course we have got to get all of this sorted out because 

you have one group of folks saying it does, you have got two other 

government agencies saying it does not cause cancer. Can I get a 

commitment from you to have your team take a look at this to try 

to sort this out? 

Mr. PRUITT. Yes. And there has been another study I think at 

NIH that was similar to the one you cited. So there is some clarity 

that we need to provide on this going forward and, yes, we need 

to work with you and others on the committee that are concerned 

about that. 

Mr. FLORES. OK, thank you. I yield back the balance of my time. 

Mr. SHIMKUS. The gentleman yields back his time. The chair now 

recognizes the gentleman from California, Mr. McNerney, for 5 

minutes. 

Mr. MCNERNEY. I thank the chairman and I thank the administrator for coming here in front of us today. In response to Chairman Walden’s questions, you said that the U.S. should celebrate 

the progress that has been made in reducing air pollution. I agree. 

You also said that that is in large part due to technology and innovation. I agree completely. But do you think that the progress that 

has taken place would have been made without the EPA regulations enforcements? And these are regulations that you are now 

eliminating. 

Mr. PRUITT. I think the EPA’s regulation framework has helped, 

absolutely, in contributing to those outcomes, but I think it has 

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nology in the private sector. So I think it has been a combination 

of factors. 

Mr. MCNERNEY. OK. Ozone pollution is one of the most widespread pollutions in the United States and scientists have been 

studying its effect on health for decades. Hundreds of research 

studies have confirmed that ozone harms people at levels currently 

found in the United States. The Clean Air Act requires that the 

EPA to review the latest scientific evidence and set air quality 

standards that will protect public health, these standards that we 

rely on to know whether ozone is safe, what levels of ozone are 

safe. 

Administrator Pruitt, do you agree that the ozone pollution is a 

problem that the EPA should address? 

Mr. PRUITT. Yes. It is a criteria pollutant under the NOx program 

that needs to be addressed. 

Mr. MCNERNEY. Good. Approximately 30 percent of the people in 

my district suffer from asthma partly related to ozone, but your actions, in my opinion, do not demonstrate a commitment to addressing the problem. For example, on October 1st, 2017 marked the 

legal deadline for the EPA to identify communities with levels of 

ground level ozone pollution above the EPA’s 2015 ozone standard. 

These are also known as non-attainment areas. 

Administrator Pruitt, you spoke a lot about the rule of law in 

your statement. Did the EPA announce attainment designations by 

the October 1st statutory deadline? 

Mr. PRUITT. Congressman, we have designated all but 50 sites 

across the country, approximately, and we have made tremendous 

progress since the timeframe that you are talking about, so we are 

very close to finishing that process. 

Mr. MCNERNEY. But you didn’t make the October 1st deadline. 

Mr. PRUITT. Some of those were designated prior to that time, 

yes, but not all. 

Mr. MCNERNEY. Well, I think you mentioned this already, about 

half of the counties that were not designated by October 1st comprise about half of the United States population. 

Mr. PRUITT. Some of that is based upon, Congressman, on information that has not been provided by the states. So sometimes 

there is insufficient information in which for us to make a determination and so there is a communication to those states to get 

that in to help us finish that process. It is not exclusively, you 

know, something we can do without that information. 

So it is a combination of factors, but we are working diligently 

to finish that process. The designations are occurring. And as I indicated, there is only approximately 50 sites across the country 

that need to be designated, out of hundreds by the way. 

Mr. MCNERNEY. OK. Will the EPA engage in a transparent and 

science-based process in setting designations for the remaining 

parts of—— 

Mr. PRUITT. I am sorry, Congressman. 

Mr. MCNERNEY. Will the EPA engage in scientific and transparent process in designating those areas—— 

Mr. PRUITT. It will absolutely be a part of the record. 

Mr. MCNERNEY. Well, on your website you state that the purpose 

of the EPA is to ensure that all parts of society—communities, indiVerDate Nov 24 2008 16:03 May 29, 2018 Jkt 037690 PO 00000 Frm 00045 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 I:\MY DOCS\HEARINGS 115\HEARINGS\115-85 CHRIS
42 

viduals, businesses, state and local and tribal governments—have 

access to accurate information sufficient to effectively participate in 

managing human health and environmental risks. Are you fulfilling the purpose of the EPA keeping information from Americans 

about the ozone levels in their area? 

Mr. PRUITT. I am not sure in what ways, Congressman. Maybe 

you can clarify your question, how we are keeping it from those 

citizens. 

Mr. MCNERNEY. Well, you haven’t, you didn’t meet the October 

1st deadline and you still haven’t fulfilled the entire requirement. 

So you are keeping information from communities that need to 

know what their attainment levels are. 

Mr. PRUITT. That is not information, it is a designation process 

which is a legal process, Congressman, that we are going through 

to make those designations, which we need information to do that 

and I think we are making tremendous progress and should be 

done very soon. 

Mr. MCNERNEY. Administrator Pruitt, you have made it clear 

that you are committed to Superfund cleanup, but what about preventing creation of new Superfund sites? What is your commitment 

in that regard? 

Mr. PRUITT. In what regard, Congressman? 

Mr. MCNERNEY. Well, the EPA’s job is to protect public health, 

so it should be the job to prevent companies or entities from creating Superfund sites. Are you committed to that? 

Mr. PRUITT. Correct. That is something—when you say creating 

Superfund sites, sometimes states actually ask for us to put Superfund sites on a list which I was just trying to get clarity about that. 

Yes. 

Mr. MCNERNEY. I am not talking about designation. I am talking 

about creating pollution that could be designated as a Superfund 

site. 

Mr. PRUITT. Obviously lead, uranium, these issues, we want to 

do all we can to eliminate those things so we don’t have those 

kinds of sites across the country, absolutely. 

Mr. MCNERNEY. Well, in your rush to eliminate regulations that 

is exactly what you are doing is creating opportunity for new 

Superfund sites to be created. 

Mr. PRUITT. I wouldn’t interpret it that way, Congressman. 

Mr. SHIMKUS. The gentleman’s time has expired. The chair now 

recognizes the gentleman from North Carolina, Mr. Hudson, for 5 

minutes. 

Mr. HUDSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you, Mr. Administrator, for making the extra effort to come back and take all 

of our questions and thank you for your strong leadership at the 

Agency. I appreciate also your efforts to make the EPA focus on air 

and water and soil contamination. 

My state of North Carolina has been shaken by a discovery of a 

chemical called GenerationX in the Cape Fear River. I know my 

state reports that GenX is no longer getting into the river and that 

treated drinking water is within state health goals. The previous 

EPA administrator permitted use of this chemical within conditions 

in 2009. Can you say whether EPA has discovered if GenX was 

used in an impermissible fashion? 

43 

Mr. PRUITT. I am not aware, Congressman. We can provide that 

information to you. I don’t have any information on that today, but 

we can get that to you. 

Mr. HUDSON. I appreciate it. I understand the EPA is updating 

its risk assessment of GenX and is performing an independent laboratory analysis and several other compounds in water samples 

that are being collected now by the North Carolina DEQ along the 

Cape Fear River including waste water, surface water, ground 

water, and treated drinking water samples. Are there any findings 

that you can discuss on that so far? 

Mr. PRUITT. Again on that I would have to get the information 

from the office and provide that to you to make sure it is complete, 

comprehensive, and up to date. 

Mr. HUDSON. Great. I appreciate that. One issue that is a real 

concern to folks in my part of North Carolina, whether it is agriculture or just property owners in general, is the Waters of the 

USA regulation. And I have heard some of your critics say that you 

have done the same thing as your predecessor in that you have already decided the outcome of the rule and are just casting about 

for justifications. That is sort of the claim that we keep hearing. 

I would love to give you a chance to respond to that. 

Mr. PRUITT. Well, I think oftentimes with respect to issues like 

Waters of the United States and CPP, it is not deregulation in the 

true sense. The Waters rule that was adopted in 2015, the stated 

objective was to provide clarity. That was what the past administration said. If that were the stated objective it was they failed miserably. 

Mr. HUDSON. I agree. 

Mr. PRUITT. Because the confusion across the country on what a 

Water of the United States is where federal jurisdiction begins and 

ends. And so there is a process that we are going through to deal 

with the deficiency. There is a court stay against this 2015 rule 

that you are aware of, and so our obligation is to provide a definition and that process has begun in earnest and we should have a 

proposed rule by April of next year timeframe and we are taking 

significant comment on that along with the withdrawal of the 2015 

rule. So it is not deregulation in the truest sense, it is regulatory 

clarity going forward so we know where federal jurisdiction begins 

and ends. 

Mr. HUDSON. Sounds good to me. One of the main arguments in 

favor of the Obama administration’s Waters rule is that it is essential to protecting drinking water and that without this version of 

the rule public health would be at risk. The Safe Drinking Water 

Act, however, has provisions addressing both the protection of 

source water, Sections 1453 and 1454, and underground sources of 

drinking water, Part C. Do you agree that the Safe Drinking Water 

Act has these provisions and provides protection to source waters? 

Mr. PRUITT. Absolutely. And let me say to members of the committee, one of the things that we are focused upon as we head into 

2018 is lead in our water supply, safe drinking water. And I think 

there are tremendous challenges we have across the country with 

respect to service lines in particular communities and the lead that 

is seeping into the water supply of our children. It is one of the 

greatest environmental threats I think we face as a country. 

44 

And one of the things that I hope that I can work with this committee on as we go into 2018 is a strategy over a 10-year period 

to eradicate those concerns. And it is going to be a very ambitious 

initiative at our agency and it is something that we have various 

offices in the Agency working upon. There are about 17 agencies 

actually that are working on this issue of lead as well. 

And I am sending a letter to my colleagues in other agencies to 

make this a point of emphasis as we go into 2018. So not only do 

I agree with what you are saying about the reach on these issues, 

but I think there are important matters that we can take on lead 

that will make a difference for our citizens across the country going 

forward. 

Mr. HUDSON. Well, thank you for your answers. 

And Mr. Chairman, I think I can speak for folks on both sides 

of the aisle that we look forward to that discussion. And with that 

I will yield back. 

Mr. SHIMKUS. The gentleman—— 

Mr. PRUITT. And I understand, if I may for a second. 

Mr. SHIMKUS. You may. 

Mr. PRUITT. I understand that that is a costly endeavor. Replacing service lines across the country it has been estimated may cost 

as much as $30 billion or maybe upwards of $50-, $30- to $50 billion. But I will say to you that if we can develop a 10-year strategy 

on how to address that across the country—the State of Michigan 

as an example, right now, is considering lowering its levels from 15 

parts per billion down to 10 parts per billion on the standard, but 

they are also spending a tremendous amount of money to replace 

those lead lines, as I understand it. 

And that is good leadership with the governor of Michigan and 

I think, frankly, we in Washington need to have that kind of conversation with states across the country to focus on that issue. The 

President has talked about infrastructure, the importance of using 

some of the infrastructure discussion to address some of these 

things and I look forward to that discussion with you. 

Mr. SHIMKUS. So if the gentleman would allow me to yield, so we 

passed a Safe Drinking Water Act out of the full committee which 

should be helpful in this. My friends on the other side wanted more 

money, so maybe in a supplemental and stuff in this process, we 

have already started moving to try to do that legislatively, but executive branch focus would be helpful. 

Mr. PRUITT. Look, it is not just service lines. It is corrosion control measures that need to be deployed, obviously paint as well. So 

there is a multifaceted approach that we need to evaluate on how 

to declare a war on lead, if you will, but I want to let you know 

as a committee it is something I desire to work with you going forward in 2018. 

Mr. SHIMKUS. You will have some interest. 

The chair now recognizes the gentleman from California, Mr. 

Ca ́ rdenas, for 5 minutes. 

Mr. CA ́ RDENAS. Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. 

Mr. Pruitt, appreciate the opportunity for us to—as I quote you, 

the dialogue that begins today. I hope that future dialogue doesn’t 

span 10 months between these opportunities. Is your current office, 

place of work, Washington, D.C.? 

45 

Mr. PRUITT. Yes, sir. 

Mr. CA ́ RDENAS. OK. And prior to becoming the EPA administrator what city or state did you live in? 

Mr. CA ́ RDENAS. Tulsa, Oklahoma. 

Mr. CA ́ RDENAS. Tulsa, Oklahoma, OK. Well, Mr. Pruitt, I would 

just like to point out for the record that you traveled to Oklahoma 

for 43 out of 92 days this spring according to the Washington Post. 

That is almost half of every day in March, April, and May of this 

year. I am extremely troubled by reports that your frequent travel 

to and from Oklahoma occurred at the expense of the U.S. taxpayer 

and cost more than $15,000 just on those trips alone. And it appears I am not the only one concerned. 

At the request of members of this congressional committee, 

EPA’s Office of Inspector General has begun an audit to review 

issues of potential waste, fraud, and abuse associated with your 

frequent travel back to Oklahoma at taxpayers’ expense. Also, your 

record of wasting taxpayer dollars does not end there. 

Later news reports uncovered that you along with other members 

of the Trump administration have been using private jets and military aircraft at tremendous taxpayer expense. One of the most expensive examples was in early June when you and several of your 

staff traveled on a military jet from Cincinnati, Ohio to John F. 

Kennedy Airport in New York on your way to Italy. The cost of 

that flight alone was reportedly over $36,000. In August, you chartered a private plane to fly from Denver, Colorado to Durango, Colorado, in the same state, costing the U.S. taxpayers over $5,000. 

You did so even though the governor of California had reportedly 

offered to fly you on a state-owned plane. 

Mr. Pruitt, the taxpayer bill for your travel on private jets and other non-commercial aircraft is a record total more than $58,000 

since February of this year alone. These costs are especially offensive given the severe cuts you have proposed to essential and lifesaving EPA programs. Take, for example, the Office of Environmental Justice which helps poor communities who are being disproportionately impacted by environmental pollution. This administration proposed to eliminate the Office of Environmental Justice. 

So Mr. Pruitt, are the American people supposed to believe that 

we cannot afford $2 million to help our most vulnerable communities but we can afford tens of thousands of dollars for you to fly 

on private jets? 

Mr. PRUITT. First, I want to say to you, Congressman, I do look 

forward to the dialogue and I appreciate your comments going forward. I think there is much work that we can engage in together 

and I look forward to that discussion. 

Environmental justice is something that I met with, actually, internal members of our team, yesterday, talking about issues like 

East Chicago. Environmental justice is an important issue. It is 

something that we seek to translate to real action on the ground 

and we have since I have been serving, with particular emphasis 

on Chicago in the east, the Superfund situation there. 

On the travel that you have highlighted I would just say to you, 

every trip that I have taken to Oklahoma with respect to taxpayer 

expenses has been business related. When I was in Oklahoma for 

a WOTUS meeting, a Waters of the United States meeting, we had 

46 

three states converge in the Panhandle of Oklahoma that had Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas come together. There were hundreds of 

individuals in attendance. That is a very important effort. 

Bird Creek in Osage County had high salinity levels. Region 6 

had not responded to those high salinity levels. There was harm 

taking place with fish in that water and as such we needed to take 

action and I was there to address that. There are concerns that affect Oklahoma and Region 6 just like every state. Every dollar that 

was expended with respect to those travel was business related. 

When I have traveled back to the state for personal reasons I paid 

for it and that will bear out in the process. 

But let me say this to you, finally, with respect to the travel, 

commercial travel is what we fly almost exclusively. The situation 

in Cincinnati, I fly with the President for a meeting on infrastructure. We were going to the G7 in Italy and could not make the 

flight at JFK unless we got a public transport, so that is why that 

decision was made. But it has been only four instances during the 

entire time that I have been serving as administrator and it was 

always based upon circumstances. 

You mentioned the one in Colorado, the reason that occurred is 

because we were going into Gold King, Colorado to address the 

needs and concerns of the citizens there and couldn’t make it otherwise. And I would dispute the governor’s reference that you made 

earlier. 

Mr. CA ́ RDENAS. Oh, really. OK. Well, thank you very much for 

stating for the record, because the Inspector General is looking into 

those details and I hope it all bears out and let’s see what the outcome is. 

Well, I wanted to be respectful of giving you an opportunity to 

answer and there goes all of my time. So with the last 5 seconds, 

I just would like to ask that I be able to insert these two letters 

from the EPA’s Inspector General agreeing to investigate this travel. I ask unanimous consent to enter them into the record. 

Mr. SHIMKUS. Without objection, so ordered. 

[The information appears at the conclusion of the hearing.] 

Mr. SHIMKUS. The chair now recognizes the gentleman from 

North Dakota, Mr. Cramer, for 5 minutes. 

Mr. CRAMER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Thank you, Mr. Administrator, for your candor, for being here, 

and for your strong leadership. And I might just say you used a 

term in responding to Mr. McNerney that I think is a new term 

at the EPA and that was partnership. And I think that my friend 

from California’s line of questioning bears out that you see states 

as stakeholders and partners not as subordinates. Thank you for 

going to places like Oklahoma and to North Dakota and other 

states in the middle of real America that are affected by what for 

the last 8 years has simply been a dictatorship by the EPA. So 

thank you for that and we appreciate your willingness to address 

us in our home states. 

I also want to congratulate you on your incredible work on meeting these deadlines, the 27 years that gets done in a matter of 

weeks and months. It probably shouldn’t seem like such a high 

standard, but by comparison and doing all that with only one conVerDate Nov 24 2008 16:03 May 29, 2018 Jkt 037690 PO 00000 Frm 00050 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 I:\MY DOCS\HEARINGS 115\HEARINGS\115-85 CHRIS
47 

firmed AA is really quite remarkable. So I look forward to when 

you have a full staff and a full team and we can really get to it. 

And I know CPP and WOTUS are the big topics obviously in 

North Dakota as you know, but I want to get to the heart of a couple of things that you have emphasized. And like my friend from 

Texas, Mr. Olson, I appreciate your commitment to process and 

rule of law. I appreciate your commitment to cooperative federalism. 

And I know you are very familiar with a couple of North Dakota 

cases. One in particular of course, the regional haze case that started in California and North Dakota was blocked from intervening 

in, which just kind of blows me away that states don’t have as a 

matter of right, constitutional right, standing in cases that affect 

them especially with regard to regulations that they have primacy 

over regulating. 

The more recent one is one that sort of straddled your memo on 

sue and settle that I want to bring to your attention and see if we 

can’t work more closely together—you, me, our attorney general— 

on addressing it as we go forward. And that was a RCRA revision 

of rules that was proposed in 2016, a consent decree was declared 

between the EPA and environmentalist groups and North Dakota 

was blocked from intervening. 

And this is, it related to oil and gas industry in our state, where 

our state has primacy we were blocked from intervening. Oral arguments in October of this year, about the same time as you were 

putting out your memo, occurred in the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals and we were blocked again. The environmentalists and the 

EPA prevailed. 

But what was most disturbing about that and why I want to 

bring it to your attention is because you have a really big task in 

front of you to meet not just the rules but the culture change that 

we hope to achieve, and that is it was the Department of Justice 

attorneys that argued so effectively against the State of North Dakota in the D.C. Circuit. 

So as we go forward, what I would love to do is be able to maybe 

have a meeting with my attorney general and you and me and plan 

the next phase of this and use the State of North Dakota as a partner as opposed to a litigant on the other side. 

Mr. PRUITT. Yes. As I indicated earlier in my opening comments 

and I think in response to questions, from your perspective, you 

have put into place a process by which we are supposed to adopt 

rules. And rules are supposed to be what, laws of general applicability. And so when you are involved in litigation and you change 

requirements under a statute, discretionary to nondiscretionary or 

timelines or otherwise and then you apply it in a general fashion, 

that is something that I think is offensive with respect to the APA 

process and should be dealt with. 

And that is why the sue and settle practice is important as we 

go forward. We may consider codifying that loosely said with respect to rulemaking, but it is important that we implement this directive I have sent to respect the APA as we make decisions. 

Mr. CRAMER. Well, with regard then to states’ rights, because I 

really feel like it is not just RCRA, it is all of the acts under the 

EPA, it is several other agencies where it seems like the right for 

48 

a state to have standing somehow has to be based on some finding 

of harm or injury. And it seems to me that in a cooperative federalism states should just have that right, especially if it is a regulation that they have primacy over. 

I am wondering if we should be doing something to codify that 

which it seems to me the Constitution should be adequate for, but 

whether we should do it broadly or whether we should do it very 

specifically. And I might add and then you can answer and wrap 

up my time, should you have some more independent litigation authority, independent of, say, of the DOJ or other—— 

Mr. PRUITT. Well, look. I think on the first point, I do think that 

perhaps Congress addressing the standing of states to address 

some of those. Most of those are state implementation plans. Many 

of them deal with regional haze requirements under the Clean Air 

Act, and I do think it is important that the voice of those states 

are heard. 

And that is the reason as it relates to the directive that I issued, 

we asked Justice to take a very accommodating posture with respect to the state intervention on these issues, but there probably 

is more that can be done to make sure that that happens going forward. 

Mr. CRAMER. Thank you. And I thank you for your service. 

Mr. SHIMKUS. Time is expired. The chair now recognizes the 

young lady from Michigan, Ms. Dingell, for 5 minutes. 

Mrs. DINGELL. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Administrator Pruitt, it is good to see you here and I was very 

glad to hear you talk about this war on lead we need to have. I 

share like every one of us, I have met those children in Flint. I 

have lived with some of those families. It is a very serious problem 

and we all need to work together to make sure it never happens 

in another community again. 

We have been meeting with my mayors for the last year even in 

my own community, included the state. 

Mr. PRUITT. It is not just Flint either. 

Mrs. DINGELL. No, it is all—I have it in my district. I don’t have 

Flint in my district, but it is a concern all over the country. But 

having said that there are some things I think that are happening 

at EPA that actually threaten that what you are talking about. So 

I have got a lot of stuff to talk about, EPA matters in Michigan. 

Could I ask for some yes or no questions just to this. For example, the EPA budget for 2018 eliminated two programs that provide 

grants to states and tribe grants to support their lead training and 

certification programs for lead paint removal contractors and the 

lead risk reduction program; is that correct? 

Mr. PRUITT. We welcomed Congress restoring that and we talked 

about that in the appropriations process. 

Mrs. DINGELL. OK. It would have represented a 90 percent reduction or a $26.5 million in funding. In addition to proposed cuts, 

we have seen delays on several key rulemakings. You talked about 

one of them which isn’t only in Flint. It is another plume that I 

have got in mind, which is the Agency’s long overdue update to the 

Lead and Copper Rule for drinking water system. It was supposed 

to be completed by June of this year and now it appears to be delayed to next month. Will we see it next month? 

49 

Mr. PRUITT. The Agency, Congresswoman, as you know has 

taken over a decade on that. 

Mrs. DINGELL. I nudged them too. 

Mr. PRUITT. No, no. 1991 was the last time we had a Lead and 

Copper Rule. 

Mrs. DINGELL. But we need it and you have been promising it. 

Mr. PRUITT. And there is much work that has gone on over a decade and I will tell you it is a major part of what we need to be 

about with respect to this war on lead. 

Mrs. DINGELL. So when are we going to see it? 

Mr. PRUITT. We are working on it and it is something I am committed to. 

Mrs. DINGELL. All right. And the Agency recently delayed implementation of a 2015 rule to require steam electric power plants to 

install pollution control equipment to limit effluents, including 

lead, from being discharged to rivers. The 2015 rule was the first 

update to these regulations in 30 years; is that correct? 

Mr. PRUITT. I am not sure about the timeline, Congresswoman. 

I take that but I don’t know for sure if it has been 30 years. 

Mrs. DINGELL. All right. Can we work together to get these 

things done, because they matter to our communities. 

Now I am going to quickly—but I am going to make one little— 

I am not trying to be—I just care. You made a comment to MDEQ 

that you should have made about reducing the amount of staff that 

they had and that they needed to have more people on their team 

addressing these Flint issues. 

Mr. PRUITT. MDEQ. 

Mrs. DINGELL. Michigan Department of Environmental Quality, 

do you know that? You recommended that MDEQ hire more staff 

with water management expertise. I agree with that, but you have 

only got one person. You are offering buyouts and cutting experience and manpower at your agency, the one with oversight responsibility for all these state programs while advising Michigan to do 

the opposite. So I would encourage you to look at that. 

But I have got to do two more things. First, I am going to go to 

my—all politics is local, but it is not just local. It matters to this 

country. We have an EPA lab in Ann Arbor that is doing critical 

work for every single state on automotive emissions and fuel economy. The budget would have eliminated that. The auto companies 

support it. The environmentalist community supports it. Everybody 

knows what good work it has done. 

Will you support keeping that lab open with all the important 

work we have got coming down the road? 

Mr. PRUITT. I will. 

Mrs. DINGELL. Thank you. You just made my day. But now having said that the Great Lakes. Michigan is, it is not just Michigan. 

It is all the states that are on the Great Lakes. They matter. They 

are more than 20 percent of the fresh water supply in the world. 

The EPA, the President’s budget would have eliminated all the dollars for the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative or the GLRI. Republicans and Democrats on this committee and in the House and Senate worked to restore that. The EPA had something to do with 

eliminating that down to zero. Can you explain why and can we 

work with you to make sure that never happens again? 

50 

Mr. PRUITT. Well, I actually talked to your senator about this a 

couple nights ago. 

Mrs. DINGELL. We care. 

Mr. PRUITT. Oh, I know, and not just Michigan, but other regions. The Great Lakes Initiative is something that has been very 

successful. You have an issue with invasive species there with carp. 

Mrs. DINGELL. A serious one. 

Mr. PRUITT. And it is something we need to pay attention to and 

I respected Congress and their restoration of those funds and appreciate that and we will continue to work with you in that regard. 

Mrs. DINGELL. And not cut them again? 

Mr. PRUITT. Excuse me? 

Mrs. DINGELL. And not make an effort to cut them again? 

Mr. PRUITT. That is a process that we will go through next year. 

That is not something that is unilaterally our decision as you 

know. That is a combination of decisions—— 

Mrs. DINGELL. We will be back if you do. 

Mr. PRUITT. Yes. 

Mrs. DINGELL. Thank you. 

Mr. SHIMKUS. The gentlelady’s time has expired. The chair now 

recognizes the gentleman from Michigan, believe it or not, Mr. 

Walberg, for 5 minutes. 

Mr. WALBERG. Thank you. And Michigan works together on these 

things, so I want to thank my colleague for some of the questions 

there. 

But also, Administrator Pruitt, I want to thank you for being 

here. Thank you for your straight talk. I thank you for the fact that 

we don’t have to watch you use a lot of notes. That says something 

about your understanding of the issues. 

You made a statement in this Great Lakes Restoration, the Initiative report that had a lot of good things in it, your Interagency 

Task Force on the Great Lakes that you—I am grateful—chair, and 

you said that the GLRI is protecting public health in the Great 

Lakes more than any other coordinated interagency effort in the 

U.S. history in helping to ensure that our children and their children live in safe, healthier communities. I thank you for that statement. I agree with you on it. 

I would just follow up my good friend and colleague from the 

other side of the aisle. My question is this. Can I count on you and 

your agency to work with my office, our Michigan delegation, and 

the state to support programs to protect cleanup and preserve the 

Great Lakes? 

Mr. PRUITT. Yes, sir. 

Mr. WALBERG. I appreciate that and whatever it takes I would 

assume that that would be the case. 

Mr. PRUITT. I mean as an example, Congressman, as was mentioned earlier, the Great Lakes Initiative is similar to the Chesapeake TMDL and how the states came together to address a concern. There it was something different, but this process is, the 

Great Lakes Initiative is something that we should work together 

to make sure that it is achieving good outcomes and I think it has 

and we will continue that discussion as we head into 2018. 

Mr. WALBERG. Right. Well, thank you. Another issue I feel very 

strongly about is the environmental threat the algae blooms pose 

51 

to Lake Erie which is in my district. This committee has worked 

over the years to address this issue and encourage cooperation between federal agencies and the states. 

I supported my colleague from Ohio. It is tough for a Michigander to support Ohio at times especially after the game 2 weeks 

ago, but I supported Bob Latta’s legislation in 2015 that required 

the EPA to develop and submit a plan to Congress for assessing 

and managing risks from the cyanotoxins. Could you please update 

me on the latest efforts by the Agency to address the harmful algae 

blooms in the Great Lakes and more specifically Lake Erie? 

Mr. PRUITT. Yes. The algal blooms there, but other parts of the 

country have been a primary point of emphasis for the Office of 

Water working with states on nonpoint source discharge for a number of years as you know, Congressman. It is something that we 

actually have a task force internally and a dedicated team of individuals looking at that to try to achieve better outcomes and that 

is ongoing. 

I can provide other specifics to questions that you have as it relates to Lake Erie. I would have to get that from the staff to get 

an update for you, but it is something that is absolutely a priority. 

Mr. WALBERG. And we are taking a broad perspective. Agriculture has its problems, we know that. We also know in Michigan 

the MAEAP program has attempted to be very effective in trying 

to address the concerns about excess nutrients, fertilizers, all sorts 

of things that come from agriculture. But there are other processes 

that go into this as well and I would assume that you would be 

looking at the total. 

Mr. PRUITT. Well, look. And I think we need to recognize that 

there are farmers and ranchers all over the country that have 

taken very important steps to address those issues. I have said 

many times those farmers and ranchers are our first conservationists or our first environmentalists. They care about these issues as 

well and we need to make sure their voices are heard to ensure 

that we are working together to achieve those outcomes. 

Mr. WALBERG. I thank you for that. What cooperative efforts has 

EPA undertaken with other federal agencies in this matter dealing 

with algae blooms? 

Mr. PRUITT. Congressman, I am not entirely sure if Department 

of Ag has been a part of our discussion. I am sure that they have 

been historically. Sonny Perdue and I have not addressed it, but 

it is something that we ought to do going forward and ensure that 

there is partnership like with the Department of Ag and there are 

probably others, but perhaps the Department of Interior with certain aspects of Secretary Zinke’s shop. But I think Department of 

Ag would be a very important partner in this process. 

Mr. WALBERG. OK, invasive species, specifically Asian carp. 

What is the involvement with EPA in looking at that? It is a huge, 

huge problem for the Great Lakes. The Army Corps of Engineers, 

any involvement with them, other federal agencies as well as state 

and local governments, what is the EPA doing there? 

Mr. PRUITT. A point of emphasis and you mentioned the Corps, 

the Corps has been very, very involved in that. 

Mr. WALBERG. Very, very slow in that as well. 

Mr. PRUITT. Well, perhaps we can encourage them. 

52 

Mr. WALBERG. I would appreciate that and we will look forward 

to—— 

Mr. PRUITT. We are working together with the Corps on a multitude of issues, Congressman, not the least of which is WOTUS. 

But the leadership there has been responsive and so we will take 

that information and make sure that we communicate that to our 

partners. 

Mr. WALBERG. Thank you and I yield back. 

Mr. SHIMKUS. The gentleman’s time has expired. The chair now 

recognizes the gentlelady from California, Ms. Matsui, for 5 minutes. 

Ms. MATSUI. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you, Mr. Pruitt, for being here today. 

Mr. Pruitt, I understand that you and President Trump have decided to reopen the Midterm Evaluation, the greenhouse gas emission standards from model year 2022 to 2025. Can you briefly list 

for us which groups and companies asked you to revisit the evaluation? 

Mr. PRUITT. I wouldn’t say reopen, Congresswoman, necessarily. 

This is, as you know the Midterm Evaluation was supposed to have 

taken place in April of 2018. That is when it was supposed to 

occur. The past administration accelerated that for it to happen in 

December of ’16 into January of ’17. And this was simply a restoration of process to ensure that the midterm review took place consistent with the original understanding. 

Ms. MATSUI. So this is the halfway step, it is not a total evaluation? 

Mr. PRUITT. That is right. 

Ms. MATSUI. OK, all right. OK, so I will go along with you for 

that. I just want to suggest to you though that this half-step evaluation I am somewhat concerned about this because these standards to save consumers particularly dollars at the pumps and reduce oil consumption has been validated many times to reduce 

greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to climate change. And 

the standard is good for American drivers and good for the environment and it is really necessary, particularly because the International Energy Agency found that the transportation sector is the 

only area in which the U.S. has become less energy efficient 

Now I also believe that our country should be investing in clean 

transportation options and many auto companies share my opinion. 

One of our major domestic auto manufacturers recently announced 

it is cutting spending on internal combustion engines and instead 

investing billions of dollars in electric vehicle development. Another 

company plans to release 20 all-electric vehicles in the coming 

years. 

Can you please answer yes or no, do you support efforts to 

strengthen American innovation and manufacturing through electric vehicle R&D and production? 

Mr. PRUITT. It definitely should be a part of the mix, Congresswoman. And I would say this to you as well, the Agency has not 

adequately considered with those standards high octane being used 

as well. There has been a lot of focus on the design of vehicles and 

access to electric vehicles as well, but not as much on the fuel side 

53 

and I think that we need to incorporate that into the discussion as 

well. 

Ms. MATSUI. So you have a plan to support the electric vehicle 

market in the long term? 

Mr. PRUITT. That would definitely be part of the evaluation as 

we head into April of 2018 and we continue in the years ahead, I 

am sure. 

Ms. MATSUI. All right. I am pleased to hear that because EVs 

will be a significant portion of our vehicle mix in the future and 

we need to be positioning the United States to benefit from their 

adoption. 

Mr. PRUITT. We want to ensure, if I may for a second? 

Ms. MATSUI. Yes. 

Mr. PRUITT. We want to ensure that as we set those standards 

that you don’t want people staying in older model vehicles. The 

whole purpose here is to ensure that as the vehicles are manufactured that they meet efficiency levels and outcomes that are important to the environment. 

Ms. MATSUI. I understand. 

Mr. PRUITT. And so if you don’t look at the cross section of issues 

from high octane fuel design and what you have raised, Congresswoman, the very purposes are not achieved. And so we are taking 

all those into consideration as we head into April ’18. 

Ms. MATSUI. OK, certainly. Mr. Pruitt, I am now running out of 

time. Does California currently have a waiver to set its own lightduty vehicle emission standards through 2025? 

Mr. PRUITT. Yes. There is, as you know, a statutory waiver for 

California that is evaluated as part of the midterm review. 

Ms. MATSUI. Right. Is the EPA involving the State of California 

in your review or partial review to a 2022 through 2025 emission 

standards? 

Mr. PRUITT. I missed the first part of the question, I am sorry. 

Ms. MATSUI. Are you involving the State of California in your review of the 2022 to 2025 emission standards? 

Mr. PRUITT. As part of the midterm review the California waiver 

is necessarily a part of that process. 

Ms. MATSUI. OK, great. That is encouraging because I believe 

that the communication of all involved stakeholders is very important. And Mr. Pruitt, can you please answer yes or no. Do you believe that environmental laws envision a cooperative relationship 

between states and the federal government? 

Mr. PRUITT. Yes. 

Ms. MATSUI. In the past you have said that the previous administration was ‘‘aggressive about dictating to the states and displacing their authority.’’ Is this correct? 

Mr. PRUITT. Yes, ma’am. 

Ms. MATSUI. Given your support for states’ rights under federal 

environmental laws, do you support California’s ability to seek a 

waiver to set its own Clean Air Act light-duty vehicle standards? 

Mr. PRUITT. Well, federalism principles, Congresswoman, do not 

say that one state can dictate to the rest of the country the standard for the entire country. So there are a multitude of considerations with respect to the waiver and those we considered in due 

time. 

54 

Ms. MATSUI. That we will definitely work with states in order to 

do this. 

Mr. PRUITT. We have already reached out to the governor of California and are waiting for a response. 

Ms. MATSUI. OK, great. So as I mentioned previously, certain 

auto manufacturers asked for changes to the emission standards. 

Some have specifically asked for flexibilities under the current program. Are you considering providing these types of flexibilities or 

are you also looking at relaxing the standards entirely? 

Mr. PRUITT. As part of that midterm review all things will be 

considered. 

Ms. MATSUI. OK. NHTSA has made—— 

Mr. SHIMKUS. The gentlelady’s time has expired. 

Ms. MATSUI. All right. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. SHIMKUS. The chair now recognizes the gentleman from 

South Carolina, Mr. Duncan, for 5 minutes. 

Mr. DUNCAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Administrator Pruitt, thank you for being here today. This hearing has been extremely informative to me for learning the Trump 

administration priorities within the EPA and I have to say I have 

been extremely impressed and supportive with the EPA thus far 

under the Trump administration and your leadership. You all understand what the intended role of the Agency is and have effectively worked to roll back the bureaucratic overreach and power 

abuses of the Agency under the previous administration. 

Through cooperative federalism you prioritized what should be 

left up to the states when it comes to both energy and environmental matters. The states should be the ones to set their own limits in regards to the environment and I thank you for understanding the crucial role the states and localities play in this process. A quick question about the February 28th presidential executive order on Waters of the U.S., could you inform me of the status 

of that AEO? 

Mr. PRUITT. Yes. On February 28th, the President issued an executive order asking the Agency to review that definition from 

2015. We in fact are doing that. There is a two-step process presently that is ongoing. One is a proposed withdrawal of the Waters 

rule and that is in the marketplace. 

There is comment being taken upon that, in fact the comment 

period is closed. And we have a substitute definition of what a 

Water of the United States is that will come out sometime in April 

of next year. So there is a substantive replacement that is forthcoming and a withdrawal that is already in the marketplace that 

makes up the response to the February 28th executive order. 

Mr. DUNCAN. Thank you. A lot of us were alarmed when we saw 

what was defined as a navigable waterway under the previous administration. A lot of times these were ditches that didn’t hold any 

water, no stream bed, only had water during a significant rain 

event, but yet they were regulated under the Waters of the U.S. 

and that was to the detriment of the developer, the landowner, the 

farmers, and what not. So I thank you and the administration for 

doing that. 

I want to shift gears to ports. The South Carolina port regulated 

by the Ports Authority in South Carolina, our Charleston port, is 

55 

important. One in every 11 jobs in South Carolina is attributed to 

some sort of port activity. So could you explain how under the 

Trump administration the permitting process for ports is carried 

out in a more timely and efficient manner to ensure that these 

ports continue to maintain, be a main economic driver while still 

protecting the environment? 

Mr. PRUITT. Yes, it is not just a port issue, Congressman, but I 

think the permitting process at the EPA has been very inconsistent. I talked about this, this morning, with respect to the ten 

regions and how individuals in Region 8 or Region 6 are being 

treated differently than Region 5 and Region 10. And so we are trying to get processes in place to ensure that there are timely responses. 

A permitting process shouldn’t go on for years and years and 

years, and we have many examples at the Agency where, literally, 

the decision on whether to grant or deny a permit has taken over 

a decade. That is entirely unacceptable. And what we are doing is 

trying to set an outside time limit that a decision will be made up 

or down on whether a permit should issue. 

In fact, I have been told, I mentioned the chief operating officer 

earlier today, it is our goal by the end of 2018 to have processes 

in place to ensure an answer up or down on permits within 6 

months as we go forward. So that is something states are doing 

across the country. It is a major undertaking at our Agency but we 

are trying to reform the processes internally to provide answers 

with more clarity and more certainty. 

Mr. DUNCAN. I applaud you for that and I wish this committee 

had jurisdiction over the Corps of Engineers and we could encourage them to manage river systems in this country on a regional 

basis instead of a one-size-fits-all. Because I can tell you, eastern 

river systems like the Savannah River system is different than 

western river systems, and how the Savannah River Basin is managed from a Corps of Engineers standpoint and possibly even an 

EPA standpoint is different than how a western river system 

should be managed. That is important to my district that has core 

lakes and downstream flows that affect Mr. Carter’s district. 

So Mr. Administrator, I appreciate you being here. With that Mr. 

Chairman, I yield back a minute of my time. 

Mr. PRUITT. Well, if I may, I really appreciate the comment 

about regional variation, because as we look at the Waters of the 

United States rule as an example, I mentioned this earlier today. 

The states have, North Dakota has something called prairie potholes and as I spent time in North Dakota I had never seen a prairie pothole. But that is a unique aspect of that state that needs to 

be taken into consideration as we look at these issues. So I really 

appreciate your feedback. That is the reason we were reaching out 

to governors and these DEQs, DNRs across the country to make 

sure that we are making informed decisions not only on just permitting, but the substantive rules that we are talking about. 

Mr. DUNCAN. Yes. That is critical. I yield back. 

Mr. SHIMKUS. The gentleman yields back his time. The chair now 

recognizes the gentleman from Georgia, Mr. Carter, for 5 minutes. 

Mr. CARTER. Thank you, Mr. Administrator. I appreciate you 

being here today very much. Pardon me? 

56 

Mr. SHIMKUS. My apology, talking to another member here. 

Mr. CARTER. No worries. 

Administrator Pruitt, during the last administration, toward the 

end of the last administration there was a rule that was titled 

Greenhouse Gas Phase 2 Rule for Medium and Heavy-duty Trucks. 

And in my opinion this had a lot of overreach in it because it included regulating truck trailers as self-propelled vehicles. And I 

have introduced legislation to deal with this and I just wanted to 

ask you. 

You issued a statement on this rule back in November and in 

that rule you issued a statement on the review of glider kits, but 

you didn’t include anything about tractor trailers. Do you intend to 

do that? Are you familiar with this at all? 

Mr. PRUITT. I actually appreciate you bringing it to my attention. 

I was aware of the latter that you mentioned but not the former, 

so that is something that I will definitely take a look at. 

Mr. CARTER. OK. I appreciate it because it is something that is 

very important to us, particularly to the tractor trailer industry 

which is a big industry down in our area as well. 

I also wanted to ask you, in my district in the coastal region of 

Georgia, the entire coast of Georgia I have the honor and privilege 

of representing that area. We have got three significant Superfund 

sites, and very briefly can you just bring me up to date where we 

are at with that with the Superfund sites and the status of the program and the improvements you may have made with this? 

Mr. PRUITT. Yes. There were 42 recommendations that we would 

be happy to make available to the committee, but in the month of 

May-June timeframe we commissioned this task force to evaluate 

how we can better manage the Superfund portfolio and out of that 

came 42 recommendations. Those recommendations are being implemented as we speak and the great progress is being made. 

And we are trying to address because there are certain areas, 

and in Portland—I am sorry. I can’t recall the member that 

brought it up this morning, but the City of Portland and the harbor 

there were substantial issues. It was a large area that was impacted. There was progress that could be made in certain parts of 

the Superfund area and not others. And so we made a call to get 

started on those areas, because what has happened historically is 

that we delayed taking any positive action until the entire area 

had been decided upon on how to proceed. 

So we are trying to make those kinds of changes to provide clarity to the communities and also ensuring that we are hearing the 

voices of those cities and towns and citizens about those decisions. 

I think that has been neglected in the past. So there are many 

things we are looking at, but ultimately it is to ensure that we get 

outcomes and we get decisive outcomes and decisions are made and 

responsible parties are held responsible for the harm they have 

caused in those areas. 

Mr. CARTER. Are there any kind of legislative actions that you 

feel like you need that we would be able to make that would help 

you in that area? 

Mr. PRUITT. It is a good question because in the brownfields program as an example this body has been very, very successful with 

respect to changes in the brownfields program. I think there are 

57 

some reusability opportunities with respect to Superfund sites, 

sites that are more marketable going forward. Ultimately, our goal 

in the Superfund portfolio should be to remediate those sites, protect human health, and see those sites redeemed as far as using 

them going forward. And so there may be some things we can work 

on together to adopt a brownfields kind of approach to some of the 

Superfund areas within the portfolio. 

Mr. CARTER. Good. As I mentioned before, I represent the entire 

coast of Georgia, over a hundred miles of coastline. So as you can 

imagine, we have a lot of boaters in that area and our office has 

been getting a lot of calls about the tiers of engine classes that are 

available for specialized boats particularly among the harbor pilots 

and the bar pilots. They are having a lot of trouble with the lack 

of flexibility that is in the framework. 

They have got situations where we have heard requirements of 

them forcing people to, in the scenarios where the manufacturers 

don’t necessarily make an appropriately tiered engine for a boat 

type and they are having a lot of trouble with this and it is causing 

them problems with being able to order these boats. Are you familiar with this or is this something that you have been addressing 

at all? 

Mr. PRUITT. It is not something that I have been privy to as far 

as discussions at the Agency, but I would be happy to look at it. 

Mr. CARTER. OK. And if it is OK I would like my office to be able 

to send you this information so that you can review it because it 

is a serious problem down here. They want to comply and they 

want to do this to do the right thing, but they need some flexibility 

with it as well. 

Mr. PRUITT. OK. 

Mr. CARTER. Thank you, Mr. Administrator. One last question, 

as I understand it, Mr. Administrator, you are from Oklahoma; is 

that correct? 

Mr. PRUITT. Yes, sir. 

Mr. CARTER. Can you say Go Dawgs? 

Mr. PRUITT. It is hard. It is hard. 

Mr. SHIMKUS. I think the gentleman is out of order. 

Mr. CARTER. Out of order. 

Mr. PRUITT. Yes, Boomer Sooner comes out easier. 

Mr. CARTER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back. 

Mr. SHIMKUS. The gentleman yields back his time. The chair now 

recognizes the gentleman from Mississippi, Mr. Harper, for 5 minutes. 

Mr. HARPER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

And thanks so much for being here, Administrator Pruitt, and 

congratulations on a great, almost 10 months I guess that you have 

been in this role. And while I was born in Mississippi, my late father was born in Altus, Oklahoma and grew up there, so we have 

a great affinity for the State of Oklahoma in my household. So I 

appreciate you taking the time to be here and go through this. 

Yesterday, I was appointed chairman of the Subcommittee on 

Oversight and Investigations here in Energy and Commerce, an 

important responsibility that I will now have and I certainly don’t 

take that lightly. Many of the matters that we have reviewed and 

will review will concern the EPA. 

58 

While I cannot comment on the minority’s interest and agenda, 

I can pledge to my colleagues across the aisle and to you that I will 

work with you when at all possible and that in the weeks ahead 

I will be reviewing available information with the chairman of the 

full committee and committee staff to determine our oversight 

agenda regarding the many agencies under the committee’s jurisdiction including EPA. 

I will also work closely with the chairmen of the other subcommittees to identify issues we think deserve focus and attention. 

In addition, I wanted to emphasize that as with all agencies in the 

committee’s jurisdiction, we do anticipate and expect that the EPA 

will cooperate with our inquiries and I hope you, Administrator 

Pruitt, will respect our constitutional prerogatives and will be fully 

responsive to our inquiries and requests for information, and I assume we can count on that. 

Mr. PRUITT. Yes, Congressman. 

Mr. HARPER. Thank you. 

Mr. PRUITT. And it is good to meet you and I am glad to hear 

about your connection to Altus. 

Mr. HARPER. Thank you so much. The Obama administration’s 

EPA rule on wood heaters had two steps. Step one took effect in 

2015 that reduced emissions up to 90 percent. Step two is scheduled to take effect in 2020 and will reduce emissions a bit more. 

The 2015 step one has already gone into effect. 

But the wood heater industry, many of them are having great 

difficulty developing models that meet the 2020 step two standards. 

So one of the things we have looked at is giving more time in a 

matter that was actually marked up yesterday to extend that by 

3 years. Do you believe that it makes sense to give this industry 

a little more time to meet the step two standards rather than seeing companies going out of business and letting workers go? 

Mr. PRUITT. Well, I think it is always helpful, Congressman, in 

response to your question, for Congress to provide those kinds of 

direction to the Agency, and I am glad to hear and encourage that 

this body is looking at that to give us the path forward in that regard. And as that occurs we will make sure we work with you to 

address the issue. 

Mr. HARPER. Many of the customers for these wood heaters, 

many of them will be in the rural areas, many low-income individuals or households. So, it is a feeling I would assume that you 

would agree that the EPA needs to make sure that its rules don’t 

drive up prices unnecessarily. 

Mr. PRUITT. All those things have to be considered in the regulatory process, but I very much appreciate the congressional response as well on those deadlines. 

Mr. HARPER. One last thing in the time we have. Last week, the 

Oversight and Government Reform Committee held a hearing on 

the Regulatory Reform Task Force. During the hearing, Deputy Associate Administrator Bolen testified that retrospective review of 

regulations was nothing new to EPA. What are some regulations 

that have been repealed and what are some others that have been 

proposed but maybe not yet finalized? 

Mr. PRUITT. Goodness. Are you talking about Brittany Bolen? 

Mr. HARPER. Yes. 

59 

Mr. PRUITT. And I am not sure. I haven’t reviewed her testimony, but are there any specific rules or areas that you are concerned about? 

Mr. HARPER. Just wondering if there is something that you have 

got on your radar that we need to be aware of that you are looking 

at. 

Mr. PRUITT. I think that we have been very, regulatory reform 

pursuant to the executive order and that task force is something 

that I think is going to be ongoing as we head into 2018. The agenda that we have spelled out there is very apparent and I think we 

have addressed some of those here today. 

If there are certain rules or regulations that are of concern to you 

or others on the committee, we look forward to that discussion but 

I can’t point to any particular one that hasn’t been discussed already. My apologies in that regard, but. 

Mr. HARPER. Administrator Pruitt, we want to thank you for 

your time and your insight. We look forward to working with you 

in the years ahead. Thank you. 

Mr. PRUITT. Thank you, Congressman. 

Mr. SHIMKUS. The gentleman yields back his time. Just an announcement of my apologies to my colleagues who have been here 

for a long time, the committee rules dictate that members who 

don’t serve on the committee go by seniority on the full committee. 

So with that I recognize the gentleman from Illinois, Mr. Rush, for 

5 minutes. 

Mr. RUSH. I want to thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

And I want to thank you, Administrator Pruitt, for your attendance here. After your confirmation hearing in January you were 

submitted questions for the record asking you to define environmental justice and whether you considered it a serious issue. And 

in your response you seemed to give the issue, in my opinion, short 

shrift as you reported as saying that you were ‘‘familiar with the 

concept of environmental justice.’’ 

You then went on to say in a vague way, and I quote you directly, ‘‘the administrator plays an important role regarding environmental justice.’’ And this statement you repeated 11 times in 

your written response. Then a few months later, after you took 

over the Agency, the former Assistant Associate Administrator for 

Environmental Justice, Mr. Mustafa Ali, an individual who worked 

with my office on several occasions, Mr. Ali resigned in March after 

24 years of service stating that he did not see any indication that 

you or the rest of the Administration are interested in any way in 

helping vulnerable communities. 

I just want to say this is deeply disturbing to me because as you 

know protecting these communities is an essential aspect of the 

EPA’s mission and is one that appears to have been, in my opinion, 

summarily neglected. So Mr. Administrator, how would you 

prioritize EPA’s responsibility to protect the nation’s most vulnerable populations from pollution? Is it a high, medium, or low priority? How would you define it? 

Mr. PRUITT. Congressman, thank you for your comments. And let 

me say to you it is a priority and I will give you feedback. 

Mr. RUSH. Is it a high, medium, or low priority? 

60 

Mr. PRUITT. It is a very important priority at the Agency, and 

I will give you an example. East Chicago, an area that I am sure 

you are familiar with, with respect to a Superfund site there, there 

are threats to water supply and there is a community in East Chicago that has faced those threats for a number of years. 

I traveled to East Chicago, met with members of the community 

there that make up the constituency group, those that have not 

had a voice in some of these areas, and met with them about a 

progress and an answer on that East Chicago area. In fact, we 

have sent staff there multiple times since I left to ensure progress. 

So it is something that I consider an important priority. 

I met with internal members of our team as recently as yesterday, the NEJAC group that meets internal to the EPA on environmental justice, and we talked about these very issues of making 

sure that individuals who historically have not had voice to impact 

outcomes with respect to Superfund or other issues that we take 

that seriously and actually take that into account going forward. So 

it is something that is an important priority going forward. 

Mr. RUSH. So it is an important priority, all right. The record 

shows that you—let me ask you another question then. The record 

shows that you have met either in person or by phone with the API 

on at least three different occasions, on the 28th of June, on the 

29th, and also on the 6th of November. My question to you, there 

is as an individual who is a scientific advisor for the API and her 

name is Ms. Una Blake. Are you familiar with this individual? 

Mr. PRUITT. The name doesn’t sound familiar, Congressman. 

Mr. RUSH. So have you had any occasion to discuss her position 

on hydraulic fracturing? She indicated that hydraulic fracking is a 

health benefit to minority communities, to African American communities specifically and this is in contrast to NAACP study that 

found that many African American communities face an element of 

risk of cancer due to air toxic emissions in natural gas. Are you familiar with the NAACP study? 

Mr. PRUITT. The person to whom you refer, I am not familiar 

with that person. So I am sorry. 

Mr. SHIMKUS. The gentleman’s time has expired. The chair recognizes the gentleman from Virginia, Mr. Griffith, for 5 minutes. 

Mr. GUTHRIE. Thank you very much, Administrator Pruitt. I also 

want to thank you personally for meeting with me earlier this year 

to discuss some of the issues in the 9th congressional district of 

Virginia, and I appreciate that you will continue to work on those. 

One of those that I think that we talked at that time but I want 

to discuss again today dealt with the EPA’s regulations affecting 

medium and heavy-duty vehicles. Now the problem that I have is 

that the prior administration wanted to regulate both the tractor 

and the trailer. 

But the code says that the motor vehicle which is the area where 

the authority comes from, the term motor vehicle means any selfpropelled vehicle designed for transporting persons or property on 

a street or highway, and of course a trailer is not self-propelled. It 

has to have the tractor component and we make both in my district. I have Volvo which makes the tractor and then I have companies that make the trailers and about 2,000 employees just making 

trailers in my district. So it is a very important question. 

61 

And so I guess what I have to ask is, is that with that reading 

of the law—and look, I have to applaud you all for agreeing to reconsider those regulations overall, but at some point the EPA needs 

to either acknowledge that there is no authority over the trailers 

or come and ask Congress for that authority. Do you know how 

long it will take before you get to that point? 

Mr. PRUITT. And I agree wholeheartedly. It is one of those areas 

where the text of the statute is something that governs whether we 

have authority or not and we need to provide clarity on that and 

do it soon and advise Congress if there is a deficiency. So I agree 

wholeheartedly with your position. 

Mr. GRIFFITH. Well, I appreciate that. In fact, one of the folks 

there before said that since you had to have goods in the trailer 

to move anything that that is how they got authority. And I made 

the analogy at the time, well, that gives the EPA the authority to 

restrict the weight of the driver because you can’t drive at least at 

this point until we get to the driverless trucks. At this point you 

have still got to have a driver in the truck and if you are going to 

get to weights and that kind of thing on things that aren’t self-propelled motor vehicles then you can do anything. 

All right. I do want to talk about some New Source Review issues 

and I am concerned that the EPA has been using New Source Review programs inappropriately in the past as a weapon against 

coal-fired power plants using enforcement actions to change the 

way the program is supposed to work and making it hard for these 

plants to do the type of maintenance projects that are needed to 

keep them running reliably and efficiently. 

I have introduced legislation to address this problem. A lot of us 

are hoping that you will help on this. Can you give me some yes 

or no answers to the following questions? One, EPA has taken New 

Source Review enforcement actions against coal-fired power plants 

because they have taken steps to become more efficient. Are you 

aware of this? 

Mr. PRUITT. I am. 

Mr. GRIFFITH. And do you think that this is the way the program 

is supposed to work? 

Mr. PRUITT. I don’t. 

Mr. GRIFFITH. To be more efficient? 

Mr. PRUITT. I don’t. 

Mr. GRIFFITH. Do you think that a power plant should be required to go through a long and costly permitting process before it 

can do something to improve its efficiency including less pollutants? 

Mr. PRUITT. I don’t. 

Mr. GRIFFITH. And do you believe that such a requirement might 

actually discourage plant owners from doing things to make their 

plants more efficient? 

Mr. PRUITT. In fact it is happening across the country. And I 

would say to you, Congressman, we have a task force. I mentioned 

earlier today that Bill Wehrum, who is an AA for air recently confirmed, there is a task force internal to the Agency to address NSR 

steps going forward in 2018. It is a very important area as you 

have indicated. There are companies across this country that seek 

to invest capital to improve emissions and they are very concerned 

62 

if they do that it will trigger new permitting requirements and it 

is a disincentive. And that is not the way that it should work and 

we are trying to address that and believe it is a very important 

issue. 

Mr. GRIFFITH. Well, I appreciate that and look forward to working with you on that issue because I do believe it is a very important issue. And while I do represent a coal district, it is also, I 

think, important for those who are concerned about pollution because we are going to continue to need coal well into the future at 

least at some percentage level to keep our grid reliable. And as we 

use that coal we want to do it more cleanly and more effectively 

and more efficiently and to discourage people from taking on the 

new technology because it might put them out of business is not 

a good idea. 

Mr. PRUITT. We should remember that this is really an issue that 

affects all utility companies that seek to invest monies to improve 

emission outcomes. We celebrate that and encourage that. We don’t 

want there to be disincentives in place to impact that adversely. 

Mr. GRIFFITH. And I know the technology is changing. I am going 

to switch gears on you a little bit. I know the technology has 

changed, but I would like to allay some people’s fears. Every rock, 

every rock system is a little bit different and I know that too, but 

they have been fracking in my district for probably about 40, 45 

years. And so for those people who are afraid of it, if you have the 

right rock and you are taking a look at the ingredients that are 

being put into that rock, I think it can be done very safely. 

Mr. PRUITT. To your point, Congressman, hydraulic fracturing 

itself is not new technology. It has been around for decades. And 

the uniqueness, the shale revolution that has occurred is largely 

because of horizontal drilling combined with the fracking process. 

So—— 

Mr. SHIMKUS. The gentleman’s time has expired. The chair will 

now recognize the gentlelady from Illinois, Ms. Schakowsky, for 5 

minutes. 

Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate being 

allowed to be at this hearing today. 

Thank you, Secretary Pruitt. I have a number of questions so I 

am going to try and push through these. Last Congress, Assistant 

Administrator McCabe appeared before the subcommittee on Digital Commerce and Consumer Protection—I am the ranking member there—to discuss EPA and NHTSA technical assistance report, 

the technical analysis that supported the decision to retain EPA’s 

greenhouse gas standards for the 2022 to ’25 model year cars and 

light trucks. You reopened the midterm review after receiving a request from the auto industry in February, and I have a number of 

questions that may help me understand why you agreed to their 

request. 

So first, let me ask you this. Is there a revised technical report 

that you used as a basis for reopening the midterm review of the 

EPA fuel efficiency standards? 

Mr. PRUITT. The reopening, Congresswoman, was to keep consistent with what was committed on the midterm review when it 

was supposed to happen initially. It was supposed to occur April 

63 

of 2018. This was not a change of that date, it was just a commitment to keep the date that was agreed to at the beginning. 

And that date was not—actually accelerated by the previous administration, December of ’16, January of ’17, so this was just restoring order to the process to make sure that the original date was 

upheld and enforced and it occurred in the time it was supposed 

to occur initially. 

Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. OK. So you are saying there were no changes 

and is that already closed now again? 

Mr. PRUITT. No, the review is ongoing. But the review is ongoing 

because the initial commit was April of 2018. So this is a restoration of process to say that the midterm review should occur pursuant to April 2018 as originally discussed. 

Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. Well, my understanding is that it was already 

approved in the last Congress. So in answer to my question, is 

there a revised technical report that you used as a basis for reopening and is it—— 

Mr. PRUITT. The Agency accelerated the review process inconsistent—— 

Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. All right. 

Mr. PRUITT [continuing]. With the original understanding and 

this was a restoration of that process. 

Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. So let me ask you this. I would like to know 

if you agree or disagree with the information your agency provided 

to us at that time, that is, last Congress. I don’t have any—— 

Mr. PRUITT. What timeframe is that? What timeframe would that 

be as far—— 

Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. So that was in September of 2016. Do you 

agree or disagree with the information that your agency did provide, now your agency, provided to us at that time? 

Mr. PRUITT. I think my comment is what I said earlier, Congresswoman. It is consistent with the commitments were made that the 

midterm review would occur in April of 2018. 

Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. OK. So I am a bit confused, because Ms. 

McCabe testified that the EPA found that fuel efficiency technology 

development was moving faster than they had expected and is 

being implemented in the early years of the program. Has this 

finding changed? 

Mr. PRUITT. I am not aware, Congresswoman. 

Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. The EPA found that to meet the proposed 

standards automakers do not have to manufacture and sell large 

numbers of hybrids and electric vehicles. The Agency projects that 

the 2022 through ’25 standards can be met largely with more efficient gasoline powered cars. Has this finding changed? 

Mr. PRUITT. That will be part of the review that occurs in April 

of ’18. 

Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. So all of these are dependent on a review that 

was opened earlier than expected. In other words you decided—— 

Mr. PRUITT. The Agency concluded their process, Congresswoman, inconsistent with the original timeframe that was established and we have restored that process. So this review that you 

are referring to will occur and culminate in April of 2018. 

Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. OK, so we are going to be interested then. And 

the transportation sector accounts for a third of the total greenVerDate Nov 24 2008 16:03 May 29, 2018 Jkt 037690 PO 00000 Frm 00067 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 I:\MY DOCS\HEARINGS 115\HEARINGS\115-85 CHRIS
64 

house gas emissions in the United States. With light-duty truck vehicles making up more the 60 percent of the emission standards in 

that sector, the EPA found in that original review that these standards are a critical part of any program to reduce greenhouse gases. 

Would you agree and do you expect that that finding may change? 

Mr. PRUITT. The progress made in the mobile source category has 

been significant and the auto industry has made significant 

progress over the years. That is why the process matters and we 

are going to go through that and it will culminate in April of ’18. 

Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. And EPA and NHTSA found that the average 

cost increase for a car by 2025 due to the standards will be about 

$1,200 and that that cost would be offset by an estimated fuel cost 

savings of about $1,900. Are you aware of that finding that there 

would actually be a savings in the cost of a car? 

Mr. PRUITT. The vehicle emissions and efficiencies are dramatically more than people anticipated several years ago so there has 

been great progress as I indicated. 

Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. The gentlelady’s time has expired. The chair 

now recognizes the gentleman from Florida, Mr. Bilirakis, for 5 

minutes. 

Mr. BILIRAKIS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate it. Thanks 

for letting me sit in on the subcommittee as well. And I thank you 

for your testimony, Administrator, and your patience. 

Administrator Pruitt, this subcommittee recently held a hearing 

regarding the status of the hurricane response in Florida, Texas, 

Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands. A key issue of concern was 

how EPA addressed the Superfund sites both in advance of and in 

the wake of the hurricanes. This is a big priority for me because 

in my district I have the Stauffer Chemical Company Superfund 

site. 

I want to thank you for having your staff be so responsive again 

during and leading up to the hurricanes as well. I appreciate that 

very much. Can you walk us through EPA’s process to secure 

Superfund sites before and after a hurricane and how does EPA coordinate with state and local agencies? 

Mr. PRUITT. Thank you, Congressman. And there are assessments that are made in conjunction with governors, Governor Abbott in Texas, the Florida governor, Governor Scott. That is going 

to be bad because he is going to call me a little bit later. 

Mr. SHIMKUS. And I knew it. I am from Illinois, so. 

Mr. PRUITT. The governor of Florida and the governor of Texas, 

we were in conversations with them leading up to the hurricanes 

in both instances to talk about how to secure those sites. So you 

have conversations that are ongoing with responsible parties, the 

governors in those states, the DEQ, DNR at the state level. 

There is a pre-assessment on whether proper steps are being 

taken to secure those sites, and there is constant evaluation during 

the storms. And then postscript a determination whether there has 

been any release. So it is both a pre-, during, and post process that 

occurs with those states and members of our agency. 

Mr. BILIRAKIS. OK, thank you. Again the Stauffer—— 

Mr. PRUITT. Governor Scott is a great governor. 

Mr. BILIRAKIS. And Governor Scott—I will repeat it. Governor 

Scott is a great governor and did a great job during—— 

65 

Mr. PRUITT. He is. And I will say he showed tremendous leadership. In fact, I will tell you with respect to the fuel waivers that 

occurred, access to fuel is a key issue for citizens during those 

kinds of storms and working with Governor Abbott in Texas and 

Governor Scott in Florida we were able to address that in a 

proactive way to ensure better access to fuel during those storms 

and Governor Scott was a tremendous leader in that regard. 

So I really commend his leadership, the leadership of the State 

of Florida, the DEQ there, but also in the State of Texas as well. 

Mr. BILIRAKIS. Ditto. I agree. OK, the current status of the 

Stauffer site, the Superfund site that I referred to earlier, is better 

than most of the sites on the national priority list in that the remedy is largely in place and the most recent 5-year review found 

that the remedy was protective of people and the environment. I 

know that not all sites on the National Priorities List are in such 

good shape. I have a couple questions for you about the Superfund 

cleanup program if I may. Number one, how does EPA plan to 

work through the sites on the National Priorities List and how does 

EPA prioritize existing sites on the National Priorities List? 

Mr. PRUITT. We have had some changes at the Agency to address sites that are over $50 million, because historically regions have 

been the primary place where that has been decided and we have 

had inconsistency on large sites based upon it being a region by region evaluation. And so what we did is institute a change that on 

sites of over $50 million, that would actually be a decision made 

at headquarters to ensure greater consistency and uniformity and 

urgency to address those sites. 

So that is ongoing based upon the task force recommendations 

that came out in June of this year, as I previously referred to that. 

And the other thing we are looking at is to ensure that if we have 

sites as I indicated earlier that have the ability to be cleaned up 

partially, where it is a large site and we can make progress, instead of waiting until there is a remedy or proposed remedy for the 

entire site, we are trying to address those hot spots, if you will, 

throughout the process to get some clarity and success, if you will, 

through the cleanup process. So those are just a couple of examples. 

But the Superfund program, overall, in my view, has lacked a 

sense of focus, a sense of leadership and management over making 

decisions. It is really unacceptable for an agency to take decades 

to make a decision on how you clean up sites. I would love to tell 

you that that is an isolated situation at the Agency. It has not been 

historically. 

I have had individuals in the Land and Emergency Management 

Office that have been in EPA for a number of years that really appreciate how we have vitalized that area and really focused in this 

and they look forward and are actually making a difference in as 

early as the time we have been in there. 

Mr. SHIMKUS. I am going to ask my colleague to yield back that 

time so we can get—and also make an announcement that they are 

going to call votes real soon. We are going to try to drive through 

our last colleagues. And with that—— 

Mr. TONKO. Mr. Chair? 

Mr. SHIMKUS. Yes. 

66 

Mr. TONKO. Yes, just quickly. If I might ask the Fumes Across 

the Fence-Line issued by the Clean Air Task Force and NAACP 

referenced by Congressman Rush be entered into the record. 

Mr. SHIMKUS. Without objection, so ordered. 

[The information appears at the conclusion of the hearing.] 

Mr. SHIMKUS. And the very patient Kathy Castor is recognized 

for 5 minutes. 

Ms. CASTOR. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Pruitt, I appreciate the work that the EPA professionals out 

of Region 4, the work they did before and after Hurricane Irma, so 

thank you for that. 

Mr. PRUITT. They worked very diligently. 

Ms. CASTOR. But clean water and clean air are vital to our economy in Florida. And I had to choke a little bit when you called our 

governor a great governor, because one of the things—and I wasn’t 

going to mention this. One of the things he has done is to deny the 

rising cost of the changing climate. Florida is probably one of the 

most impacted states when it comes to that, looking at flood insurance, property insurance, property taxes from these extreme weather events and hurricanes. 

And I hope that EPA was not taking a page out of Governor 

Scott’s book. Governor Scott at one point prohibited folks at our environmental agencies from using the term climate change at all 

and also scrubbed websites. And now you have an unfortunate, now 

you are laying down that same legacy and I think that is unfortunate as well. To be great you have to great things and work in the 

public interest and not for private interests. And—— 

Mr. PRUITT. I think the Governor did exercise tremendous leadership during the hurricanes. And—— 

Ms. CASTOR. On climate he has been a denier and that is a problem and that is going to cost us dearly in the State of Florida. Mr. 

Pruitt, prior to becoming administrator of EPA you served as attorney general of Oklahoma. In that role you sued the EPA repeatedly, in fact, 14 different times fighting clean air protections, fighting clean water protections. 

And interestingly, the CEO of one private company, Murray Energy, was a co-plaintiff in 8 of the 14 lawsuits. You also acted with 

other energy companies and special interests such as Peabody Energy, Southern Power Company, the American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers, Oklahoma Gas & Electric, and others. 

How many of these groups have you met with during your 10- 

month tenure at the EPA? 

Mr. PRUITT. Look, the claims that were made by those companies 

were separate from the claims of the states—— 

Ms. CASTOR. No, just answer that question because we have limited time. 

Mr. PRUITT [continuing]. And the state interest. 

Ms. CASTOR. How many times have you met with those companies? 

Mr. PRUITT. I don’t know, Congresswoman. 

Ms. CASTOR. All right, so please submit that information for the 

record. These groups also reportedly contributed money to you or 

your political action committees. Murray Energy CEO Bob Murray 

was a top donor to your Super PAC. In fact, according to the NaVerDate Nov 24 2008 16:03 May 29, 2018 Jkt 037690 PO 00000 Frm 00070 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 I:\MY DOCS\HEARINGS 115\HEARINGS\115-85 CHRIS
67 

tional Institute on Money in State Politics, you have received over 

$345,000 in campaign contributions from these fossil fuel interests. 

You previously served two terms as chairman of the Republican 

Attorneys General Association, correct? 

Mr. PRUITT. That is correct. 

Ms. CASTOR. And Murray Energy donated not only to your Super 

PAC but also to the RAGA. In fact, in 2014, press report describes 

a ‘‘secretive alliance between energy firms and attorneys general,’’ 

according to this report, under your leadership at the RAGA that 

set up a separate entity called the Rule of Law Defense Fund 

which could accept unlimited anonymous donations from companies 

benefiting from your lawsuits. 

Under this arrangement, fundraising reportedly skyrocketed. The 

report also states that ‘‘the work in Mr. Pruitt’s office has sometimes seemed to blur the distinction between his official duties and 

the advancement of his political career.’’ And I have to be frank. 

Many of us are very concerned that you continue to blur the distinction between your official duties and your political ambitions. 

You pledged that while you are administrator you would recuse 

yourself from any active cases where Oklahoma is a party/petitioner/intervener; is that correct? 

Mr. PRUITT. I have, in fact. 

Ms. CASTOR. So given your extensive history of suing the Agency 

you now oversee and the vast amounts of money you have raised 

from the fossil fuel industry, offering to recuse yourself from only 

active cases and only cases from where Oklahoma, itself, is a party 

is grossly inadequate. So will you commit to recusing yourself from 

cases involving your past co-litigants and donors to the Rule of Law 

Defense Fund? 

Mr. PRUITT. It has not been inadequate according to the ethics 

official at the EPA who is a career employee. And that—— 

Ms. CASTOR. So you are saying you will not commit today? 

Mr. PRUITT. I follow the advice of counsel. 

Ms. CASTOR. So yes or no, you will not—— 

Mr. PRUITT. Mr. Chairman, if I may. 

Mr. SHIMKUS. The time is the gentlelady’s from Florida, so. 

Ms. CASTOR. So I understand—— 

Mr. PRUITT. If I may. 

Mr. SHIMKUS. Well, let the gentlelady ask her question. 

Ms. CASTOR. So if you cannot do that you will cement your legacy 

as one who serves the powerful special interests and not the public 

interest. I am also deeply concerned that you have not recused 

yourself from regulatory proceedings on specific rules you have previously targeted despite the fact that your position on the issue is 

clearly already established. Will you commit to recusing yourself 

from rulemakings and other regulatory actions that were the subject of your past lawsuits? 

Mr. SHIMKUS. The gentlelady’s time has expired. The chair now 

recognizes the gentleman from Maryland for 5 minutes. 

Ms. CASTOR. He can answer that. 

Mr. SHIMKUS. The gentlelady’s time has expired. The chair recognizes the gentleman from Maryland. 

Mr. PRUITT. No, you don’t, Congresswoman. These issues have 

been addressed by the ethics official at the EPA. 

68 

Mr. SHIMKUS. The gentleman will suspend. The chair recognizes 

the gentleman from Maryland. 

Mr. SARBANES. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for being 

here, Mr. Pruitt, and staying until the end. 

President Trump has promised the American people he and his 

administration would drain the swamp in Washington, overturn, 

‘‘decades of special interest dealing.’’ Do you agree that as EPA administrator your job is to protect public health and the environment by serving the public interest and not wealthy special interests? 

Mr. PRUITT. A very key mission of the Agency. 

Mr. SARBANES. Yes. 

Mr. PRUITT. Yes. 

Mr. SARBANES. That is a yes answer. The Democracy Reform 

Task Force, which I am privileged to chair, has been monitoring 

the Administration’s progress with respect to draining the swamp. 

And as you might suspect from the title of our most recent report, 

it is still swamped and it is only getting deeper. We didn’t want 

to do this report, but we felt compelled to do it when we looked at 

all of the ethical lapses that exist within this administration. 

On March 30th you met with CropLife America which is a trade 

association run by several large pesticide companies including Dow 

Chemical; is that correct? 

Mr. PRUITT. If that is what the calendar reflects. 

Mr. SARBANES. OK. This was a day after you denied a sciencebased petition to ban a widely used pesticide tied to developmental 

delays in children and that action was strongly supported by Dow 

Chemical, which I will mention donated a million dollars to President Trump’s inaugural committee. On April 26th you met with 

Southern Power, one of the nation’s largest coal-burning utilities, 

and had dinner with Alliance Resource Partners, a major coal mining company. Is that also correct? 

Mr. PRUITT. If that is what the calendar reflects. 

Mr. SARBANES. Well, I think that is what the calendar shows. 

Since then, the EPA has announced that the Agency will consider 

rolling back rules that protect mining communities from toxic coal 

ash, and Alliance Resource Partners CEO donated almost $2 million to elect the President. I am not mentioning this stuff as a 

gotcha thing. I am mentioning it because it really makes a lot of 

Americans anxious when you consider the conflicts of interest that 

this suggests. 

Let me turn now to a topic of importance to my home State of 

Maryland, if I can, the Chesapeake Bay Program. In your confirmation hearing before the Senate Environment and Public Works 

Committee, you commended the state and federal partnership to 

restore the Chesapeake Bay and you committed to enforcing the 

Bay pollution diet or the TMDLs; is that correct? 

Mr. PRUITT. That is correct. In fact, Senator Cardin and I had 

wonderful conversations during that process. 

Mr. SARBANES. Yes, I am going to get to that conversation you 

had with the senator. Despite the fact that as Oklahoma attorney 

general you sued the EPA challenging the Bay TMDLs previously, 

you also pledged with Senator Cardin that you would support the 

federal government’s role in Chesapeake Bay partnership through 

69 

funding critically important programs and supporting the 

grantmaking role of EPA; is that correct? 

Mr. PRUITT. Yes. 

Mr. SARBANES. You would say that is correct. And yet if you look 

at the President’s fiscal year 2018 budget, it completely eliminated 

the Chesapeake Bay Program at EPA. Now we have pushed back 

against that, but that is hardly a follow-through on the pledge that 

you made to Senator Cardin and the statements that you made 

about the Chesapeake Bay Program. So that is not standing up and 

enforcing the TMDLs, making the grants that we need to support 

Bay restoration. It appears rather that under your leadership that 

commitment is being zeroed out. 

Mr. PRUITT. I think, Congressman, that the comments that I 

made during the appropriations process should also be referenced, 

which I spoke to members of this body as well as the members of 

the Senate on the very issue and expressed my commitment. 

Mr. SARBANES. I appreciate that. What I guess I am looking for 

is a follow-through on the original commitment that you made in 

the sense of fighting back inside the Administration and saying 

programs like the Chesapeake Bay Program are valuable, the funding needs to be there. Don’t just rely on Congress to restore these 

things, which by the way we have tried to do on a bipartisan basis 

demonstrating the commitment to the program here—— 

Mr. PRUITT. Those discussions happen. 

Mr. SARBANES [continuing]. But become an ally of ours—— 

Mr. PRUITT. Those discussions in fact have taken place historically. 

Mr. SARBANES [continuing]. In that respect. OK. Well, I appreciate you continuing to do that. Let me finish real quickly to speaking to Executive Order 13770, which relates to ethics commitments 

by executive branch appointees, which requires, ‘‘every executive 

agency appointed on or after January 20th, 2017, agency employee 

to be contractually committed to an ethics pledge;’’ is that correct? 

Mr. PRUITT. Yes. 

Mr. SARBANES. Yes. And that pledge stipulates that Administration appointees are prohibited for 2 years from the date of their appointment from participating in any matter involving specific parties that is directly or substantially related to the former employer 

or former clients including regulations and contracts. 

Executive Order 13770 states that appointees have a 2-year cooling off period in terms of handling matters related to their previous 

lobbying. But I am concerned that several of your personnel decisions deviate from those guidelines. There is a growing list of appointees at EPA that appear to have substantial conflict. 

Mr. SHIMKUS. The gentleman needs to wrap it up. 

Mr. SARBANES. So I hope that you will bring some real attention 

to these conflicts as we move forward and I yield back my time. I 

thank the chairman for allowing us to participate off the committee 

and I would ask for unanimous consent to submit these Still 

Swamped—— 

Mr. SHIMKUS. Yes. Without objection, so ordered. 

[The information appears at the conclusion of the hearing.] 

Mr. SHIMKUS. And you are welcome. The chair recognizes the 

gentleman from Iowa, Mr. Loebsack, for 5 minutes. 

70 

Mr. LOEBSACK. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I do appreciate the opportunity to be here today. 

And Administrator Pruitt, I am sorry I haven’t been able to meet 

you yet, even though I am from Iowa and I know you were just 

there last week. Thank you for coming to Iowa. I am sure that you 

heard a lot about the RFS while you were there. I know you have 

heard a lot about it since you have been administrator. We have 

bipartisan concerns in Iowa, as you well know, about the RFS in 

making sure that the Administration lives up to what the RFS demands and what the statute says we should be doing. And I am 

a Democrat but I also held the Obama administration accountable. 

I probably wore my Do Not Mess with the RFS button to the White 

House on one occasion and talked about that with folks there. 

The renewable fuels industry as you know, including biodiesel, 

supports over 40,000 jobs in Iowa. And simply put, I think the RFS 

works for Iowa. I think it works for America. I think it works to 

make sure that our economy grows when it comes to jobs. I think 

it works for our environment. And there is no question that it 

works for our energy security, because when we are able to produce 

biofuels I think that contributes to a reduction in our dependence 

on foreign oil and I think that is really, really critical. It is a security issue as much as it is an economic issue. 

During your confirmation hearing, you affirmed without question 

your belief that Congress intended for the RFS to increase the 

amount of renewable fuel blended into our transportation fuel supply, yet on November 30th as you know you finalized the 2018 RVO 

that lowers the amount of cellulosic biofuels called for in the statute and flatlines biodiesel volumes. I have the numbers in front of 

me here as well. 

How can you explain these actions when it is clear that these two 

industries have enormous potential for growth? 

Mr. PRUITT. By the way, Congressman, the visit to Iowa last 

week was very good. I enjoyed the conversation with your constituents. I met with my farmers and ranchers on this issue along with 

others and it was a very good dialogue. And I think as you look 

at the volume obligations you reference cellulosic, as you know 

under the statute there is a waiver authority that is given to the 

EPA to address production levels. The most we have ever produced 

domestically is around 190 million, 190 million gallons of cellulosic. 

The Agency has routinely set those levels higher than that and we 

did this year as well. I think it was around 280 million gallons of 

cellulosic. So it is in excess of production levels that we have seen. 

Mr. LOEBSACK. After you increased it by 50 million over your 

previous proposal, the light proposal. 

Mr. PRUITT. That is right. 

Mr. LOEBSACK. But actually it is down 23 million from last year. 

Mr. PRUITT. It is, but it is—— 

Mr. LOEBSACK. Far short of what the statute calls for. 

Mr. PRUITT. But the statute calls for billions of gallons to be— 

and that waiver authority is there for a reason. Congress gave it 

to us to address real market issues, production and demand, and 

that has been utilized in that area. With biodiesel we did keep it 

flat. There is some consideration that it is 2.6 billion as far as capacity, but we never breached the 2.1 billion in production. In fact, 

71 

we imported about 700 million gallons last year from Argentina. So 

that is the reason those were flatlined and we discussed those 

numbers in Iowa last week. 

Mr. LOEBSACK. And a lot of us that issue is with the logic of 

what you are saying, and I understand what you are saying and 

I have heard that from Gina McCarthy as well as from you. But 

I think a lot of us in Iowa and other places have real concerns 

about the logic of those statements. I will move on. 

When it comes to the Reid vapor pressure issue, I know that is 

something that EPA is looking into. I have introduced legislation 

along with Adrian Smith, bipartisan legislation—that is what is 

great about the RFS, I think, is we have bipartisan support for the 

RFS—to lift the restrictions on the sale of E15 in the summer 

months. I am a strong supporter of doing that. 

And this is something as you know that will put more biofuels 

into the market. It will help to stabilize the RIN market as well, 

I believe, create jobs, support farmers, and quite frankly I think 

consumers are demanding it. I think if we had more infrastructure 

out there, if we had more opportunities for E15, I know at least in 

Iowa but I think around the country, folks would in fact buy the 

E15. 

I know you have talked about a legislative fix achieving that 

goal. Members of this Administration including your deputy administrator have indicated that the RVP fix can be made through the 

administrative process through EPA and that EPA is committed to 

completing the analysis. Can you update us at this point where you 

are in that analysis? 

Mr. PRUITT. Well, I am not sure to whom you refer as far as the 

deputy, but I will say to you that I have been personally involved 

in the evaluation of the statutory authority for us to grant a national waiver 12 months a year and it is something we are evaluating, but that has not been concluded yet. 

Mr. LOEBSACK. I really hope that you will move in that direction, 

then we wouldn’t have to have a legislative fix. It is clear that the 

demand is there for that and it is clear that I think what was done 

previously by the EPA was the wrong way to go. So I would look 

forward to you moving forward on that. 

Mr. PRUITT. What I would say to you is I appreciate that and I 

would say to you that as I shared with the folks there in Iowa on 

Friday, if the statute permits us to do that we will proceed that direction, if it doesn’t we will advise Congress. 

Mr. LOEBSACK. All right, thank you very much. And thank you, 

Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. SHIMKUS. The gentleman yields back. I thank my colleagues. 

Seeing no further members wishing to ask questions, I would like 

to thank our witness again for being here. 

Mr. PRUITT. Thank you, Chairman. 

Mr. SHIMKUS. We have a unanimous consent request. Earlier 

today we entered into the record a 2012 letter response to the committee from Administrator McCarthy regarding policy decisions 

concerning the use of particulate matter. This information was also 

entered into the record of an EPA hearing last year along with the 

initial committee letter and EPA’s supplemental response. 

72 

To ensure this hearing is just as complete, I ask unanimous consent to enter the full correspondence surrounding that letter into 

the hearing record as well. Without objection, so ordered. 

[The information appears at the conclusion of the hearing.] 

Mr. SHIMKUS. Pursuant to the rules, I remind all members that 

they have 10 business days to submit additional questions for the 

record and ask the witnesses to submit their responses within 10 

days of receipt of the questions. Without objection, the committee 

is adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 4:34 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.] 

[Material submitted for inclusion in the record follows:] 

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