How the new EPA chief will impact EHS management

February 21st, 2017 by Dakota Software Staff Industry News

The Senate confirmed Scott Pruitt as chief administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency on Feb. 17, filling a vacancy that came along with the new presidential administration taking office. Pruitt, who relinquished his position as attorney general for Oklahoma following a six-year stint, is perhaps best known on the national level for fighting a variety of EPA regulations in his former role. With a strong EPA opponent now controlling that same organization, there's plenty of potential for the federal environmental regulator to change significantly and for the impacts on industrial businesses to be substantial as well.

Who is Scott Pruitt?
Understanding Pruitt's background and previous interactions with the EPA can shed some light on the organization's future and how it plans to interact with businesses. Possessing undergraduate degrees in political science and communications, Pruitt also has a law degree from the University of Oklahoma. After completing that course of study, Pruitt stayed in Oklahoma, a profile from Law Street Media said. He started a private practice focused on business law that operated for five years before he began his involvement in politics with a successful campaign for a seat on the Oklahoma Senate in 1998.

Pruitt remained involved in politics ever since, although he didn't hold an elected office between the end of his state senate service in 2007 and election as attorney general in 2010. He filled that time in part as the managing general partner of a minor-league baseball team based in Oklahoma City, a responsibility he relinquished after winning the attorney general position.

The six years Pruitt spent as attorney general were marked by an attitude that the federal government generally oversteps its bounds and places undue stress on states and businesses. In one of the top states in terms of oil and natural gas production, that meant a lot of Pruitt's attention was focused on the EPA. He fought against the Clean Power Plan and a number of similar initiatives, often working closely with businesses.

The New York Times highlighted Pruitt's especially strong ties to energy businesses, noting that the then-attorney general collaborated with representatives from those organizations to draft documents and policy considerations. As a skeptic of man-made climate change, Pruitt has also made statements about leaving or invalidating the country's role in the Paris Agreement and the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. However, Pruitt has also more recently distanced himself from climate change doubt, the Chicago Tribune said. His statements and actions once in office may provide a clearer picture of his current feelings about that issue.

The potential future of the EPA
It's clear that Pruitt's selection will likely lead to major changes for the agency in charge of federal environmental regulations. President Donald Trump has previously made statements indicating a desire to substantially change the EPA, to the point of reworking its structure and function entirely or even eliminating it. While it's unlikely that the agency will be completely dismantled, major changes are a near certainty.

For businesses, this major regime change means a different EPA going forward. With a substantially more pro-business slant, it's likely the EPA will spend less time developing regulations that require major changes and costs for industrial companies. There's also Trump's edict about new regulations that stretches across all federal agencies and departments, which bars the development of any new rules unless two old ones can also be removed, as well as discussions around reduced funding for the EPA's Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance (OECA). With all of these new considerations in play, EHS managers must be prepared for even more uncertainty as major EPA and DOL policy and procedural changes seem likely.