Two days ago our commander in chief tweeted about how proud he is of our head of the EPA and what a great job he’s been doing. For this post I decided to cover a news article posted on CNN about Senator Susan Collins’ thoughts on the current EPA administrator Scott Pruitt. Collins called Pruitt the “wrong person” for the job since he continues “to undermine the Clean Power Plan or weaken the restrictions on lead or undermine the methane rules.” Collins is a Republican senator from Maine, so her comments about the controversial Trump-appointed administrator come as somewhat of a surprise. The article, written by Kate Sullivan, focuses on Pruitt’s scandalous history and fellow Republican John Kennedy’s view of him. A link within the article detail these scandals, which mostly include Pruitt’s excessive spending on travel and leisure. I thought this article was important because so much of what we talk about in this class is about the importance of environmental policy. Policies like the Clean Water Act and the Clean Power Plan are vital to our fight against climate change and unhealthy pollution. These policies aren’t the most friendly to large industries, however, since they force them to have to spend more time and money on ensuring fewer emissions or more responsible cleanup. I think that it is noteworthy that people in prominent positions of power are questioning Pruitt’s allegiance to the environment and community health (the literal reason the EPA was created). As a society we need to transition away from fossil fuels and harmful industrial practices, so it would help to have an EPA administrator who doesn’t have controversial ties to big businesses that benefit from deregulation. This article was intended to bring more attention to Pruitt’s famously questionable qualifications to lead the EPA, which has been yet another controversy entangled within the Trump administration. I remember when Trump first appointed Pruitt and how much of a big deal it was, since Pruitt had previously tried to fight and sue the EPA. Now, he’s the head of the department he once despised, so it’s easy to see why public confidence in him isn’t that great.

I realize this article is from CNN. Although hardly fake news, CNN is known for having certain biases. The information in this article provided by Sullivan seem factual since most of the information comes directly from interviews with senators. I think the author clearly intended for her audience to agree with the senators about Pruitt, given the fact that she titled the article “Pruitt the ‘wrong person to head the EPA’” instead of “Scott is doing a great job.” Regardless of the bias, Pruitt’s list of controversies had detailed sources and should be concerning to anyone worried about the future of environmental protection policies.

A link to the full article: https://www.cnn.com/2018/04/08/politics/collins-pruitt-state-of-the-union-cnntv/index.html