Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman issued the following statement on the confirmation of Scott Pruitt as Administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency:
“Today, Congress confirmed a dangerously unqualified candidate to lead the EPA. Scott Pruitt has shown a deep and abiding contempt for the agency he will lead and the environmental laws he is now charged with enforcing.
“Pruitt’s record on environmental protection is shameful. He has repeatedly sued the very agency he will now lead in an effort to undermine fundamental clean air, clean water and climate change protections. Many of his lawsuits remain pending with the courts – and, troublingly, Pruitt is refusing to recuse himself from those matters.
“Job number one for the EPA is enforcing our country’s environmental laws. Yet while serving as Oklahoma Attorney General, Pruitt refused to enforce the law against companies that polluted the state’s air and water, instead doing the bidding of the oil and gas industry at the expense of public health.
“Let me be clear: my office will stand firmly in the way if Scott Pruitt and the Trump administration threaten to gut the progress we’ve made in protecting our environment and tackling the dire impacts of climate change. We won’t hesitate to protect New Yorkers – even if that means stepping up enforcement ourselves, and bringing litigation against the federal government – because too much is at stake.”