Scott Pruitt says EPA could begin rolling back Obama rules next week
At a speech and a question-and-answer session conducted at the Conservative Political Action Conference, Scott Pruitt, the new head of the EPA, said the agency could begin rolling back Obama-era rules as early as next week.
“There are some regulations that in the near term need to be rolled back in a very aggressive way,” Pruitt said. “In the next week you may be hearing about some of those.”
Pruitt didn’t specify which rules he would target but was adamant that the Environmental Protection Agency consistently overstepped its regulatory authority under the Obama Administration.
“The future ain’t what it used to be,” Pruitt told CPAC attendees.
“Executive agencies only have the power that Congress has given them,” Pruitt said. “They can’t make it up as they go. They can’t fill in the blank.”
Pruitt said he wants to offer businesses “regulatory certainty.”
He also claimed the Obama administration focused on CO2 emissions and global warming at the expense of the EPA’s core mission — to ensure clean air and water.
“I really believe that at the end of eight years, we’re going to have better air quality, we’re going to have better water quality,” he said.
Though Pruitt didn’t specify which rules will be rolled back, it’s expected President Trump will sign documentation on Monday calling on the EPA to scrap the agency’s Clean Power Plan and Waters of the U.S. policies.
The Clean Power Plan was formulated to reduce CO2 emissions from electricity generation. The Waters of the U.S. rule expanded the definition of waterways subject to EPA regulations.
