Tag: Scott Pruitt

Fact Check: These Statements by Trump’s Cabinet Don’t Match Policy

The following article by Linda Qiu was posted on the New York Times website June 13, 2017:

Source: Wikipedia (public domain)

Members of the White House cabinet took turns praising President Trump at a gathering on Monday, adopting the commander in chief’s evaluations of himself. Their mimicry was not limited to a day of flattery; several have also adopted Mr. Trump’s rhetorical style of doubling down on false claims and pushing so-called alternative facts.

At least four Trump administration cabinet secretaries have defended austere budget cuts and policy shifts at their departments with misleading statements in congressional testimony and other official settings. Here’s an assessment. Continue reading “Fact Check: These Statements by Trump’s Cabinet Don’t Match Policy”

Misleading rhetoric from President Trump and the EPA administrator about the coal industry’s comeback

The following Fact Checker article is from the Washington Post’s email newsletter of that name dated June 9, 2017:

Is this the renaissance of the coal industry? President Trump and Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt sure make it sound like it is. But the facts tell a different story. This week, we dug into two talking points by Pruitt and Trump on coal jobs and mines reopening.

Pruitt said in one interview: “We’ve added almost 50,000 jobs in the coal sector. In the month of May alone, almost 7,000 jobs.” The problem: There are only about 50,000 jobs in coal.

In other interviews, Pruitt more carefully referred to “mining and coal” or “coal jobs, mining jobs.” Notice how Pruitt emphasizes “coal” while trying to slip in a reference to “mining.”

That’s because Pruitt is actually using mining jobs figures going back to October 2016 — a net gain of 47,000 (and net gain of 6,600 from April to May 2017). Since Inauguration Day, the net gain of mining jobs is nearly 33,000.

But most of the gain in “mining” jobs has nothing to do with coal. So, rather than the gain of 47,000 jobs touted by Pruitt, the reality is that 1,000 coal jobs have been added since Trump became president. For the month of May, the gain was 400 jobs, not 7,000.

We awarded Pruitt Four Pinocchios.

Are coal mines reopening, as Trump says? 

Last week, we told you about the many false or misleading claims by Trump in his speech announcing the U.S. withdrawal from the Paris agreement on climate change. This week, we took a deeper look at one claim we didn’t fact-check the night of his speech.

Trump said the Paris agreement “effectively blocks the development of clean coal in America,” hurting the future of the U.S. coal industry, which is actually starting to open up mines for the first time in many years. Is that true?

The agreement doesn’t actually block U.S. ability to develop “clean coal,” which isn’t actually a thing. He’s referring to a specific technique called carbon capture and storage, which has been developing in the United States even after it entered the Paris agreement in 2015.

Are mines reopening? Certain ones are. And these mines are not the focus of the Paris agreement. They produce metallurgical coal, which is used to make steel. The Paris accord focuses on thermal coal, which is burned for steam to produce heat and electricity. We awarded Three Pinocchios.

Pruitt’s claim that ‘almost 50,000 jobs’ have been gained in coal

The following article by Glenn Kessler was posted on the Washington Post website June 6, 2017:

“Since the fourth quarter of last year until most recently, we’ve added almost 50,000 jobs in the coal sector. In the month of May alone, almost 7,000 jobs.”
— Scott Pruitt, administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” June 4, 2017

“We’ve had over 50,000 jobs since last quarter — coal jobs, mining jobs — created in this country. We had almost 7,000 mining and coal jobs created in the month of May alone.”
— Pruitt, interview on ABC’s “This Week,” June 4 Continue reading “Pruitt’s claim that ‘almost 50,000 jobs’ have been gained in coal”

EPA chief, rejecting agency’s own analysis, declines to ban pesticide despite health concerns

The following article by Brady Dennis was posted on the Washington Post website March 29, 2017:

Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt called chlorpyrifos “crucial to U.S. agriculture.” (Melina Mara/The Washington Post)

The new head of the Environmental Protection Agency refused Wednesday to ban a commonly used pesticide that the Obama administration had sought to outlaw based on mounting concerns about its risks to human health.

The chemical compound chlorpyrifos, also known as Lorsban, has been used by farmers for more than a half-century to kill pests on crops including broccoli, strawberries and citrus. The EPA banned its spraying indoors to combat household bugs more than a decade ago. But only in recent years did the agency seek to ban its use in agriculture, after mounting scientific evidence that prenatal exposure can pose risks to fetal brain and nervous system development. Continue reading “EPA chief, rejecting agency’s own analysis, declines to ban pesticide despite health concerns”

Pruitt Disbelief in Global Warming

The following letter to the editor was submitted to, but did not appear in, the Minneapolis Star Tribune March 10, 2017:

Did I just mishear a comment by Scott Pruitt, the new GOP approved EPA Administrator, on CNBC regarding his disbelief in the science of global warming and the impact of human generated greenhouse gases on the planet?

I thought I heard him say: “I think that measuring with precision that the earth is round is something very challenging to do and there’s tremendous disagreement about the degree of roundness, if any. So no, I would not agree that it’s primarily round as we see it. We don’t know that its round yet. We need to continue the debate if its round and continue the review and the analysis.”

This reminds me of a line from Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl – “You’re off the edge of the map, mate. Here there be monsters.”

J. Albers

E.P.A. Head Stacks Agency With Climate Change Skeptics

The following article by Coral Davenport was posted on the New York Times website March 7, 2017:

Scott Pruitt, the Environmental Protection Agency administrator, last month. He built a career suing the agency he now leads. Credit Stephen Crowley/The New York Times

Days after the Senate confirmed him as administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, Scott Pruitt appeared at the Conservative Political Action Conference and was asked about addressing a group that probably wanted to eliminate his agency.

“I think it’s justified,” he responded, to cheers. “I think people across the country look at the E.P.A. the way they look at the I.R.S.”

In the days since, Mr. Pruitt, a former Oklahoma attorney general who built a career out of suing the agency he now leads, has moved to stock the top offices of the agency with like-minded conservatives — many of them skeptics of climate change and all of them intent on rolling back environmental regulations that they see as overly intrusive and harmful to business. Continue reading “E.P.A. Head Stacks Agency With Climate Change Skeptics”

Twitter Facebook Comment Email Republish Donate 5 Trump Cabinet Members Who’ve Made False Statements to Congress

The following article by Eric Umansky and Marcelo Rochabrum was psoted on the ProPublica website March 2, 2017:

Attorney General Jeff Sessions isn’t alone.

Betsy DeVos, secretary of education, Jeff Sessions, attorney general and Steve Mnuchin, treasury secretary, listen as President Donald Trump speaks during a joint session of Congress Feb. 28, 2017 (Jim Lo Scalzo/Pool via Bloomberg)

As most of the world knows by now, Attorney General Jeff Sessions did not tell the truth when he was asked during his confirmation hearings about contacts with Russian officials.

But Sessions isn’t the only one. At least four other cabinet members made statements during their nomination hearings that are contradicted by actual facts: EPA Chief Scott Pruitt, Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin, and Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price.

The statements were all made under oath, except those of DeVos. It is a crime to “knowingly” lie in testimony to Congress, but it’s rarely prosecuted. Continue reading “Twitter Facebook Comment Email Republish Donate 5 Trump Cabinet Members Who’ve Made False Statements to Congress”