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E. Scott Pruitt as U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator

Oklahoma Attorney General E. Scott Pruitt is being considered for the post of U.S. Environmental Protection Agency administrator. This is good news for the Texas oil and gas industry as well as for Texas royalty owners. He seems like a great choice because of his balanced approach. He has been quoted as saying that “We can simultaneously pursue the mutual goals of environmental protection and economic growth, but that can only happen if EPA listens to the views of all interested stakeholders, including the states, so that it can determine how to realize its mission while considering the pragmatic impacts of its decisions on jobs, communities, and most importantly, families.” Committee chair John A. Barrasso said in his opening statement that 24 state attorneys general wrote him to express support for Pruitt.

For the last eight years, the EPA has been quite literally running amok. Officials at the EPA have enacted regulations that exceed the scope of the EPA’s authority from Congress in the form of the Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act. Congress has the obligation and the procedure to cancel these regulations, but completely failed to do so. The EPA has brought lawsuits against individuals for what the EPA considered to be infractions of these unconstitutional regulations, causing these individuals to incur attorney’s fees and court cost expenses that they could not afford, only to find these lawsuits dismissed later by a court as unfounded.

The need for a balanced approach is critically important to both the environment and the economy and hopefully Mr. Pruitt can bring this approach to his new role.