Republicans have so corrupted EPA, Americans can only save it in the voting booth | Dana Nuccitelli

The Republican Party values polluter wealth over public healthLike Donald Trump and the rest of his administration, Scott Pruitt has been caught up in so many scandals that it becomes impossible to focus on any single act of corruption. It’s difficult to focus on the damage Pruitt is doing to the environment and public health when seemingly every day there’s a new scandal related to his illegal $43,000 phone booth, or use of Safe Water Drinking Act funds to give two staffers a total of $85,000 in raises (and lying about it), or his sweetheart deal on a condo rental from a lobbyist’s wife (and lying about having met with that lobbyist), or wasting taxpayer funds on first class air travel and military jets, and a nearly $3m per year security detail, and bulletproof car seat covers, and a bulletproof desk, and so on.Number of federal investigations into Scott Pruitt has now risen to 11. Reps. Beyer & Lieu say EPA inspector general will take up an inquiry into the $50-a-night condo rental from the wife of an energy lobbyist.If his actions continue in the same direction, during Pruitt’s term at the EPA the environment will be threatened instead of protected, and human health endangered instead of preserved, all with no long-term benefit to the economy.I do have a bias. I’m all for the coal industry, the fossil fuel industry. Wealth is what makes people happy, not pristine air, which you’ll never get.People in the fossil fuel industry could see the deterioration. There is some hope we are seeing the economy start to rebound, thanks to you and the administration taking this fight on.Pruitt should be replaced by a principled leader who will do what the EPA was intended to do: protect America from men such as Pruitt. Continue reading...