EPA Chief Scott Pruitt Resigns After String of Scandals
*By Alisha Haridasani*
Scott Pruitt, the embattled chief of the Environmental Protection Agency, resigned Thursday afternoon, following months of scandals about his spending practices and a trail of questions about possible ethical violations.
“I have accepted the resignation of Scott Pruitt,” President Trump tweeted on Thursday. “Within the Agency Scott has done an outstanding job, and I will always be thankful to him for this.”
In remarks to reporters aboard Air Force One Thursday, Trump said the decision to resign was Pruitt's alone. "He felt that he did not want to be a distraction for an administration that he has a lot of faith in," Trump said.
Pruitt’s deputy, Andrew Wheeler, will be the new acting chief of the EPA, who the president described as "a very environmental person."
Pruitt’s deputy, Andrew Wheeler, will be the new acting chief of the EPA, the president said.
In the resignation letter that Pruitt sent to President Trump, he said "it is extremely difficult for me to cease serving you in this role."
But he then said, "the unrelenting attacks on me personally, my family, are unprecedented and have taken a sizable toll on all of us."
Pruitt has been accused of a [seemingly unending list](https://www.cnn.com/2018/04/06/politics/scott-pruitt-controversies-list/index.html) of offenses, including misusing taxpayer money to fly home on a private jet, enlisting his aides to help his wife find a job or find a particular moisturizer, renting out a condo ー at a discount ー from a health care lobbyist, and installing a $43,000 sound-proof phone booth in his office.
Despite his scandal-ridden tenure, his resignation came as a surprise to many in Washington because just a day prior to the announcement, Pruitt celebrated the July 4th holiday at the White House.
Pruitt, a former Oklahoma attorney general, made a name for himself by suing the very agency he would end up leading, urging the EPA to roll back regulations. That stance, which pleased many Republicans, is the reason he managed to cling on to his job for over a year despite the scandals, said Phil Wegmann, writer at the Washington Examiner.
"He was doing a good job of deregulation, of beating back a lot of the policies of the Obama administration had put in place," he said.
"If you filter out all of the personal scandals, he's not doing a bad job in the eyes of this administration."
But the fact that the ethical scandals eventually caught up to him signals that there is a limit to how much conservatives were willing to ignore, said Wegmann.
"Eventually it was just too much and he got the boot."
His replacement, a former coal lobbyist who is likely to pursue the same regulatory rollback agenda as Pruitt, may not clean up the EPA's act and instead might find himself involved with "corporate cronyism," said Wegmann.
"This is like replacing the fox in the hen house with a wolf in the hen house."
For the full segment, [click here.](https://cheddar.com/videos/epa-chief-scott-pruitt-resigns)
The U.S. cannabis industry is on track to hit almost $25 billion in sales, according to New Frontier Data. Vivien Azer, managing director and senior research analyst at Cowen, and Russell Stanley, managing director and equity research at Beacon Securities Limited, join Cheddar News to give their predictions for the budding industry in 2022.
Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore. 3rd District), the co-chair of the Congressional Cannabis Caucus, joined Cheddar's "Cannabiz" to discuss the state of marijuana legalization on the federal level as more states continue to greenlight medical and adult use. He stated that there couldn't be a better time to revise the old policies on marijuana with more than 90 percent of Americans, including a majority of Republicans, on board. "This tidal wave of support continues. There were five states that approved in the last general election, and I think, rather than one single event, it is this momentum and the demonstration of broad public support that is making the difference," Blumenauer said.
Megan Horneman, Director of Portfolio Strategy at Verdence Capital Advisors, joins Cheddar News' Closing Bell, where she says there is some profit-taking ahead of the upcoming Fed meeting, and elaborates on some of the topics investors will be watching for more closely this week.
Rachel Bachman, senior sports reporter at the Wall Street Journal, joins Cheddar News' Closing Bell, where she explains how U.S. athletes have been inserted into the middle of a political debate after the country declared a diplomatic boycott of the upcoming Olympic Games in Beijing.
Lance Ippolito, Head Trader at the Future Of Wealth, joins Cheddar News' Closing Bell where he discusses the factors that have contributed to the recent slide of major cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ether.
President Biden spoke with Russian President Vladimir Putin for the fourth time this year. Biden and Putin spoke for two hours about the massing of Russian troops and materials near the Russian border with Ukraine. Various outlets have reported that the U.S. has intelligence that Russia could be planning an invasion of Ukraine in the next few months. Both countries said the call was productive, but the situation remains tense.
Hagar Chemali, foreign policy expert and host of "Oh My World!" on YouTube, joins Cheddar Politics to discuss.
A recent Wall Street Journal poll indicated that Hispanic voters are up for grabs for the upcoming midterm elections, with 41 percent of respondents saying they would vote for Democrats and 44 percent for Republicans. Bryanta "Bre" Maxwell, a Democratic Strategist, former political director for Jaime Harrison's senate campaign, and principal and CEO of Indigo Consulting, LLC, joined Cheddar to break down the numbers and to dive into what this specific electorate is looking for as the balance of power in Congress hangs in the balance in 2022.
