WASHINGTON, D.C. – Oregon’s Senator Jeff Merkley, a member of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, released the following statement after the Committee held a hearing to consider the nomination of Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt to head the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA): “I asked Mr. Pruitt why he
Democrats don’t have the votes to stop Scott Pruitt’s confirmation, but they signaled at his hearing Wednesday that they will seek to damage him politically as much as possible. Pruitt was hammered for his record as Oklahoma’s attorney general, including his fundraising from fossil fuel companies and lawsuits against the
Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt (R) will not promise to recuse himself from lawsuits he brought against the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) if confirmed as the agency’s administrator, he told the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee on Wednesday. The admission came in a testy exchange with Sen. Edward Markey
President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee to lead the Environmental Protection Agency came out swinging at his confirmation hearing Wednesday, defending, before facing a single question, his deep ties to oil and gas companies. “We must reject as a nation the false paradigm that if you’re pro-energy, you’re anti-environment or if you’re
U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkley has spent the morning grilling Donald Trump’s pick to head the Environmental Protection Agency, Oklahoma Attorney General, oil-industry shill and climate-change denier Scott Pruitt. Merkley is one of seven Democrats on the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, which Pruitt must clear before his appointment
As attorney general of Oklahoma, Scott Pruitt worked closely with the fossil fuel industry in his state. So closely, in fact, that when Devon Energy, one of Oklahoma’s biggest oil and gas companies, emailed him a draft letter in 2011 opposing a federal effort to limit methane gas leaking from
With just three days until President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration, the State Department on Tuesday announced a half-billion-dollar contribution to the United Nations’ Green Climate Fund, part of $3 billion the United States has promised to the fund under President Obama. That’s on top of another $500 million transferred last March, meaning the United
Oregon’s Senator Jeff Merkley, a member of the State and Foreign Operations Appropriations Subcommittee and a new member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, released the following statement after the State Department announced a $500 million contribution to the Green Climate Fund (GCF). The GCF is an international multilateral fund
In a Senate Foreign Relations Committee confirmation hearing yesterday, U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) posed a series of questions about climate change to President-Elect Donald J. Trump’s nominee for secretary of state, the former Exxon-Mobil CEO Rex Tillerson. Merkley noted that Oregon’s forests are burning more often because of climate-related
Oregon Sen. Jeff Merkley on Wednesday questioned U.S. secretary of state nominee Rex Tillerson, a former chief executive at Exxon Mobil, about his views on climate change and the oil company’s business dealings with countries under U.S. sanctions. Merkley asked Tillerson, a Donald Trump appointee who took questions from the
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