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EPA Administrator Says Industry is a Necessary Partner
In a recent interview with CBS, EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt discussed his first year in the position and his approach to leading the agency going forward. Specifically, Pruitt noted how the EPA could improve its environmental regulation by working with industry to better understand their capabilities and develop more effective action plans.
“This paradigm that says we have to choose industry over the environment or the environment over industry is the old way of thinking,” Pruitt told CBS.
Under Pruitt, EPA recently launched what it calls the Smart Sectors Program designed to engage industry during the regulatory process to better understand their supply chains, operations, and capabilities.
“We should be about stewardship and we should be about partnership,” Pruitt said. “Now, I will tell you as a former attorney general, I’ve led a grand jury. I’ve prosecuted bad actors. And I will tell you, if we have companies, industries, citizens who violate the law, we are going to prosecute them and we are going to hold them accountable. But we should not start from the premise that all people are that way or that all industries are that way. That is just simply wrong-headed. And it doesn’t achieve good outcomes.”
EPA has said that the changes will help increase long-term certainty and predictability, improve access to sound science and data, and allow for more innovative solutions to address environmental issues.