Stand with Montana: Confirm Scott Pruitt

The new year and new administration in Washington, D.C., offer new opportunities for Montana. Perhaps the most important of these is the chance for Montana to once again chart its own energy future. That opportunity to regain control starts with President Trump’s choice as head of the EPA, Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt.

The debate over Pruitt’s nomination in the United States Senate has a direct impact on workers’ paychecks in places like Colstrip and for family budgets across the state. By leading the way on legal challenges to costly regulatory schemes, Attorney General Pruitt’s actions in Oklahoma helped Montana.

Especially over the past four years, Montana communities have faced challenges in controlling their own destiny under an onslaught of federal rules, leasing moratoriums, and activism from special interest groups.

Pruitt has a clear record of protecting jobs and advocating for more affordable and reliable energy. His steadfast adherence to the rule of law has generated outrage from groups who are more interested in advancing their agenda than they are in the economic security and health of Montana communities.

Opposition to Pruitt is coming from the same groups who sued to shut down Colstrip units 1 and 2. Montanans should put little stock in the hollow statements of these special interest groups. They clearly do not have the best interests of our state in mind.

Special interest groups like the Sierra Club will stop at nothing to impose their ideology — regardless of its human impacts or things like the basic rule of law. These organizations championed President Obama’s so-called Clean Power Plan — a plan that according to a study from the University of Montana would “be the most significant economic event to occur in Montana in more than 30 years” and cost the state thousands of jobs and over half a billion dollars in lost wages, tax revenue and economic activity per year.

Mr. Pruitt successfully halted the advance of the Clean Power Plan and the ideological crusade when he sued against the rule, and the U.S. Supreme Court granted a stay against the Clean Power Plan last year.

This is just one example of Mr. Pruitt’s record of representing the rule of law and the ability of states to govern themselves without Washington’s heavy hand. As Oklahoma’s attorney general, Scott Pruitt sued the federal government over a dozen times. He has been a consistent and principled voice arguing that process and local input matters and that the president’s pen and phone do not give the White House the ability to ignore the law and override state authority.

Furthermore, Mr. Pruitt represents an opportunity to bring accountability to an agency that has gone lawless. Despite dumping 3 million gallons of toxic waste into the Animas River in Colorado, no one from the EPA is being charged with a crime. The EPA even refused to pay for the damage they caused, going so far as to deny money to the Navajo Nation for the cost of shipping in water while the tribe’s water supply was tainted by the spill.

Pruitt’s nomination is not about politics. It is about restoring balance between a federal agency and local actors. It is about holding the EPA to the same standard they demand of others.

Attorney General Pruitt stood up to the federal behemoth on sound constitutional principles when it threatened Montana. I can think of few more qualified or more experienced to push back against federal overreach. Mr. Pruitt has been a champion for the states and for Montana. He deserves swift confirmation.

Brent Mead, a native of Sidney, is CEO of the Montana Policy Institute, www.montanapolicy.org.