"California Sues for Answers About Pruitt's EPA Stewardship"

"California Attorney General Xavier Becerra sued the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to compel it to say what steps were taken to ensure its rule making and procedures remain impartial even as it’s led by a man who opposed the EPA in at least a half dozen lawsuits while serving as Oklahoma’s attorney general.

Scott Pruitt took over the agency in February after six years as Oklahoma’s top law officer. During that time he was among the first to legally challenge the Clean Power Plan, President Barack Obama’s initiative to substantially wean the U.S. off fossil fuels by 2030. He also participated in challenges to EPA rules aimed at reducing smog-causing ozone and methane as well as curbing other power plant pollutants.

'Upon his swearing in at EPA, Administrator Pruitt became the head of the agency responsible for implementing the very same rules that he had been working to overturn just moments earlier,' Becerra said in a lawsuit filed Friday in federal court in Washington, D.C.

Becerra is seeking a court order compelling the agency to respond to his state’s Freedom of Information Act request for records showing what steps EPA took to ensure Pruitt’s compliance with federal ethics rules and who can assume Pruitt’s powers in the event he’s disqualified from participating in a matter or recuses himself."

Andrew M Harris reports for Bloomberg August 11, 2017.