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Choice Of Scott Pruitt To Run EPA Frustrates Some Oregonians

<p>Pruitt has sued the EPA for everything from the Clean Power Plan to the Clean Water Act.</p>

Sue Ogrocki

Pruitt has sued the EPA for everything from the Clean Power Plan to the Clean Water Act.

President-elect Donald Trump’s choice of Scott Pruitt as head of the Environmental Protection Agency, has ruffled some feathers in Oregon.

He’s sued the EPA for everything from the Clean Power Plan to the Clean Water Act.

But Pruitt’s assertion that it was states, and not the EPA, that were intended to be the nation's foremost environmental regulators, has antagonized Frank Potter.

He’s now retired and living in Portland. But Potter worked for Congress in the 1970s and helped draft the National Environmental Policy Act.

Potter says polluters back then were large companies that were too big to be controlled by one state, and a federal agency was needed to regulate them.

Scott Pruitt is part of a group of Republican attorney generals to form an alliance with some of the nation’s top energy producers, to push back against the Obama administration’s regulatory agenda.

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Kristian Foden-Vencil is a reporter and producer for Oregon Public Broadcasting. He specializes in health care, business, politics, law and public safety.