Pruitt Says ‘War on Coal’ Was a Real War….Defends Move to End It

As head of the Environmental Protection Agency, former Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt’s defending his decisions in recent days to end the Obama-era ‘war on coal’ and its ‘sue and settle practice.’

Interviewed Tuesday on Fox News with Neil Cavuto, Pruitt cited the Obama administration’s ‘war on coal’ as overreach by the government, something he has long argued even in the days when he was the attorney general of Oklahoma.

“As we look at the overreach, the overreach of the Clean Power Plan, a war on a sector of our economy—–it was a real war,” said Pruitt. “You shouldn’t as a regulator engage in any kind of war on any sector of the economy.”

Instead, Pruitt argued regulators should look at the decisions made by utility companies based on stability and the cost of using all forms of fuel from natural gas to coal to renewables in the generation of electricity.

“I think from a mining sector perspective, they would say I think it was not just the competition in the market place, but a veiled purpose by the previous administration to place burdens and restrictions on them,” added Pruitt.

The interview occurred a day after the EPA Administrator also declared an end to the practice of ‘sue and settle’ to get around the constitution.

“Any agency in the federal government that engages in substantive rule making through the judicial process is abusing their authority under the statute and that is what we ended,” he said.

 

Listen to the interview on Fox News with Neil Cavuto.