http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/39753-pruitt-emails-reveal-communications-with-alec-and-koch-groups
Pruitt Emails Reveal Communications With ALEC and Koch Groups
Tuesday, March 07, 2017 By David Armiak, PR Watch | Report
Emails released to the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) reveal close
ties between Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt, the Koch-funded
American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), and the fossil fuel
interests that fund ALEC, including the Kochs' Americans for Prosperity
Group.
The emails were obtained after the Center for Media and Democracy filed
an open records lawsuit against Pruitt for his two-year-long failure to
respond to our open records requests for his email correspondence with
major fossil fuel corporations. The court ordered Pruitt to release
thousands of emails which are now online and available for public
inspection, but CMD is still in court seeking to obtain 1,600 pages
withheld and responses to eight additional open records requests.
Pruitt an ALEC Alumnus Who Kept in Touch
Pruitt was an Oklahoma state senator from 2002-2007. As a legislator,
Pruitt chaired the ALEC Civil Justice task force in 2003 and perhaps
other years. ALEC is a corporate bill mill where legislators and
industry lobbyists work together behind closed doors to draft
industry-friendly bills that are then introduced in state houses across
the nation as "innovative" public policy stripped of their industry origins.
But Pruitt touted industry influence as a plus in an interview. "ALEC is
unique in the sense that it puts legislators and companies together and
they create policy collectively," Pruitt said.
One cookie-cutter bill approved by ALEC's Civil Justice task force in
2003 was the Asbestos and Silica Claims Priorities Act. It is one of
many ALEC bills geared toward protecting the deadly asbestos industry
and companies that don't protect their workers from known asbestos or
silica hazards. The bill increases the burden on a person bringing a
lawsuit alleging an asbestos and silica-related injury.
Asbestos-related diseases kill at least 10,000 Americans every year, in
many cases from mesothelioma, an incurable and painful cancer caused by
exposure to asbestos. For decades, asbestos was used for insulation and
industrial purposes, and the diseases particularly affect veterans,
firefighters, construction workers, and individuals who worked in
factories with high-heat machinery. In Wisconsin, veterans groups have
been some of the most vocal opponents of the legislation: veterans make
up just 8 percent of the population, but are 30 percent of mesothelioma
cases.
Crystalline silica is also deadly. It can be found in sand, gravel, and
stone as well as sidewalks and building materials. Silica dust has been
classified as a human lung carcinogen and results in fatalities and
seriously disabling illnesses. According to OSHA, silica exposure
"remains a serious threat to nearly 2 million U.S. workers, including
more than 100,000 workers in high risk jobs such as abrasive blasting,
foundry work, stonecutting, rock drilling, quarry work and tunneling."
ALEC wants to make it harder for injured workers or their families to
seek compensation.
Other bills approved by ALEC around that time include:
Jury Patriotism Act (2002-2003)
Notice and Opportunity to Repair Act (2003-2004)
Drug and Alcohol Defense Act (2002-2003)
Constitutional Guidelines for Punitive Damages Act (2003)
After Pruitt became attorney general, he stayed engaged with ALEC on
energy and environmental issues. ALEC is funded by a number of big
polluters including Devon Energy, Peabody Energy, Koch Industries, and
ExxonMobil. In 2014, the New York Times won a Pulitzer Prize after it
filed an open records request and exposed the fact that Pruitt received
a letter from Devon, put it on his state letterhead, and sent it to the
EPA. The Devon lobbyist lauded this move as "Outstanding!"
A February 2013 email from Amy Anderson, the ALEC Civil Justice task
force staffer, asked for the AG's digital signature for an ALEC letter.
Pruitt's office zipped over the signature minutes later. The letter was
not disclosed. Another email from Anderson to Pruitt and others,
provides details of Pruitt's participation in an energy workshop at
ALEC's May 2013 meeting. Included in the email was an invitation to "a
reception on the evening of the 3rd at the Petroleum Club." The
Petroleum Club is a swank private club for industry executives at the
top of the Chase Tower in downtown Oklahoma City. Anderson also
requested Pruitt's attendance at a luncheon sponsored by Koch Industries
because it "would be delightful to have our current legislative members
benefit from his experience as a former state legislator, an ALEC member
and a now attorney general."
Pruitt spoke at a December 2013 ALEC meeting on a panel called
"Embracing American Energy Opportunities: From Wellheads to Pipelines."
Now we know from the Pruitt emails that he was invited to speak at ALEC
by an industry lobbyist named Peter Glaser, a partner at the law firm
Troutman Sanders LLP. Glaser has represented Peabody Energy and other
energy companies fighting EPA efforts to address climate change.
In 2014, Pruitt spoke at another ALEC meeting that was sponsored by
Peabody Energy, ExxonMobil, Chevron, and the American Coalition for
Clean Coal Electricity (ACCCE). During his speech about the President
Obama Clean Power Plan, Pruitt touted a line that polluting industries
would love: "Beyond the regional haze case, we have something on the
horizon, something more troubling. And that's the proposed rule under
111(d) with respect to CO2 regulation. We have an EPA that is engaged in
rulemaking, proposed rulemaking, that seeks to exert itself in a way
that the statute doesn't authorize at all." Pruitt would join a group of
states in a legal attack on the Clean Power Plan, a historic effort to
rein in power-plant pollution by one-third over a span of years.
Keeping Up With the Kochs as Oklahoma Attorney General
The stack of Pruitt emails received by CMD reveal email exchanges
between Aaron Cooper, Director of Public Affairs for the attorney
general's office and Matt Ball, Oklahoma State Director for Americans
for Prosperity (AFP), the right-wing political advocacy arm of the Koch
political empire.
July 2013 emails show Ball organizing an August 22 event featuring
Pruitt, Sen. James Lankford (OK-R), and William Yeatman, a senior fellow
at the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI). Both Lankford and CEI
have received Koch funding. In organizing the event, Ball helpfully
instructs the AG's staff on what he wants Pruitt to say,
"Frankly, I just assume the AG and Lankford talk sue and settle, how the
EPA is deploying these tactics and what their respective offices have
done on oversight and litigation, and let Yeatman from CEI give an
objective analysis of costs to ratepayers from revised state
implementation plan on regional haze (which includes the PSO rate
increase). That way you guys don't have to deliver those messages and
can focus on what the AG does best, opposing the Obama administration
and its nasty tactics on the environment." Industry groups and the U.S.
Chamber of Commerce claim that agencies like EPA are "regulating"
outside the normal rule making process when they are sued by
environmentalist groups, like Greenpeace and Sierra Club, for not
following the law and then settle those lawsuits in legally binding,
court ordered agreements without inviting states or industry to participate.
Cooper promptly responds, "I think that what be good from our
standpoint." Ball, on August 14, sends an email with the final schedule
detailed in which he praises Pruitt for "all they are doing to push back
against President Obama's EPA and its axis with liberal environmental
groups." Pruitt led a group of state attorneys general in suing the EPA
for its correspondence with environmental groups.
In another email, Ball requests a same day meeting with Pruitt's Chief
of Staff and Assistant Attorney General, Melissa Houston and she agrees
to meet him the next day in the AG's conference room. The fractured
emails do not indicate what the meeting was about.
Yet another email from December 2013, invites Dean Kuckelman, Senior
Counsel, Litigation and Discovery, for Koch Companies Public Sector to a
conference call with two of Pruitt's assistant attorneys general and the
Solicitor General. The topic of the conference is not known. This email
followed an email from Kuckelman to Houston with an attachment produced
by the American Tort Reform (ATR) entitled, "Judicial Hell Holes." The
Kochs share ATR's goals to make it harder for consumers to sue over
products and services that kill or injure people. Judicial "hell holes"
refer to states where it is easier for consumers to sue or unite in
class action suits against giant, deep-pocketed corporations.
This is only a small sampling of the emails between Koch and ALEC staff
and Pruitt staff, CMD is fighting for 1,600 pages withheld by Pruitt's
office in the lawsuit and additional emails, which will likely shed
further light on these meetings and relationships.
The cozy relationship between Pruitt, the Kochs, ALEC crew, and the big
polluters who fund ALEC will no doubt continue as Pruitt begins to
dismantle the EPA.
Upon his appointment ALEC released a statement lauding Pruitt and
claiming that Trump has "found just the right person to bring fresh
leadership and much-needed reform to an agency currently out of control.
Anyone who values striking a balance between sensible environmental
regulations and the rule of law should delight in Pruitt's appointment."
While the corporate-fueled ALEC may be delighted, Americans concerned
about the future of America's lakes, bays, rivers, and more find
Pruitt's close relationship with polluters not very charming.