Nan Hayworth: Pruitt ‘Will Be Confirmed’ to Lead EPA

Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt “will be confirmed” as administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, former Rep. Nan Hayworth (R-NY) told Breitbart political editor Matt Boyle on the January 7th edition of the Breitbart News Saturday program heard on Sirius XM Patriot Channel 125.

Bureaucrats at the EPA are “in for an adjustment in accordance with what the Constitution has so wisely decreed for all of us . . . which is that the federal government has to defer to the rights of the states and the people,” Hayworth added.

“Scott Pruitt as Attorney General of Oklahoma is an environmentalist, an outdoorsman. He has said that we have to be good stewards, great stewards of our environment, that human activity does have a role in our environment,” she noted.

“But, we have to honor the science, honor and respect the data, and respect the fact that the federal government has a limited role. The states and the people have to be respected, and we have to have an economy that works. The EPA can’t promulgate rules that don’t make sense for the economy,” she added.

Hayworth also pointed out that Pruitt’s constitutional approach explains why he has bipartisan backing in the Senate.

“That’s why he’s got the support of Democrats like Sen. Joe Manchin (W-V). Joe Manchin is a common sense Democrat who has joined many senators, including those on the Republican side, in supporting Scott Pruitt,” she said.

Hayworth cited the Waters of the United States [WOTUS] regulation promulgated in 2015 as a particularly egregious example of EPA’s regulatory overreach.

“Look at a rule like the Waters of the United States, which basically decrees that any puddle or pond on someone’s land actually becomes part of navigable waters in the United States,” she said, adding:

The EPA’s purview legally as granted by the law is navigable waters, meaning waters that flow, that you can put a vessel on or a craft on, that flow between states, and apply broadly to the federal purview, not puddles or ponds on people’s land.

A farmer in any part of the country…if they have a pond on their land they could have to pay upwards of $270,000 to get a permit from the EPA to manage the pond.”

It doesn’t make sense. It’s job killing, it’s unfairly burdensome, and it’s not constitutional.

Under Scott Pruitt as EPA administrator that kind of excessive burden will be lifted in a common sense way.

Pruitt was one of several state attorneys general who successfully challenged both the WOTUS regulation and the EPA’s carbon dioxide regulation for coal fired utility power plants, also called the Clean Power Plan, in federal court. Enforcement of those regulations have been stayed in a ruling by the Supreme Court and another ruling by a federal Appeals Court.

Several far left Democrat senators, as well as a host of extremist environmentalist groups, are gearing up in an attempt to stop Pruitt’s confirmation in Senate hearings that will begin next week.

“They are outside the mainstream, but they’re outside the mainstream because they have gone far beyond common sense,” Hayworth said of left wing senators, like Minority Leader Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and others, who have vowed to oppose Pruitt’s nomination.

“That was the whole result of this election, as you know. President-elect Trump is where he is because the American people refused to capitulate to the far left,” Hayworth said.

“The American people want to be able to work, they want to be trusted to have the common sense to manage their own land, to respect their air and water and land, and that’s what Scott Pruitt will do,” she added.

Pruitt, Hayworth argued, is a strong defender of the environment, but he does so in the right way for the right reasons.

“In Oklahoma he defended the air and water and land of Oklahoma against polluters. There were utility companies who were polluting. He went against them. He went against them in the way the state of Oklahoma is empowered to do,” Hayworth noted.

As a resident of New York, Hayworth has seen first hand the damage excessive regulations at both the state and federal level can do.

“I can tell you in New York, we are suffering from much higher energy prices than we should. Small businesses are closing, families are having trouble living here because the rules for New York State even go beyond common sense,” she pointed out.

“There’s a happy balance, and that’s what Scott Pruitt will achieve for us,” Hayworth added.

Pruitt is among several of President-elect Trump’s cabinet nominees who have been making the rounds visiting the members of the Senate who will be voting at their confirmation hearings next week.

“Scott Pruitt in typical fashion, of course, has been extremely conscientious. He’s been meeting with senators in the Capitol throughout the past several weeks,” Hayworth said.

“He has the support of the Midwestern Senators caucus. He has [the support of] Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV), as you know. Senators Joni Ernst (R-IA) and Chuck Grassely (R-IA) have stated their strong support,” she noted.

“Scott Pruitt will be confirmed. It’s as sure a thing as you can get in these days,” Hayworth concluded.

Hayworth, a Princeton graduate and an opthalmologist, served one term in Congress from New York, winning the 2010 election. She narrowly lost to Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney (D-NY) in both the 2012 and 2014 general elections to represent New York’s 18th Congressional District.