“I am excited about being in a city that actually has a Major League Baseball team,” he said, using his new hat as a prop. But once McCabe stepped aside, he relaxed as cameras broadcast his address to 15,000 EPA staffers nationwide. Half a head shorter than many members of Trump’s Cabinet, a bit stocky, and balding on top, Pruitt didn’t visibly command the space. He appeared uncomfortable sharing the spotlight as he stood next to McCabe, I saw him fidgeting with his glasses, his eyes shifting between her and the audience while she read a version of his biography that omitted the lawsuits. The other was an EPA pin, which she advised he should “proudly wear…on your lapel as you represent the agency.” Pruitt considered the pin for a moment and then set it on the podium. One was a beige baseball hat inscribed with the EPA’s logo-a nod to Pruitt’s career as a college second baseman and a minor league co-owner. A conspicuous number of security staffers circulated among the crowd. Among them were some familiar faces, such as David Schnare, a former career EPA official and prominent climate-science skeptic.
In the front rows sat some members of the EPA’s “ beachhead team,” a group of mostly men whom Trump had installed to begin the process of dismantling the department of the Obama years. He took the stage with Catherine McCabe, the acting head of the agency. But as he stepped into the EPA’s stately Rachel Carson Green Room, Pruitt wore the satisfied grin of a man in charge. The new administrator had weathered a contentious confirmation battle, with bitter debate over his long-standing ties to the industries he was now responsible for regulating-not to mention the 14 lawsuits he had filed against the agency as Oklahoma’s attorney general. Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.Ībout a month after President Donald Trump’s inauguration, Scott Pruitt arrived at the Environmental Protection Agency for his first full day of work.
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