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Pesticide Action Network

Pesticide Action Network

EPA Administrator Pruitt resigns after months of pressure

For Immediate Release: July 5, 2018

Washington, DC – After months of pressure from PAN supporters and advocates nationwide, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Scott Pruitt has resigned. Pruitt’s resignation is on the heels of heavily critiqued spending, ethics, and policy decisions — including the decision to reverse course on agency plans to pull the child-harming insecticide chlorpyrifos off the market, capturing headlines across the country and around the world. PAN supporters joined more than 100,000 advocates in calling for Pruitt’s departure.

PAN’s Executive Director Kristin Schafer released the following statement in response to EPA Administrator Pruitt’s resignation:

“Administrator Pruitt’s resignation is both welcome and long overdue. Given his past role in leading more than a dozen lawsuits against EPA on behalf of the oil and gas industry as Oklahoma Attorney General, his appointment to this position was wildly inappropriate from the get-go.

“While much of the controversy in recent months has focused on Pruitt’s ethical lapses and blatant misuse of public funds for personal gain, the real scandal here is his aggressive efforts to undercut science as a basis for policy decisions, and to roll back essential human health and environmental safeguards at EPA.

“From the beginning, Mr. Pruitt put the desires of corporations ahead of public interest. The chlorpyrifos case provides a crystal clear example of this. In one of his first decisions as Administrator, he reversed a planned ban of this brain-harming pesticide that had been recommended by agency scientists. This decision came just weeks after an off-the-record meeting with executives from Dow Chemical (now Corteva Agriscience), who manufactures the product.

“Today, we celebrate the success of relentless pressure from PAN and many other environmental health and justice groups to win Pruitt’s resignation. Tomorrow, we will begin the work of ensuring that his successor is qualified to lead this important agency, respects the role of science in decision-making and does better by human health and the environment.”

Press contact:<>

Ahna Kruzic, ahna@panna.org<>

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Pesticide Action Network

Pesticide Action Network

Pesticide Action Network is dedicated to advancing alternatives to pesticides worldwide. Follow @pesticideaction

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