Trump Conflicts Of Interest: Emails Expose EPA Chief Scott Pruitt's Ties To Oil And Gas Companies

Government emails have once again grabbed headlines, but this time they didn't come from the computers of Hillary Clinton or the Democratic National Committee. Instead, a new email controversy has drawn the spotlight to Environmental Protection Agency chief Scott Pruitt, documenting his office’s close relationship with oil companies during his tenure as Oklahoma Attorney General.

In one of many exchanges, Pruitt’s team at the office of the Oklahoma Attorney General asked executives from the Oklahoma City-based oil and gas company Devon Energy Corp. for input in drafts letters he planned to send to federal officials that criticized proposed regulations.

“Any suggestions?” one deputy solicitor asked Devon’s senior vice president for public affairs, Bill Whitsitt, in May 2013. Whitsitt responded with color-coded edits and the deputy solicitor thanked him “for all your help on this.”

Requests went both ways. In March, Whitsitt asked Pruitt to sign a draft letter addressed to the EPA in response to a suit by Northeastern states against the agency that pushed for more emissions regulations.

“It would be a shot across the bow, warning EPA not to go down a negotiated-rulemaking or wink-at-a sue-and-settle tee-up process,” Whitsitt wrote Pruitt’s office, adding that he’d like the letter to be made public and it “could be powerful with a number of signers.” Around the same time, he requested that Pruitt sign a letter combatting a new Bureau of Land Management regulation on hydraulic fracturing, a practice Devon calls “a safe and environmentally compatible technique” but that many environmental groups and the EPA worry will make surface and drinking water vulnerable to chemical spills.

While the New York Times first reported on Pruitt’s coziness with the energy sector in 2014, the most recent trove of emails were the result of an effort by the Center for Media and Democracy to obtain Pruitt’s records over the course of more than two years. The Wisconsin-based nonprofit announced Feb. 16 that an Oklahoma City Court judge ruled in its favor in a lawsuit alleging Pruitt violated the state’s Open Records Act when he withheld public information accumulated during his time as the state’s attorney general.

On Wednesday, the Center for Media and Democracy released the requested batch of more than 7,500 emails from Pruitt’s office, which, the group said, would be delivering additional documents on Monday. As of Friday afternoon, the Oklahoma Attorney General's office sought an emergency stay in the nonprofit's suit against it, claiming the ruling in favor of the Center "presents a clear violation" of the office's rights to due process and "imposes a highly onerous burden" on the defendant, the New York Times' Eric Lipton reported.