EWG Investigates: Polluters Who Backed Pruitt's Anti-EPA Lawsuits Also Bankrolled His Campaigns

Interests tied to the big polluters who joined Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt's 14 lawsuits against the Environmental Protection Agency – companies such as ExxonMobil, Chevron and Peabody Coal –also gave almost $240,000 to his political campaigns and political action committees supporting him.

Campaign contribution records show that Pruitt – President-elect Donald Trump's nominee to head the same agency he repeatedly sued – from 2010 to 2016 received $239,176 from employees and PACs for fossil fuel companies that signed on to Pruitt's lawsuits – directly or through professional associations – which sought to block federal clean air and water standards.

A recent EWG investigation revealed that executives and lawyers for Tyson Foods and other poultry companies, who were being sued by the State of Oklahoma over poultry pollution in the Illinois River, gave more than $40,000 to Pruitt’s 2010 campaign.

The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee will consider Pruitt's confirmation in a hearing tomorrow. If he becomes EPA administrator, he will take office under a cloud of concerns about his financial ties to the fossil fuel companies and agribusinesses.

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