Who is Scott Pruitt? Everything You Need to Know

Quick Facts

Also Known As: Edward Scott Pruitt

Age: 56 Years, 56 Year Old Males

Family:

Spouse/Ex-: Marlyn Pruitt (m. 1992)

father: Edward

mother: Linda Pruitt Warner

children: Cade Pruitt, McKenna Pruitt

Born Country: United States

Lawyers Political Leaders

political ideology: Republican

Notable Alumni: University Of Tulsa, Georgetown College, University Of Kentucky

U.S. State: Kentucky

More Facts

education: University of Tulsa, Georgetown College, University of Kentucky

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Childhood & Early Life

Edward Scott Pruitt was born on 9th of May 1968 in Danville, Kentucky. The eldest of three siblings, his father Edward Sr. owned steak houses in Danville while his mother, Linda was a homemaker.

He got into the University of Kentucky on a baseball scholarship but only studied there a year before transferring to Georgetown College. He graduated from there with a bachelor’s degree in 1990.

He attended University of Tulsa College of Law in Oklahoma, earning his Juris Doctor in 1993.

He began practicing law under the banner ‘Christian Legal Services’ focusing mainly on religious liberty issues for Christian clients until 1998 when he decided to run for the Oklahoma state senate.

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Career

In 1998, he was elected to the state senate of Oklahoma representing its 36th and 54th district. A year later, he introduced legislation which required pregnant women to ask for consent from the ‘child’s father’ before abortion. He reintroduced the legislation in 2005 during his second term.

From 2001 to 2003, he served the Republican as its party whip, he then served as assistant floor leader until 2006. During his tenure, he also chaired for the American Legislative Exchange Council’s task force and in his capacity, he actively worked towards limiting worker’s compensation.

In 2003, he along with Republican donor, Robert A. Funk purchased a share of the Oklahoma City RedHawks, a baseball team for a reported $11.5 million. Despite his modest senate salary, he was able to secure a loan for the purchase from SpiritBank.

He contested the 2010 election for Attorney General of Oklahoma and defeated the Democratic nominee, Jim Priest to win the post. Immediately upon taking office, he moved all attorneys dealing with environmental protection to other units like that of the Solicitor General and Public Protection, thus leading to the dissolution of the Environmental Protection Unit.

In 2012, he kept his state, Oklahoma out of the National Mortgage settlement, which required five banks to pay $26 billion in relief to distressed home owners as direct payments to the federal government and 49 states.In 2013, he supported the Oklahoma legislature, which was trying to ban the off-label use of drugs in the hope of restricting medical-abortions by citing the 1970 House Bill. The Bill was however struck down by lower courts and subsequently by the Supreme Court.

In 2014, he ran unopposed in the primary and general elections for a second term as Attorney General of Oklahoma. Upon taking office, he along with Harold Hamm led energy industry group and the Oklahoma Gas & Electric, filed a joint lawsuit against federal government (EPA) regulations. Interestingly, Hamm, CEO of Continental Resources, co-chaired his re-election campaign.

When the Oklahoma Supreme Court ordered a stop to executions in 2014 citing problems with the state’s execution drug supply law, Pruitt filed a motion saying the judicial body was acting outside its limits. However, when the state botched a convict’s execution by administering the wrong drug in the lethal injection, he asked that all scheduled executions in Oklahoma be temporary suspended.

In December 2016, President Donald Trump nominated him for the post of ‘Administrator of Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)’. It was confirmed two months later when the Senate voted in his favour, much to the chagrin of science advocates and environmentalists.

In April 2017, he fired all scientists from ‘Board of Scientific Counsellors’, expressing his intention to fill the vacant spots with representatives from industries. By December that year, the EPA had got rid of 700 staff members, of which 200 were scientists.

He met with the ‘American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity’ in June 2017 and assured them of furthering their case by having researchers debate the role of coal in climate change. The EPA-coal industry bonhomie culminated in the appointment of coal lobbyist, Andrew Wheeler as EPA’s deputy administrator on April 2018.

He announced that he would resign from his EPA administrator post on 5 July 2018 following a series of ethics and management scandals reported against him. He is faced with a ban that prohibits him from lobbying the EPA for five years.

In April 2019, he officially registered as a lobbyist with the Indiana Lobby Registration Commission and now concentrates his lobbying efforts on the energy and natural resources sector.

Major Controversies

In July of 2017, Madeline Morris, a senior scheduler for Scott Pruitt was fired because she kept questioning why past meetings were being retroactively deleted from his official calendar.

When his top aides were questioned by congressional investigators in 2018, they disclosed details of how he enlisted staffers to run his personal errands, and more importantly used his position to secure a high-paying job($200,000 annual salary)for his wife.

Family & Personal Life

Scott Pruitt is married to Marlyn Lloyd since 1990. The couple have two children, a son named Cade and a daughter named McKenna.

Being a Southern Baptist, he is firmly opposed to abortion, transgender rights and same sex marriages.

Scott Pruitt Biography