Before Scott Pruitt, the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, became the swampiest creature in the D.C. bog, he was the attorney general for Oklahoma and a close pal of the oil and gas industry there.
So in 2014, when he was trying to get the EPA’s inspector general to back off on fracking — the controversial practice of injecting liquid into the ground to break loose hard-to-get pockets of oil and gas — Pruitt was fishing around for friendly supporters in other states to sign onto a complaint letter.
He found one in Utah Attorney General Sean Reyes, who, as my colleague Taylor Anderson reported last week, ignored the concerns expressed by environmental officials in Utah and jumped on board with Pruitt.