Oklahoma’s Sierra Club has become part of a nationwide campaign called “Boot Pruitt,” an effort that includes a petition drive calling for the former Oklahoma Attorney General to resign.
Much of the effort focuses on Pruitt’s travel expenses and use of first-class accommodations.
“Previously, as Oklahoma’s Attorney General, Scott Pruitt took numerous first class flights on taxpayer’s dime while dismantling the state’s environmental protection unit in the AG’s office that was working to keep Arkansas poultry pollution out of Oklahoma rivers,” said Johnson Bridgwater, Director of the Oklahoma Sierra Club. “It’s not surprise that Pruitt’s habits haven’t changed—he’s treating the health and safety of our nation and federal tax dollars just as carelessly as he treated the health and safety and taxpayers of Oklahoma.”
He said it’s time for Pruitt to resign “or be thrown out of office.”
The Sierra Club was joined this week by Hip Hop Caucus, Friends of the Earth, Green for All, green Latinos, Defend Our Future, League of Conservation of Voters, Environmental Defense Fund, Natural Resources Defense Council and Center for American Progress Action in launching the “Boot Pruitt” campaign.
The groups responded after Pruitt was caught spending $105,000 on first-class flights, $120,000 on a trip to Italy, $36,000 on a chartered flight, $43,000 on a secure phone booth in his office and $2 million on 24-hour security. The expenses led to an ongoing probe by the Inspector General.
“Scott Pruitt is unfit to head the Environmental Protection Agency,” argued Marilyn McCulloch, Secretary of the Carrier Dickerson Foundation. “In both Oklahoma and Washington, Scott Pruitt’s actions to protect polluters instead of people have made clear over and over again that he isn’t a public servant working for the health and safety of our communities—he’s working only for himself.”