Coal and the Clean Power Plan | War on the EPA  
Video 1 Transcript: New EPA Head Scott Pruitt Rules on the Clean Power Plan

ON-SCREEN TEXT: After President Barack Obama's Election in 2009, the EPA enforced a series of anti-pollution rules that had been mandated by courts but neglected by previous administrations. 

AL ARMENDARIZ: There were real environmental problems that we were dealing with. It was sometimes hard for the states to properly enforce the law. People in the oil and gas industry found it really unusual that someone from EPA was actually out there enforcing the law, taking samples, taking pictures, writing citations. They really saw the new administration as something new, as potentially a major threat. 

SCOTT PRUITT: Access to natural gas and oil... 

NARRATOR: Scott Pruitt saw himself as their defender. 

PRUITT: Because they don't want us burning what? Fossil fuels. The EPA has an anti-fossil fuel agenda. It's not anti-coal, it's not anti-natural gas, it's anti-fossil fuels, period. 

CHAD WARMINGTON: I think it fit with the role of him doing what he could as attorney general to make sure that Oklahoma's businesses and citizens were protected from-- from any, any outside threat, so to speak. 

NARRATOR: With Pruitt on their side, the big oil and gas companies were also looking beyond Oklahoma for other A.Gs. to push back against the EPA. They were donating to a group called RAGA, the Republican Attorneys General Association. 

ERIC LIPTON: There were hundreds of thousands of dollars that started to come in. And you know, in presidential politics, that's not a great deal of money. For attorney generals, it's-- it is a considerable sum. But the real story is, why is the energy sector donating so much money? What is it they are buying?