EPA Administrator in Iowa: U.S. should use natural resources it has

NEVADA - The new head of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency told an Iowa crowd Friday he will work with states when crafting environmental rules, and he criticized the Obama administration for doing the reverse.

'What's important for us in Washington, D.C., to do is to learn and partner and work with folks at the state level to achieve good outcomes together. That just simply has not happened for a number of years,” said EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt, during a stop in Nevada.

Pruitt, the former Oklahoma attorney general, also said the United States should use the natural resources it has, not 'put up fences” around them.

'When you have natural resources like we do we should use them for the benefit of our neighbors, our country and the world and do so with stewardship principles in mind,” Pruitt said.

He added that farmers are the first caretakers of their land and environment.

Pruitt spoke in Nevada to a room of about 80 Iowans, including farmers, members of the state's ethanol industry, Iowa Agriculture Secretary Bill Northey and Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds.

His comments resonated with Joy Reinert, a corn and soybean farmer from Hubbard.

'The Obama administration was simply just taking these millions of acres of land and calling it federal land,” Reinert said. 'Since we live on the land, we're going to do the best we can with it. It's our living.”

'He really had a tone that I would say is somewhat different from what we sometimes have heard from EPA in the past,” Northey said.

Since his confirmation in February, Pruitt has taken steps to rollback regulations, such as the Clean Power Plan and Waters of the U.S. Rule, put in place by the Obama administration, national media outlets have reported.

Pruitt also has faced criticism of friendly ties to oil companies and other industries he's required to regulate.

On Friday, Pruitt said the EPA is examining whether it can approve a waiver that would allow E-15 fuel - a blend that includes 15 percent ethanol - to be sold year 'round.

'If the statute doesn't allow us to do it, we'll communicate that to Congress. If the statute authorizes us to do it, we'll do our job and provide the waiver, it's that simple,” he said.

The town hall event came a day after Pruitt's agency finalized how much ethanol and biofuels will need to be blended into the nation's fuel supply in 2018 and 2019.

The EPA kept blend levels largely unchanged from this year.

The EPA decision elicited mixed reactions from Iowa lawmakers and industry groups, with many applauding the steady numbers but decrying that the EPA hadn't raised levels specifically for biodiesel.

The town hall event was hosted by Bill Couser, a cattle farmer who hosted a similar event in May with U.S. Department of Agriculture Sonny Perdue.

Pruitt took five questions from Couser, including some submitted by the attendees ahead of time. He did not take questions from the audience or members of the media.

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