The good news for Scott Pruitt, the new head of the EPA, is that his job is only half as hard as he thinks it is. Scott thinks he has to simultaneously advocate for the economy and for the environment.
Prior to the creation of the agency he now heads, there was no focal point for people to defend the environment. So we had air that killed people. And rivers that caught on fire. But the Clean Air Act, and other laws that the EPA must administer, defend the air and water from polluters…
Scott seems to think that he must defend polluters from the air, while simultaneously defending air from the polluters. That sounds hard. But luckily, he doesn’t have to do that.
Scott: here is how this works. If capitalism has anything, it has capital. And it has lawyers, and it can advocate for itself. So you don’t have to do that job. Your job is to defend the air. And the water. And the forests. And the soil. I promise that if you do anything that gets in the way of economic growth, then capitalism will defend itself. And if capitalism vigorously defends itself (it will) and you vigorously defend the environment (will you?) then we will achieve balance.