by CHQ Staff We’ve told CHQ readers about EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt’s role in President Trump’s successful efforts to roll back the regulatory state, but his efforts so far pale in comparison to Pruitt’s announcement yesterday that he was ending the EPA’s practice of “sue and settle.” Sue and settle was the practice, carried out under Republican as well as Democratic administrations, of allowing special interest groups to sue the EPA to enforce their view of the law or regulation, and then settling without fighting the case or defending the plain words of the statute or regulation. The result would be a “consent decree” issued by an unelected judge that would make law based on the whims and financial self-interest of radical environmental groups. To implement this new policy, Pruitt issued an Agency-wide directive to end “sue and settle” practices within the Agency, providing an unprecedented level of public participation and transparency in EPA consent decrees and settlement agreements. “The days of regulation through litigation are over,” said EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt. “We will no longer go behind closed doors and use consent decrees and settlement agreements to resolve lawsuits filed against the Agency by special interest groups where…
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