Speaker 1: Welcome to the Bloomberg Law Podcast. I'm June Grosso. Every
Speaker 1: day we bring you insight and analysis into the most
Speaker 1: important legal news of the day. You can find more
Speaker 1: episodes of the Bloomberg Law Podcast on Apple Podcasts, SoundCloud
Speaker 1: and on Bloomberg dot com slash podcasts. Amid a cascade
Speaker 1: of ethics questions about EPA administrator Scott pruittt President Trump
Speaker 1: says he still has confidence in Pruitt. Departing from West
Speaker 1: Virginia yesterday, Trump denied reports that he was considering replacing
Speaker 1: the former Oklahoma Attorney General. Scott has done a fantastic job.
Speaker 1: I think he's a fantastic person. Joining us is Jennifer
Speaker 1: de Lowe, a Bloomberg News energy policy reporter. Jennifer tell
Speaker 1: us about the latest Pruett ethics scandal involving a lease
Speaker 1: on a d C condo and the new information you
Speaker 1: reported on right, So we know that last year Administrator
Speaker 1: Pruitt rented for up to about six months rented a
Speaker 1: bedroom in a condo near Capitol Hill. On Capitol Hill
Speaker 1: that from a healthcare lobbyist and her husband is also
Speaker 1: a lobbyist. He's an energy lobbyist with whose firm has
Speaker 1: clients regularly going before the e p A um And
Speaker 1: what we learned uh fairly recently was that he prew
Speaker 1: it basically paid fifty dollars a night to stay in
Speaker 1: this one bedroom unit. Uh. The the interesting part of
Speaker 1: this arrangement was that he only paid that some of
Speaker 1: money on the nineties state there. Uh So on other
Speaker 1: nights when he wasn't in Washington, d C. He could
Speaker 1: leave a suitcase there, leave some belongings there on a
Speaker 1: limited basis, but he didn't actually have to pay. Now,
Speaker 1: your story this morning on the Bloomberg Terminal follows up
Speaker 1: on that that lobbyist didn't necessarily have business before the
Speaker 1: e p A last year, but he had a roster
Speaker 1: of clients who perhaps did. Can you connect those dots
Speaker 1: force right? Absolutely? So, for instance, he has lobbied in
Speaker 1: the past for shin near Uh Energy, the first major
Speaker 1: exporter of liquefied natural gas from the United States, And
Speaker 1: while that is not necessarily or EPA doesn't directly regulate
Speaker 1: llengy Uh, Administrator Pruitt last year went on a trip
Speaker 1: to Morocco to tell the benefits of llengy Uh And
Speaker 1: so that's that's an interesting connection. He's He's lobbied for
Speaker 1: a bottling company, for instance, that was facing a fine
Speaker 1: UH for violating air pollution requirements, permitting requirements related to
Speaker 1: air pollution and settled that case with the e p
Speaker 1: A last year. So there's an array of these these
Speaker 1: you know, clients where they had some kind of dealings
Speaker 1: with the e p A. And maybe it was tangential,
Speaker 1: but but it's still points to the issues that are
Speaker 1: raised and the appearance of impropriety that that can be
Speaker 1: raised in this kind of a situation where you have
Speaker 1: this odd interaction with Pruitt UH basically renting from a
Speaker 1: pair of lobbyists. Jennifer. The Wall Street Journal has just
Speaker 1: reported that White House Chief of Staff John Kelly told
Speaker 1: President Trump last week that he's convinced that e pH
Speaker 1: Chief Pruitt needs to step down, and we know that
Speaker 1: just this morning, Trump tweeted that and showing that he
Speaker 1: still has confidence in Pruitt. What are the pressures on
Speaker 1: Trump besides Kelly to replace Pruitt? When who's pushing the
Speaker 1: Trump economic agenda hard I'm sorry, environmental agenda hard? Right,
Speaker 1: So he is I would say the President is under
Speaker 1: tremendous pressure, and it's coming in and from from all
Speaker 1: sides with regard to Pruett. So he even in his own,
Speaker 1: uh you know, stable of advisors, he's hearing divergent opinions
Speaker 1: from from folks that are very critical of Prueit's handling
Speaker 1: of these matters and are just seeing the daily headlines
Speaker 1: as incredibly damaging. But he's also hearing from conservatives inside
Speaker 1: and outside the White House who are saying, this is
Speaker 1: our guy, and he's doing more to advance your agenda
Speaker 1: at the e p A than almost anybody else in
Speaker 1: your the cabinet. You can't afford to let him go.
Speaker 1: And frankly, you're not going to be able to get
Speaker 1: anyone like him confirmed in the Senate. And when you
Speaker 1: say anyone like him, I'm so glad you said that,
Speaker 1: because it's not just that he's a deregulator guy, but
Speaker 1: he's got contacts, He knows people, he knows people CEOs
Speaker 1: who are in those businesses that would do work with
Speaker 1: or be affected by the e p A. Clarify that
Speaker 1: for us, Well, he comes to the e p A
Speaker 1: from Oklahoma, which obviously is a big oil and gas producer.
Speaker 1: There's a number of energy companies based there. He has
Speaker 1: a long history with those companies and and really brushes
Speaker 1: with the industry. So so he comes to the e
Speaker 1: p A with kind of a knowledge of businesses that
Speaker 1: are regulated by the e p A. Obviously, he comes
Speaker 1: to the e p A also having sued it more
Speaker 1: than a dozen times about that. Right, So, so this
Speaker 1: is this is someone who is very much of the
Speaker 1: belief that e p A regulations should be more limited,
Speaker 1: that states should take primacy and regulating a lot of
Speaker 1: environmental matters. And uh and and he has the chops
Speaker 1: to do it legally. I mean in terms of you know,
Speaker 1: he's got the expertise and he's got this background, so
Speaker 1: that that's something that conservatives are saying to Trump, you
Speaker 1: can't afford to get rid of this expertise, and you're
Speaker 1: not you really aren't going to get someone as passionate
Speaker 1: about this in the job. But Jennifer, haven't most of
Speaker 1: Pruitt's initiatives or new law, new regulations been stopped in
Speaker 1: the courts, at least for the present, Right, it is
Speaker 1: absolutely early days in the efforts by Pruitt to rewrite
Speaker 1: a lot of these regulations. So, for instance, you know,
Speaker 1: he's in the earliest part of of of replacing the
Speaker 1: Clean Power Plan that the signature Obama rule to ratchet
Speaker 1: down greenhouse gas emissions from power plants. So he's proposed
Speaker 1: to rule that roll that back, but there's litigation underway
Speaker 1: that may put that in jeopardy. He's tried to roll
Speaker 1: back some some rules on methane pollution and that's being
Speaker 1: ounge in the court. So so certainly, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: it's not clear how all of this will end up.
Speaker 1: But it also is true that this regulatory effort takes
Speaker 1: time and it is still very early in the process.
Speaker 1: Let's take a step back looking at the different scandals, controversies,
Speaker 1: ethics issues versus the connections and the inability to perhaps
Speaker 1: get somebody confirmed who would be like him. What are
Speaker 1: the scales telling you? How does this way right now?
Speaker 1: Is this uh just you have to look in some
Speaker 1: tea leaves here. Yeah, it's I will say that every
Speaker 1: hour it feels like the temperature changes on this a
Speaker 1: little bit and it is hard to read doesn't like
Speaker 1: the scandal, like he's not down with that absolutely, But
Speaker 1: you know, you look at these tweets, so it's very
Speaker 1: interesting as you look at the tweets and even much
Speaker 1: of the phrasing yesterday, it is very focused on Prue
Speaker 1: It's job performance. And I think that there's a distinction
Speaker 1: between praising how the job he's doing versus praising the
Speaker 1: man himself. And I think that reflects some of the
Speaker 1: concerns in the White House that go all the way
Speaker 1: up to the President. And I think what we're gonna
Speaker 1: see over the next few days, the question is what
Speaker 1: weighs more strongly on the president. Is it his allergy
Speaker 1: to the scandal, or is it his concern that he
Speaker 1: really wants a conservative fighter in his administration and he's
Speaker 1: not willing to let this guy go Jennifer. Another thing
Speaker 1: is that the e p a's top ethics officer said
Speaker 1: last week that the arrangement, the condo arrangement, didn't violate
Speaker 1: federal gift bands for government employees. But his analysis was
Speaker 1: very narrow, was only based on one thing, and he
Speaker 1: didn't do a complete analysis. So that made that maybe
Speaker 1: see a change there, right, So that really just yesterday
Speaker 1: this ethics officer or two days ago, actually this ethics
Speaker 1: officer penned another memo saying, look, I only looked at
Speaker 1: whether this was fair market value. I didn't consider whether
Speaker 1: this rental was used as it was supposed to be
Speaker 1: in the least, and I just certainly didn't consider whether
Speaker 1: there was any violation of the ethics rules around impartiality.
Speaker 1: So what he's sang there is there's a whole bunch
Speaker 1: of areas unexplored really by his initial analysis that could
Speaker 1: could prove damaging. To prove it as we dig further
Speaker 1: into this, as folks look more closely at his interactions
Speaker 1: over the last year and a half. All right, well,
Speaker 1: we will have to wait and see. Trump has said
Speaker 1: many times before supported his appointees and then later on
Speaker 1: tweeted they were fired. Thanks so much, Jennifer. That's Jennifer
Speaker 1: de Loewe, Bloomberg News energy policy reporter. In the Senate
Speaker 1: confirmed twelve nominees for circuit court appointments and achievement. President
Speaker 1: Trump noted earlier this year in a speech at the
Speaker 1: Conservative Political Action Conference, We've confirmed a record number so
Speaker 1: important of circuit court judges, and we are going to
Speaker 1: be putting in a lot more joining us. As Bloomberg
Speaker 1: Law reporter Patrick Gregory Patrick, President Donald Trump may get
Speaker 1: a chance to flip three federal appeals courts that currently
Speaker 1: have a majority of Democratic appointed judges to a majority
Speaker 1: of Republican appointees tell us about that right. And the
Speaker 1: reason that's important is because these federal courts of appeals,
Speaker 1: they are the highest court besides the Supreme Courts. So
Speaker 1: from issues ranging from abortions to gons, you name it,
Speaker 1: these are the highest courts at any given dispute is
Speaker 1: likely to get to. Three in particular, are close to flipping.
Speaker 1: You have the Second Circuit, which is where New York is,
Speaker 1: the third Circuit where Pennsylvania's, and the eleventh Circuit where
Speaker 1: Florida is. They're all in sort of striking range of
Speaker 1: having more Republican appointees than Democrat appointees. Patrick are these
Speaker 1: particular courts known for being up particularly political? I don't
Speaker 1: know if i'd say we're known for being particularly political,
Speaker 1: but when you add more, when our president adds uh
Speaker 1: judges that he's chosen, it definitely has an effect. Um
Speaker 1: In the ninth Circuit, which is one I didn't name
Speaker 1: because it's not going to flip um, but there's seven vacancies,
Speaker 1: so you could go from six Republican appointees to thirteen.
Speaker 1: That's not going to flip. But the appointees there could
Speaker 1: definitely moderate the decisions of the majority, and they can
Speaker 1: write more dissents that will draw attention the cases that
Speaker 1: the Supreme Court might want to review. So, Patrick Trump
Speaker 1: set a record for a president his first year confirming
Speaker 1: twelve Circuit Court nominees, are having them confirmed, but only
Speaker 1: to this year. Why isn't he moving at a faster pace.
Speaker 1: That's a good question because you have mid terms looming.
Speaker 1: There's a long shot chance of Republicans losing the Senate,
Speaker 1: and they need Senate control to confirm nominees, especially after
Speaker 1: what happened with Merrick Garland. You assume that the Democrats,
Speaker 1: you know, might take a chance to give them some
Speaker 1: payback if if they take control of the Senate um.
Speaker 1: But you know, look at Tennessee, where the Democratic candidate
Speaker 1: is polling ten points ahead in a state that Trump
Speaker 1: carried by twenty six points. You would think that there
Speaker 1: would be some more urgency there from Trump and the
Speaker 1: Republicans in the Senate. One of the hurdles is that
Speaker 1: Democrats are requiring thirty hours of debate for each nominee,
Speaker 1: and so to confirm all the ten pending appellent nominees.
Speaker 1: UM added with the forty pending district court nominees, it
Speaker 1: would take more than sixty eight days, and that's going
Speaker 1: on the Senate for seven So you have a big
Speaker 1: time a hurdle there. But at the same time, the
Speaker 1: Senate Republicans could try to change that rule. There has
Speaker 1: been a proposal to limit um the debate required for
Speaker 1: distreccord nominees for just two hours, make it easier maybe
Speaker 1: for the appellent nominees to get through, wouldn't be such
Speaker 1: a time burden. I think part of it is just
Speaker 1: uh Center Republicans have different priorities right now, a lot
Speaker 1: of other issues going on. They might feel like they've
Speaker 1: gotten as much mileage with the voters for now that
Speaker 1: they need as far as UM as. Trump touted the
Speaker 1: record setting number of confirmations he got in. That's interesting
Speaker 1: because that is something that the President has touted many
Speaker 1: times when he goes on speaking engagements. The fact that
Speaker 1: he's uh put in so many more judges at the
Speaker 1: circuit level. Do do you foresee the President putting more
Speaker 1: pressure on the Senate to confirm some of these federal
Speaker 1: appeals court vacancies. You know, given the attention that these
Speaker 1: you know, next to highest courts in the land get.
Speaker 1: I think it depends on how much the base really
Speaker 1: push us for it, and whether the base is more
Speaker 1: focused on other issues. I really think getting Gorsets confirmed
Speaker 1: it took push Trump a long way. Um with his base.
Speaker 1: There's kind of a funny thing, you know, but Gorsets um.
Speaker 1: You know, we don't like Trump's decisions on terroriffs and whatnot,
Speaker 1: but we got Gorsets out of it. I think there
Speaker 1: will be some more pressure as they go down the road,
Speaker 1: but Trump and their center Republicans might just think, hey,
Speaker 1: we're probably gonna win, or maybe they they're just completely
Speaker 1: confident they are going to win in the midterms and
Speaker 1: then they can just get to this later. Explain how
Speaker 1: Trump's ability to flip the circuits depends partially on how
Speaker 1: many judges are going to take seniors status, which is
Speaker 1: up to the judges themselves. Right. So, senior status is
Speaker 1: a form of semi retirement where a federal judge um
Speaker 1: once he reaches age sixty five and reaches certain requirements
Speaker 1: about how long he's been on the bench, they can
Speaker 1: enter a form of summing retirement where they can still
Speaker 1: sit on cases, but their seat um is considered vacant.
Speaker 1: They go from active status to senior status, and then
Speaker 1: the president gets to appoint someone else for the active
Speaker 1: status seat. And about half of federal judges are now
Speaker 1: eligible for senior status. So the bench is is pretty
Speaker 1: old in that sense. But I've talked to experts that say,
Speaker 1: there's really not much you can do to convince a
Speaker 1: judge to go ahead and take senior status. For example,
Speaker 1: if Trump wanted more Republican judges judges to take senior status,
Speaker 1: he could encourage them to do that, and some people
Speaker 1: have written that he should, But my sense is that
Speaker 1: these judges they tend to linger, and they retire when
Speaker 1: they want to retire. Patrick does the president to have
Speaker 1: any appointees on his short list for some of these
Speaker 1: vacancies that could be opening up in the appeals courts? Um?
Speaker 1: Shortlist for what? For vacancies? Yeah? For the vacancies, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: He has UM A number of nominations pending. Yeah, there
Speaker 1: there are ten nominations pending. UM. And as far as
Speaker 1: short lists, um, you know, this is definitely a traditional
Speaker 1: path um going from a Court of Appeals to the
Speaker 1: Supreme Court. If a vacancy opens up there. Um, we
Speaker 1: saw that with Animal SuPAR with Federal Court nominee. He
Speaker 1: was um confirmed, and before he was even confirmed, he
Speaker 1: was on President Trump's shortlist of potential Supreme Court nominees. Um,
Speaker 1: so that is definitely something we could see. Patrick, we
Speaker 1: have about a minute here less actually, but um explain
Speaker 1: how some of the some of the nominees have actually
Speaker 1: had some Democratic support. They've been moderate enough, right, And
Speaker 1: that's the other question here. This metric of whether you
Speaker 1: have more Republican appointees versus Democratic appointees if kind of murky,
Speaker 1: and it's it's far from perfect, but it's sort of
Speaker 1: the best best we've got. And the question is how
Speaker 1: ideological are those nominees going to be. That's obviously part
Speaker 1: of the effect that they're going to have. And we've
Speaker 1: seen some nominees who have not appeared to be ideological.
Speaker 1: We've seen even nominees to the Ninth Circuit, which is
Speaker 1: seen as Patrick, I'm going to have to stop you there.
Speaker 1: We'll pick up with this in the future. That's Bloomberg
Speaker 1: Law reporter Patrick Gregory. Thanks for listening to the Bloomberg
Speaker 1: Law podcast. You can subscribe and Listen to the show
Speaker 1: on Apple Podcasts, SoundCloud, and on bloomberg dot com slash podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm June Brolso, this is Bloomberg