Dear Senator: On behalf of our millions of members and activists, we urge you to stand up for clean air, clean water, healthy communities and a safe climate by insisting that the Environmental Protection Agency must be headed by an individual who is qualified for the office and dedicated to these values. President-elect Trump’s nominee to head the EPA, Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt, has actively worked against the mission of the agency he has been nominated to lead and he should be rejected by the Senate. Mr. Pruitt has repeatedly sued the EPA to block clean air and clean water standards that will protect the health and well-being of millions of Americans. For example, he has sued the EPA to overturn standards to curb mercury and other toxic air pollutants that will prevent up to 11,000 premature deaths and 130,000 asthma attacks per year. He has sued to void standards to reduce soot and smog pollution projected to prevent up to 15,000 non-fatal heart attacks, 34,000 premature deaths, and 400,000 asthma attacks every year. These lawsuits are bad news for all Americans, but especially the more than 24 million Americans with asthma. Mr. Pruitt denies the overwhelming scientific consensus that climate change is real and is driven by human-made air pollution. He sued unsuccessfully to overturn the EPA’s scientific endangerment determination that carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping air pollutants are harmful. And he has sued to block the EPA from setting any limits on carbon pollution from power plants, the nation’s largest polluter. Mr. Pruitt has repeatedly argued that EPA should have little or no role in protecting Americans’ health and well-being from air and water pollution. Thus, he apparently rejects fundamental provisions of the Clean Air Act that require the EPA to set national public health standards–standards that guarantee protection to all Americans, regardless of where they live, and protect states from a “race to the bottom” in which they are pressured to compete for industry by offering lax health and environmental standards. Mr. Pruitt has sued the EPA to overturn clean water safeguards for more than half the nation’s waterways, including streams that feed into the drinking water supplies of 117 million Americans. He even sued to block limits on water pollution into the Chesapeake Bay, which has no known connection to Oklahoma. There is a long bipartisan history in this country of supporting clean air, clean water and a healthy environment. The American public did not vote for more air and water pollution, for more pesticides in our foods or for more toxic chemicals in toys. The American people did not vote to put the EPA in the hands of someone who has recklessly worked against its mission to protect Americans’ health and the natural environment. Scott Pruitt’s views and actions run counter to the EPA’s critical mission to protect our health and the environment. This makes him unfit to administer the laws he would be entrusted to enforce. The Senate should reject his nomination. Sincerely, Save The Bay & 172 like-minded organizations