Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
I believe that Donald Trump in the White House would be more abusive to the Constitution than Barack Obama, and that's saying a lot.
This paradigm that says we have to choose industry over the environment or the environment over industry is the old way of thinking.
My battles have been against federal actions that exceed the powers our Founders granted to the federal government in the constitution.
Few things are as sacred and as fundamental to Oklahomans as the constitutional rights of free speech and the free exercise of religion.
It is no secret that Washington, D.C., is a tempest of people and institutions relentlessly seeking power over the lives of everyday Americans.
When I took office in 2011, I made a commitment that the Office of Attorney General would find ways to do more while spending fewer taxpayer dollars.
We need a president willing to embrace the idea that Washington is not the answer to all, or even most, of our problems, regardless of who is in charge.
This idea that if you're pro-environment you're anti-energy is just something we've got to change, so that attitude is something we're working on very much.
Our religious freedoms are under constant attack from a variety of groups who seek to undermine our constitutional rights and threaten our founding principles.
Americans who want a healthy and clean environment expect lawful, effective, and economically sound regulation - the Clean Power Plan failed on all three counts.
When an American government takes on characteristics that elevate the state above the individual, it must be vigorously opposed as a form of, or step toward, tyranny.
Most lawsuits against the EPA historically have come either because of the agency's lack of regard for a statute or because the EPA failed in an obligation or deadline.
I think that measuring with precision human activity on the climate is something very challenging to do, and there's tremendous disagreement about the degree of impact.
This notion that we cannot be about jobs and stewardship of the environment is just simply not right. We've always done that well as a country. We haven't had to choose.
We, as a country, have always used innovative technology to advance environmental stewardship, reduction of those pollutants, but also grown our economy at the same time.
Like the invention of the printing press before it, the Internet has been the greatest instrumentality of free speech and the exchange of ideas in the history of mankind.
I might not like a statute... but if you know what to expect, you can plan. The law is static. It's stable. It gives you confidence. You know you have to act a certain way.
I happen to think the Paris accord, the Paris treaty, or the Paris Agreement, if you will, should have been treated as a treaty, should have gone through Senate confirmation.
When you declare a 'war on coal' from a regulatory perspective, the question has to be asked: where's that in the statute? Where did Congress empower the EPA to declare a war on coal?
If you can tell me what gun, type of gun, I can possess, then I didn't really get that right to keep and bear arms from God. It was not bequeathed to me; it was not unalienable, right?
'Sue and settle' involves the creation of environmental rules and regulations through lawsuits filed by environmental groups against the EPA, not through Congress or proper rule-making.
There aren't sufficient scientific facts to establish the theory of evolution, and it deals with the origins of man, which is more from a philosophical standpoint than a scientific standpoint.
We're a small state. Our quantity of representation in Washington is not as large as a Texas, an Ohio, or a New York. So when decisions are made on the federal level, our voice can get drowned out.
It is hubris that has gotten us into trouble in Washington. It is humility, principled leadership, and unwavering faith in the power of the states, the people, and our Constitution that will get us out.
The biblical world view with respect to these issues is that we have a responsibility to manage and cultivate, harvest the natural resources that we've been blessed with to truly bless our fellow mankind.
I believe the ability to measure, with precision, the degree of human activity's impact on the climate is subject to more debate on whether the climate is changing or whether human activity contributes to it.
I believe the ability to measure with precision the degree of human activities' impact on the climate, is subject to more debate on whether the climate is changing or whether human activity contributes to it.
My job is to enforce the laws as passed by whom? Congress. They give me my authority. That's the jurisdictional responsibilities that I have, and when litigation is used to regulate... that's abusive. That's wrong.
EPA will set a national standard for greenhouse gas emissions that allows auto manufacturers to make cars that people both want and can afford - while still expanding environmental and safety benefits of newer cars.
The federal government must retreat from its hyperactive involvement in areas traditionally under states' authority and refuse future temptations to regulate and legislate on every issue that happens to come to mind.
The 'environmental left' tells us that, though we have natural resources like natural gas and oil and coal, and though we can feed the world, we should keep those things in the ground, put up fences, and be about prohibition.
I'm going to have a very thoughtful and meaningful enforcement response to Superfund to make sure that we are achieving good outcomes for citizens across the country with respect to that entire portfolio of 1,336 or so sites.
EPA's role is even broader than water infrastructure and cleaning up contaminated land - the agency also has a key role in allowing projects to move forward by reviewing environmental impact statements during the permitting process.
I spent a couple years just earnestly praying, asking the question that I don't think we ask enough: 'God what do you want to do with me?' Really getting into our prayer closet, seeking His heart, asking what He wants to do in our lives.
We just need to make sure that we get somebody in there that respects the Constitution, respects the rule of law, that restores the proper balance between the states and federal government. I have great confidence Jeb Bush would do that.
There are issues the EPA should be dealing with. When I talk about the EPA and its role with the states, it's not an abolitionist view, that we don't need that agency. It's that the agency should act within the outlines established by Congress.
Since my election as Oklahoma attorney general in 2010, I have been a proud member of a group of federalism-minded state attorneys general who have methodically, indeed relentlessly, worked to restore the proper balance of power between the federal government and the states.
As we do our work in D.C., we should do our work in collaboration and in partnership, in cohesion with states so that we can work on environmental issues from Superfund to air quality to water quality across the full spectrum in things that we do in partnership with those folks.
We know humans have most flourished during times of what? Warming trends. So I think there's assumptions made that because the climate is warming, that that necessarily is a bad thing. Do we really know what the ideal surface temperature should be in the year 2100, in the year 2018?
For someone to say that someone's a skeptic or a climate denier about the climate changing, that's just nonsensical. We see that throughout history. We impact the climate by our activity. How much so is very difficult to determine with respect to our CO2 or carbon footprint, but we obviously do.
I think the most grievous threat that we have today is this imperialistic judiciary, this judicial monarchy that has it wrong on what the First Amendment's about and has an objective to create religious sterility in the public square, which is wholly inconsistent with the Founding Fathers' view.
Think about how tangible it would be to the citizens of Washington State to finally have the Hanford nuclear site cleaned up. Think about how tangible it would be to the citizens along the Hudson River to fix that pollution. These are some of the most direct things we can do to benefit our environment.
The greatest threat we've had to economic growth has been that those in industry don't know what is expected of them. Rules come that are outside of statutes. Rules get changed midway. It creates vast uncertainty and paralysis, and re-establishing a vigorous commitment to rule of law is going to help a lot.
As Oklahoma attorney general, it is not my job to formulate or implement Oklahoma's plan, but it is my job to preserve Oklahoma's right to do so - particularly when the Clean Air Act so clearly recognizes that Oklahomans, and not federal bureaucrats, are best situated to determine Oklahoma energy and environmental policies.
There simply is no greater threat to individual liberty and the viability of our great nation than the threat that comes from the continued consolidation of power in Washington, a consolidation that flies in the face of the division of power between the federal government and the states that is required by the Constitution.
Our battles against the EPA and other rogue federal agencies aren't about a desire for dirtier air or zero regulation. They are about our right as a state to control our own destiny and resist attempts by the administration to ramrod a wish list of regulations through agency heads instead of garnering approval from Congress.
When you look at farmers and ranchers, for example, they are our first environmentalists. They are our first conservationists. When you look at the greatest asset that they have, it is their land. They care about the water that they drink. They care about the air that they breathe. We should see them as partners, not adversaries.
There are very important questions around the climate issue that folks really don't get to. And that's one of the reasons why I've talked about having an honest, open, transparent debate about what do we know, what don't we know, so the American people can be informed and they can make decisions on their own with respect to these issues.
The Constitution forbids states from banning all religion from public spaces and from making churches the ghettos of religion where all manifestations of faith are kept separate from public life. Religious people have an equal right to participate in the public square and to have their contributions to Oklahoma history and society recognized.