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Scott Pruitt unfiltered: EPA administrator talks climate science, car emissions

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt gave Reuters a wide-ranging interview on Monday at his office in Washington, discussing issues from climate science to automobile emissions. The following is a full transcript of the interview: REUTERS: You have said the EPA will focus on a "Back to Basics" approach under your leadership. What does this mean for how EPA enforces polluters? You have been critical of the idea of regulation by enforcement. PRUITT: I think what I'm speaking about, there is a consent decree approach to enforcement, where you use judicial proceedings to actually engage in regulation. Enforcement should be about existing regulations that you're actually enforcing against someone who may be violating that, very much in the prosecutorial manner. As attorney general [in Oklahoma], I lived that. There was a grand jury that I led. Being a prosecutor, I understand very much the importance of prioritization, of enforcing the rule of law, of addressing bad actors. That's something we are going to do in a meaningful way across the broad spectrum of cases, whether it is in the office of air or the Superfund area, or otherwise. REUTERS: Do you want to see states play a bigger role in enforcing polluters, even though some have less of a capacity to do so – financially and personnel wise? PRUITT: I think the state's role is really, when you look at this office working with states, it should be how do we assist, how do we engage in compliance and assistance with states. The office [at EPA that deals with enforcement] is called OECA, the Office of Enforcement, Compliance and Assistance, so those are the tools we have in the toolbox to achieve better outcomes. So what we ought to be doing is working proactively with state DEQs [Departments of Environmental Quality] to get their state implementation plans [for federal regulations] timely submitted, provide assistance and technical support, drive a draft of state implementation plans, and then actually work with them on how to achieve through those plans better outcomes and air and water quality. As far as enforcement is concerned, we will actually work with states. We actually did that recently with Colorado. There was an oil and gas company that was emitting some 3,000 tons, is that what it was, it was quite a bit of ... it was an ozone case. In any event, we joined with Colorado in that prosecution. So sometimes states will do it, sometimes we will join with them.

VW delays new Phaeton flagship sedan

The Bugatti Veyron was a crusade begun by former Volkswagen Group CEO Ferdinand Piech. Even though the old patriarch is no longer with the company and the astonishing coupe is rumored to have never made a cash profit, everyone understands why the car remained in the family and why a successor is on the way. The same can't be said for the VW Phaeton, another one of Piech's pursuits. Thirteen years after the budget brand introduced the now 89,650-euro ($101,000) luxury sedan that competes with other in-house products, no one knows why it lives. Since VW made roughly 4,000 of them last year, the news that it's being delayed won't affect many people. The next-generation Phaeton developed on the MLB platform is apparently ready to go right now, but Bloomberg reports that the bosses have demanded lower production and material costs before it gets a final green light. At the moment the Phaeton is put together by hand by white-gloved technicians, which might sound like a great place to start counting pennies, but again, those technicians only built 4,000 sedans last year. That's fewer than the Eos, which is being retired for slow sales, and VW sold 3,411 Eos models in the US alone last year. Recent hire Herbert Diess is the VW exec in charge of the cost-cutting push. The Phaeton is a grain of sand - but a very important one - on the beach he's meant to conquer: Diess plans to raise VW brand profit to more than six percent by 2018 at the same time there's a group-wide push to save $5.5 billion. That number would more than double the brand's current 2.7-percent profit for 2015 so far, that current number being about half the profit over at struggling French maker PSA Peugeot-Citroen. The new Phaeton's on-sale date had been reported as 2017 or 2018 earlier this year. It isn't clear how long the sedan will be pushed back because of the production changes.

Autoblog Minute: Porsche goes after Tesla

Volkswagen Group Night kicks off the 2015 Frankfurt Motor Show. Autoblog's Adam Morath reports on this edition of Autoblog Minute with commentary from Autoblog's Editor-in-Chief, Michael Austin. Show full video transcript text [00:00:00] Volkswagen Group Night kicks off the 2015 Frankfurt Motor Show. I'm Adam Morath and this is your Autoblog Minute. In keeping with tradition Volkswagen Group Night will take place before the first press day of the Frankfurt Motor Show. It's here that VW will unveil all the latest innovations for each of the brands in the group's extensive portfolio. For more we go to Autoblog's Mike Austin: [00:00:30] [Michael Austin Interview] Autoblog staff is on site in Germany [00:01:00] for comprehensive coverage of the events. To check out all of our short cut videos of Volkswagen Group Night head over to Autoblog dot com slash short dash cuts. For Autoblog, I'm Adam Morath. Autoblog Minute is a short-form video news series reporting on all things automotive. Each segment offers a quick and clear picture of what's happening in the automotive industry from the perspective of Autoblog's expert editorial staff, auto executives, and industry professionals.