Samantha Dravis, the associate administrator of the EPA's office of policy, is considered to be one of the aides closest to Pruitt and has been responsible in the last year for carrying out much of the agency's deregulation agenda that has been so controversial. Before joining EPA, Dravis was president of the Rule of Law Defense Fund, a group affiliated with the Republican Attorneys General Association. She also worked an associate director of political affairs in the George W. Bush White House, according to her EPA bio. She was a Legislative Assistant to Congressman Dan Lungren of California, and as a litigation associate at the law firm Taft, Stettinius & Hollister. Samantha is an honors graduate of the University of Kansas and the University of Notre Dame Law School