EPA chief: Carbon dioxide isn’t a ‘primary contributor’ to global warming

California is preparing for a huge fight over its climate with the Trump administration and its new EPA director, a battle that could have ramifications for residents across the nation, from NY to Washington state, from Maryland to MA, from Pennsylvania to Arizona – potentially affecting more than one of every three Americans. Although the EPA’s endangerment finding (as well as the political climate amid which the MA v. EPA decision was issued) relied in great part on the controversial Climategate data and studies, the agency refused to reopen the public comment period for the endangerment finding to explore the ramifications and implications of Climategate. Before Trump was elected, he called EPA a “disgrace”.

Administrator Scott Pruitt said on Thursday he thinks Congress should weigh in on whether carbon dioxide is a harmful pollutant that should be regulated, as he vowed to reduce “regulatory uncertainty” for USA industry.

Twenty attorneys general and governors are asking new Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt to rein in what they perceive as federal overreach by the agency under the Obama administration.

Pruitt said in his January Senate confirmation hearing that be believes the climate change is real and humans contribute to it, but the degree of human impact is “subject to continuing debate”.

Kernen: I agree, when I hear the science is settled, I never heard that science had gotten to a point where it was, I thought that’s the point of science, that you keep asking questions, but I don’t want to be called a denier, it scares me, it’s a bad thing to be called.

Let me ask you this, let me ask you one other thing, just to get to the nitty gritty.

This flawed decision is at odds with the core tenets of the agency Administrator Pruitt is entrusted to lead and inimical to the health and environmental laws he has committed to faithfully execute.

A case in point is the repeated claim by auto-company CEOs and their lobbying arm, the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, that “up to 1 million jobs” could be lost if the EPA’s emission standards for 2022 through 2025 are left in place.

This burden was starkly demonstrated previous year in Flint, Michigan, where a toxic water crisis has ravaged a largely black city. A recent report by the MI state government found that the lead poisoning was caused, in part, by “systemic racism”.

The endangerment finding is somewhat of a failsafe against EPA deregulation. The question is, what are we going to be able to do to meet the longer-term goals?

The report highlighted the plight of Uniontown, a predominately black community in Alabama.

“The EPA has not been “assisting” Missouri”, Hawley said. For example, he has stalled the process of formulating methane regulations that would have placed limits on emissions of this powerful, short-lived greenhouse gas from the oil and gas industry. Similarly, President George W. Bush signed a bill requiring EPA to collect and disseminate greenhouse gas emissions data from industrial sources across the country. The move follows complaints from nine states that the request was too onerous on businesses.

Even though some companies have already sent in their data, and others are far along on collecting it, Pruitt called the data collection effort to an abrupt halt one day after getting a letter from his former litigation partners-including the attorneys general from nine states, dubbed the “fossil energy AGs” by a gas industry lobbyist in Pruitt’s now-infamous Oklahoma emails.