Trump’s Pick For Environmental Protection Has Ties To Oil Lobbyists

For these regulations, which include the Clean Power Plan that requires states to cut carbon output, along with vehicle emissions standards, Pruitt will have just a handful of options, none of them easy, and almost all of them triggering drawn out legal battles against well-funded environmental groups and attorneys general from Democratic Party-controlled states. Pruitt has railed against the Clean Power Plan, new water regulations, ozone and methane limits, endangered species designations and rules on regional haze from power plants.

While Pruitt helped develop a solution to chicken manure problems fouling a scenic river and popular lake in his state, he also worked to thwart EPA regulation of those very kinds of water pollution problems.

He added: “One little head-fake with the New York Times or a meeting or two doesn’t negate the fact that he has taken just about every opportunity to appoint people to his transition team and now to nominate an EPA head – these are folks who don’t believe that climate change is real, don’t think that the United States government should continue its role in public health, and side with the fossil fuel industry over the American public”.

In his fight for climate action, Gore might have an ally in Trump’s daughter, Ivanka Trump, with whom he was supposed to meet on Monday but ended up spending the bulk of the time with the president-elect himself.

The Obama administration finalized the Clean Power Plan in 2015 as a key part of meeting USA obligations under the Paris Climate Agreement. Trump called the harsh regulation a “war on coal”. His team said former Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, a fierce Trump critic during the campaign, is still under consideration for a diplomatic job.

According to the AAAS’s What We Know report, the projected rate of temperature change for this century is “greater than that of any extended global warming period over the past 65 million years”. “I can not think of a precedent, but I would be surprised if this were the first time”, he said.

He also filed court briefs in support of the Keystone XL Pipeline project, blocked by the Obama administration, which runs through his state.

Grijalva, who is co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, highlighted the fact that on Pruitt’s watch, Oklahoma has been stricken by a remarkable number of major, human-caused earthquakes due to fracking and the associated waste disposal operations across the state. He convinced a federal court to block its implementation, as well.

Greenpeace’s Mr Nichols said more people cared about climate change than voted for Mr Trump, and that his administration was on the “wrong side” of the issue.

In an opinion article published earlier this year by National Review, Pruitt suggested that the debate over global warming “is far from settled” and claimed “scientists continue to disagree about the degree and extent of global warming and its connection to the actions of mankind”.

But at least three Republicans who do take climate change seriously could potentially go the other way – John McCain of Arizona, Lindsay Graham of SC and Susan Collins of Maine.

As the Washington Post put it, “Pruitt has spent much of his energy as attorney general fighting the very agency he is being nominated to lead”. As head of the EPA, Pruitt will likely try to take the simple step of halting the EPA’s defense of these regulations.

Right now, that case is headed to a 10-judge D.C. Circuit panel that will decide the legality of the Clean Power Plan regulations.

He continued, “Because that is not – we have air issues across state issues that do affect, I mean, just think about it, you have a power plant in Arkansas that’s burning coal irresponsibly or inconsistent with the statue, and it comes over to Oklahoma and Texas”. Unfortunately, the Supreme Court eventually ruled that, even though the 2010 law said the subsidies would come through state exchanges (or if the state chose, federal exchanges), that it did not matter.

Sen. Chuck Schumer, who is poised to serve as the Democratic leader in the next Congress, said his party plans to press Pruitt with “tough questions” in his confirmation hearing.

Pruitt told lawmakers that Oklahoma produced 7.4 percent of the nation’s natural gas.

“It’s an oxymoron, Scott Pruitt and the environment”, she said.

In February 2013, Pruitt announced a deal with Arkansas to conduct a three-year, “best science” study on phosphorus loads, agreeing that both states will abide by its findings.

Supporters in Oklahoma say Pruitt is aggressive and high-energy. It’s not as though his Cabinet members will be able to just do what they want.