Trump settles on Oklahoma’s attorney general to lead EPA

Meanwhile, Pruitt has received $318,496 in campaign contributions from the fossil fuel industry since 2002, leaving little doubt about whose interests he’ll protect as EPA head – and it’s not people or the environment.

Fallin, who has also met with Trump to discuss a possible administration job, said in a statement Thursday that Pruitt is a “tireless advocate of the precious balance of power between state and federal governments”.

“Scott Pruitt running the EPA is like the fox guarding the henhouse”, League of Conservation Voters president Gene Karpinski said in an emailed statement reacting to news of the nomination before the formal announcement. Pruitt spent much of his time as Oklahoma’s top law enforcement officer defending the oil and gas industry from regulators during the fracking boom.

US President Barack Obama and Republican President-elect Donald Trump shake hands during a transition planning meeting in the Oval Office at the White House on November 10, 2016 in Washington, DC. Ironically enough, Pruitt, has used his position as attorney general to fight the same agency he is being nominated to lead.

Representing his state, Pruitt has repeatedly sued the EPA to roll back environmental regulations and public health protections, including opposing the Clean Power Plan that seeks to limit planet-warming carbon emissions from coal-fired power plants.

“Scientists continue to disagree about the degree and extent of global warming and its connection to the actions of mankind”, he wrote in the Tulsa World.

“A war on EPA will have real impact on New Jersey, but we can still be a real bulwark against the Trump administration, ” argued Doug O’Malley, director of Environment New Jersey, “Eleven months from now, New Jersey can send a clear message that you cannot trample on the environment”.

Bracewell LLP’s Scott Segal, head of the policy resolution group, also praised Trump’s selection of Pruitt.

Several senators immediately said they would oppose his nomination, including Ed Markey, a Democrat from MA, who called Pruitt “unsuitable to lead the EPA” because of his history “carrying water for Big Oil”.

“Can we detect and attribute a signal in the warming that we observe that is connected to Carbon dioxide emissions and concentrations, then yes the science is settled to a very high extent”, said Prof Arthur Petersen, from UCL, and a former chief scientist with the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency.

This may pull the USA from its global leadership on climate change reform.

This news comes as boon to many who believe that the EPA has been overstepping its purview in recent years.

“Rather than swinging the regulatory pendulum with each change of federal administration, we need to combine appropriate regulatory sideboards with flexibility and incentives that safeguard public and environmental health while providing predictability and support for rural businesses and economies”, Allison concluded.

Newly-elected presidents deserve some leeway in advisers and cabinet choices – elections have consequences, after all – and it’s reasonable to hear what nominees have to say, particularly those facing the Senate confirmation process.

That advocacy includes a multi-state lawsuit filed against the agency for Obama’s ambitious plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from the nation’s power plants.

Aside from the personnel announcements, Trump basked in being named Time magazine’s “person of the year”, telling NBC’s “Today” show, “It’s a great honour, it means a lot”. Scott Pruitt, certainly, doesn’t think so.