December 7, 2016

Donald Trump’s Pick To Head The EPA Is “An Existential Threat To The Planet”


Donald Trump’s transition team has announced that the next head of the EPA will be Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt. This is very bad news!

As my colleague Jeremy Shulman noted earlier this year, Pruitt has some very dumb views about climate change.:

Views on climate change: “The EPA does not possess the authority under the Clean Air Act to accomplish what it proposes in the unlawful Clean Power Plan. The EPA is ignoring the authority granted by Congress to states to regulate power plant emissions at their source. The Clean Power Plan is an unlawful attempt to expand federal bureaucrats’ authority over states’ energy economies in order to shutter coal-fired power plants and eventually other sources of fossil-fuel generated electricity.” [Pruitt press release, 7/1/15]

Writing in National Review year, Pruitt blathered:

Scientists continue to disagree about the degree and extent of global warming and its connection to the actions of mankind. That debate should be encouraged — in classrooms, public forums, and the halls of Congress.

Think Progress has many more reasons why Pruitt at the EPA is a disaster.

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We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

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