Trump to Nominate as Head of EPA Attorney General Who Acts Like Lobbyist for Energy Companies

Likely: Clean Air and Water Will Suffer, Healthcare Costs Will Rise, Children Especially Will Be Harmed

Donald Trump will nominate Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt to head the Environmental Protection Agency. Pruitt, a climate change “questioner,” was the focus of a 2014 New York Times investigation that accused him of being in a “secretive alliance” with energy companies. Pruitt has sued the EPA and even acted as if he were a lobbyist for the energy companies, whose actions the EPA regulates. 

The nomination news comes just 48 hours after Trump met with Al Gore.

“The letter to the Environmental Protection Agency from Attorney General Scott Pruitt of Oklahoma carried a blunt accusation,” the 2014 Times article begins. “Federal regulators were grossly overestimating the amount of air pollution caused by energy companies drilling new natural gas wells in his state.”

“But Mr. Pruitt left out one critical point. The three-page letter was written by lawyers for Devon Energy, one of Oklahoma’s biggest oil and gas companies, and was delivered to him by Devon’s chief of lobbying.”

The Times notes that attorneys general “in at least a dozen states are working with energy companies and other corporate interests, which in turn are providing them with record amounts of money for their political campaigns, including at least $16 million this year.”

Politico notes that Pruitt’s “nomination would put one of the country’s leading EPA critics at the helm of the agency. Pruitt has sued the agency over its water regulations and its climate change regulations for power plants.”

Trump has a long history of calling climate change a hoax:

Here’s some immediate reaction via Twitter:

 

Image by Gage Skidmore via Flickr and a CC license