Trump taps EPA critic to lead the environmental agency

World Today

Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt arrives at Trump Tower in New York, Wednesday, Dec. 7, 2016. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)

President-elect Donald Trump on Thursday announced that he will nominate Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt to head the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

CCTV America’s Jim Spellman reports.

“An expert in Constitutional law and one of the country’s top attorneys general, Pruitt brings a deep understanding of the impact of regulations on both the environment and the economy making him an excellent choice to lead the Environmental Protection Agency,” the Trump presidential transition team said in a statement.

Pruitt, a 48-year-old Republican, has been a reliable booster of the fossil fuel industry and an outspoken critic of what he derides as the EPA’s “activist agenda.”

Environmental groups quickly denounced Pruitt as a puppet of polluters, with the Sierra Club likening his selection as EPA administrator to “putting an arsonist in charge of fighting fires.”

“For too long, the Environmental Protection Agency has spent taxpayer dollars on an out-of-control anti-energy agenda that has destroyed millions of jobs, while also undermining our incredible farmers and many other businesses and industries at every turn. As my EPA Administrator, Scott Pruitt, the highly respected Attorney General from the state of Oklahoma, will reverse this trend and restore the EPA’s essential mission of keeping our air and our water clean and safe,” said President-elect Donald Trump.

Some are concerned with Pruitt’s well-documented denial of global climate change. “Scientists continue to disagree about the degree and extent of global warming and its connection to the actions of mankind,” Pruitt wrote in May.

Even before the presidential election season, Trump has echoed similar sentiments about climate change.