This has made the NY Times very upset, along with many EPA employees/activists
In the days since, Mr. Pruitt, a former Oklahoma attorney general who built a career out of suing the agency he now leads, has moved to stock the top offices of the agency with like-minded conservatives — many of them skeptics of climate change and all of them intent on rolling back environmental regulations that they see as overly intrusive and harmful to business.
Mr. Pruitt has drawn heavily from the staff of his friend and fellow Oklahoma Republican, Senator James Inhofe, long known as Congress’s most prominent skeptic of climate science. A former Inhofe chief of staff, Ryan Jackson, will be Mr. Pruitt’s chief of staff. Another former Inhofe staff member, Byron Brown, will serve as Mr. Jackson’s deputy. Andrew Wheeler, a fossil fuel lobbyist and a former Inhofe chief of staff, is a finalist to be Mr. Pruitt’s deputy, although he requires confirmation to the position by the Senate.
To friends and critics, Mr. Pruitt seems intent on building an E.P.A. leadership that is fundamentally at odds with the career officials, scientists and employees who carry out the agency’s missions. That might be a recipe for strife and gridlock at the federal agency tasked to keep safe the nation’s clean air and water while safeguarding the planet’s future.
‘Climate change’ has nothing to do with keeping the air and water clean, and Pruitt has no intention of rolling back actual real environmental regulations. But, hey, it wouldn’t be the NY Times without some activist scaremongering, would it?
Gina McCarthy, who headed the E.P.A. under former President Barack Obama, said she too saw Mr. Pruitt as unique. “It’s fine to have differing opinions on how to meet the mission of the agency. Many Republican administrators have had that,†she said. “But here, for the first time, I see someone who has no commitment to the mission of the agency.â€
The EPA wasn’t actually established to be a climate activist agency, just to protect the environment. It’s long forgotten that mission.
Agency employees say morale has already been damaged. After working for years to draft climate change regulations under the Obama administration, many of those same career scientists and lawyers will be ordered to go back and undo them.
Well, they can go work in the private sector. This happens in the private sector all the time. Someone new comes in to change the direction of a company, and, people can either go with the flow or leave.
Tony Heller, ie, Steven Goddard of The Deplorable Climate Science Blog, was mentioned in the article, and has a few thoughts.
Steven Milloy of Junk Science is also mentioned
The NYTimes is helping to sell my book 'Scare Pollution' today.
Have you read it? https://t.co/WThcuG3bfyhttps://t.co/8pwmXYUBSL
— Steve Milloy (@JunkScience) March 8, 2017
Trump won. He and the people he appoints now get to set the direction.
This is another good move by the Administration.
There should be skeptics at the EPA. There should be robust debates about proposed new rules along with transparent data.
If the data supports new regulations and a true consensus is reached, the resulting regulations will be better for everyone.
Obviously Hank_M you’ve never tried to do a large real estate development. I’ve done 3 shopping centers and on the last one I finally surrendered and sold it before completion to a big retailer who was going to be my anchor sore but we made a deal for them to buy the whole thing. Problem is, there is the local version of the EPA, the state version then the nightmare federal version. All three barrage you with there own rules which frequently are in opposition to each other. All three have inspectors who are keepers of their little fiefdoms and all have their hand out. And all want to flex their bureaucratic muscle on you, the developer, and on each other to show who can stop the most work, cause the most damage and expense to the developer and who get the largest stack of “non-compliance” fines for promotion. It’s a nightmare and I’ll never do it again.
Now add those redundant local, state and federal EPA bureaucrats to those from OSHA, ADA, ICE, and about two dozen more and you can see why building has become a rich mans business when years ago it helped average men become rich men.
Then once it’s open the tax guys start circling like sharks from local, state and federal. They have taxes, fees and fines on things you never heard of.
Unfortunately for trumpy and America, he “won” with millions fewer votes than his opponent and his current approval rating hovers around 40%, meaning 60% of Amerians oppose his efforts.
America will not die easily. He needs to toughen up, be a man for once (raping America is not as easy as raping teen girls) and get used to the criticism and protests. America will not die easily. Or at all.
Thursday morning links
Too Much Emotional Intelligence Is a Bad Thing Harvard declares against freedom of association An Australian mom sends a piece of cake with her daughter as part of that day’s school lunch. The school responds by scolding the mom for violating nu