President-elect Donald Trump on Thursday nominated Scott Pruitt, the attorney general of the oil and gas-intensive state of Oklahoma, to head the Environmental Protection Agency, a move singling an assault on President Obama’s climate change and environmental legacy.
Pruitt is a frequent antagonist of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and now the US President-elect has chosen him to lead the agency.
He is the third of Trump’s nominees who have key philosophical differences with the missions of the agencies they have been tapped to run. Ben Carson, named to head the Department of Housing and Urban Development, has expressed a deep aversion to the social safety net programs and fair housing initiatives that have been central to that agency’s activities. Betsy DeVos, named education secretary, has a passion for private school vouchers that critics say undercut the public school systems at the core of the government’s mission.
Trump’s transition team announced the nomination in a news release Thursday, calling Pruitt “an expert in Constitutional law” and saying he “brings a deep understanding of the impact of regulations on both the environment and the economy.”
“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,” the release quoted Trump as saying.
He said Pruitt “will reverse this trend and restore the EPA’s essential mission of keeping our air and our water clean and safe.” Trump added, “My administration strongly believes in environmental protection, and Scott Pruitt will be a powerful advocate for that mission while promoting jobs, safety and opportunity.”
Pruitt was quoted as saying: “The American people are tired of seeing billions of dollars drained from our economy due to unnecessary EPA regulations, and I intend to run this agency in a way that fosters both responsible protection of the environment and freedom for American businesses.”
PARIS AGREEMENT
Trump during his presidential campaign said he would withdraw from the 2015 Paris climate accord. But on Tuesday, at a meeting with reporters that itself experienced a U-turn in regard to whether or not it would even take place, he said: “I’m looking at it very closely. I have an open mind to it.”
The Paris Agreement sets out a global action plan to put the world on track to avoid dangerous climate change by limiting global warming to well below 2°C.
The agreement entered into force on 4 November 2016, thirty days after the date on which at least 55 Parties to the Convention accounting in total for at least an estimated 55 % of the total global greenhouse gas emissions have deposited their instruments of ratification, acceptance, approval or accession with the Depositary.
Governments agreed
- a long-term goal of keeping the increase in global average temperature to well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels;
- to aim to limit the increase to 1.5°C, since this would significantly reduce risks and the impacts of climate change;
- on the need for global emissions to peak as soon as possible, recognising that this will take longer for developing countries;
- to undertake rapid reductions thereafter in accordance with the best available sciences
Cyprus signed the Paris Agreement in April, and this Friday, December 9, the Cypriot parliament will validate the agreement which has been previously approved by the cabinet said Agriculture Minister Nicos Kouyialis on Tuesday.
WHO IS SCOTT PRUITT
Pruitt has sued the EPA on several occasions, most recently over Mr Obama’s Clean Power Plan, which aims to reduce carbon emissions from power plants.
He called the move “an unlawful attempt to expand federal bureaucrats’ authority over states’ energy economies in order to shutter coal-fired power plants.”
There is consensus among the majority of scientists in the field that carbon emissions from human activities are a key driver of rising temperatures and that the impact of climate change will be severe.
In the statement confirming his appointment, Pruitt said Americans were “tired of seeing billions of dollars drained from our economy due to unnecessary EPA regulations.
He said he would run the EPA in a way that fostered “both responsible protection of the environment and freedom for American businesses.”
Sources: BBC, National Review
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