Donald Trump made another excellent nomination, of Oklahoma attorney general Scott Pruitt for EPA administrator. But you wouldn’t know it by reading the mainstream media, who criticized Pruitt for being “too friendly” to fossil fuel producers in his fight against Obama energy regulations.
At the heart of Mr. Obama’s efforts to tackle climate change are a collection of E.P.A. regulations aimed at forcing power plants to significantly reduce their emissions of planet-warming carbon dioxide pollution.
They are being forced to reduce their emissions, all right – by shutting down, reducing the overall power supply available to the nation as a whole, as part of Obama’s illegal “Clean Power Plan” regulations designed to shut down coal and other fossil fuel power plants, even though we currently have nothing to replace them with.
As Mr. Pruitt has sought to use legal tools to fight environmental regulations on the oil and gas companies that are a major part of his state’s economy, he has also worked with those companies. A 2014 investigation by The Times found that energy lobbyists drafted letters for Mr. Pruitt to send, on state stationery, to the E.P.A., the Interior Department, the Office of Management and Budget and even President Obama, outlining the economic hardship of the environmental rules.
Here’s an original thought: Mr. Pruitt didn’t just ally himself with oil and gas companies; he allied himself with every consumer who uses oil and gas and wants to continue to do so at affordable prices.
Here’s what one red-green had to say about Mr. Pruitt:
“At a time when climate change is the great environmental threat to the entire planet, it is sad and dangerous that Mr. Trump has nominated Scott Pruitt to lead the E.P.A.,” said Senator Bernie Sanders. … “The American people must demand leaders who are willing to transform our energy system away from fossil fuels. I will vigorously oppose this nomination.”
Climate change is the greatest environmental threat? What about our greatest threat, period, such as radical Islam, unchecked illegal immigration, and our enormous national debt? These things will destroy us long before fictional global warming. And the American people are not demanding we move away from fossil fuels. They use more fossil fuels than ever. It is political commissars like Bernie who are making the demands.
