Shift at EPA shows technocrats are replacing big-personality Cabinet members

Scott Pruitt was known inside the Environmental Protection Agency’s headquarters for sipping $10 organic juice infused with kale, sporting Ferragamo shoes with his Hickey Freeman suits, and making biblical references in texts and conversations with aides.

Andrew Wheeler stepped into the role of acting Environmental
Protection Agency administrator after Scott Pruitt resigned.

Andrew Wheeler, on the other hand, is a policy wonk who keeps his religious views private and collects Coca-Cola memorabilia.

That contrast has come to the fore as Wheeler prepares to take the helm of the agency on Monday in the wake of Pruitt’s resignation amid allegations of overspending and ethical misconduct. It speaks to the shift that has been underway — in fits and starts — as Trump’s Cabinet transitions from a team stocked with high-profile personalities who joined in the early days of the administration to one with a growing number of technocrats.

Read The Washington Post story - “Shift at EPA shows technocrats are replacing big-personality Cabinet members.”

Scott Pruitt resigns as EPA head

WASHINGTON — Scott Pruitt, the former Oklahoma attorney general who relentlessly pursued President Donald Trump’s promises of deregulation at the Environmental Protection Agency, resigned Thursday after a cascade of controversies over his lavish spending, ethical lapses, and controversial management decisions finally eroded the president’s confidence in one of his most ardent Cabinet members.

Gone! - Scott Pruitt,  who relentlessly pursued
President Donald Trump’s promises of deregulation
 at the Environmental Protection Agency, has resigned.

Pruitt’s reputation as a dogged deregulator and outspoken booster of the president allowed him to weather a litany of ethics scandals in recent months, including questions about taxpayer-funded first-class travel, a discounted condo rental from a Washington lobbyist, and the installation of a $43,000 soundproof phone booth in his office.

Read the story from The Boston Globe - “Scott Pruitt resigns as EPA head.”

(Sometimes good things happen and so now we just hope his replacement is somewhat more sympathetic to the environment and he/she actually demonstrates that through the workings of the EPA - Robert McLean)

The Energy 202: Arnold Schwarzenegger calls Scott Pruitt 'worst environmental secretary that we have ever had’

Arnold Schwarzenegger is no fan of President Trump or his deputies, including Environmental Protection Agency chief Scott Pruitt. Yet the former California governor cemented his place as perhaps the most anti-Trump Republican out there, at least on energy and environmental issues, by calling Pruitt “the worst environmental secretary that we have ever had.”

Former California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger
 and British primatologist Jane Goodall pose for
pictures during during an environmental summit
Vienna, Austria this month.

In an interview with Vice News published over the Memorial Day weekend, Schwarzenegger had unusually harsh words for the embattled EPA administrator.

“He's doing the bidding for the oil companies and the coal companies,” Schwarzenegger said when asked about the possibility the EPA will take away California's ability to set its own automobile emissions standards. "I pay no attention to what he says. He cannot be taken seriously.”

Read the story from The Washington Post by Dino Grandoni -  “The Energy 202: Arnold Schwarzenegger calls Scott Pruitt 'worst environmental secretary that we have ever had’.”

Pruitt’s Own Scientist Appointees Challenge EPA Science Restrictions

Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt faces harsh criticism from members of the agency's Science Advisory Board (SAB)—including from some he named to the panel himself—over his plan to restrict the types of scientific evidence the agency can use in writing EPA rules.

The head of the Environmental Protection Agency, Scott Pruitt, has proposed
 a new regulation to restrict the types of scientific evidence that can be used
in writing EPA rules. National science organizations have mounted a campaign
to reject Pruitt’s approach.

Ten members of an SAB work group, in a signed memorandum, called for the full board to scrutinize Pruitt's proposal at a meeting on May 31, saying his approach was designed without necessary input from the scientific community. Leading national science organizations have mounted a campaign to reject Pruitt's approach.

Pruitt's proposal would no longer allow the EPA to use scientific studies where the underlying data is not public. The move could rule out health studies that promised participants confidentiality—some of which have served as the underpinning of regulations, especially clean air standards. The policy takes up a cause long-championed by the fossil fuel industry and its allies in Congress.

Read the Marianne Lavelle story from Inside Climate News - “Pruitt’s Own Scientist Appointees Challenge EPA Science Restrictions.”

Why George Pell dined with under-fire EPA's Scott Pruitt in secret

New York: Cardinal George Pell has emerged as a mystery guest who dined at a lavish Rome restaurant with embattled US environmental chief Scott Pruitt to secretly plan a public debate challenging climate change.

Cardinal George Pell and Scott Pruitt dined at
 La Terrazza, atop the five-star Hotel Eden.

The five-star rooftop dinner, which came three weeks before Pell was charged with historic child sexual abuse, was deliberately removed from four different public schedules released by Pruitt's offices due to the allegations hanging over the Vatican financial chief, it has emerged.

Read Rachel Olding’s story from The Age - "Why George Pell dined with under-fire EPA's Scott Pruitt in secret.”

Climate sceptic group IPA suggested as co-host of Australian visit by Trump's environment chief

An organiser of Scott Pruitt’s Australian
  visit suggested the Institute of Public
Affairs should be a co-host. 

The climate sceptic thinktank the Institute of Public Affairs was mooted as a co-host of an Australian visit by Donald Trump’s beleaguered Environment Protection Agency head, Scott Pruitt, which may have included discussion with local officials on whether environmental deals should be changed or cancelled.

Emails released to the US environment group the Sierra Club under freedom of information laws show that Matthew Freedman, a Washington consultant who describes himself as “a close personal friend” of the Australian environment minister, Josh Frydenberg, played a central role in organising Pruitt’s proposed August trip before it was cancelled when Hurricane Harvey hit the Texas gulf coast.

In the US, the emails are of interest as evidence that Pruitt relied on business figures and lobbyists to plan and justify his overseas travel. They were first published by the New York Times.

Read Adam Morton’s story from The Guardian - “Climate sceptic group IPA suggested as co-host of Australian visit by Trump's environment chief.”

The Energy 202: Scott Pruitt's climate message is now official EPA guidance

Environmental Protection Agency chief Scott Pruitt has long insisted it is difficult for scientists to precisely measure the extent to which humans cause climate change.

Chief of the US Environmental Protection Agency, Scott Pruitt,
insists it is too difficult for scientists to precisely measure the
extent to which humans cause climate change.

Now EPA's regional staff engaging with local communities and Native American tribes have been instructed to push the same message too.

This week, EPA staffers received an email instructing them to underscore the uncertainties about how human activity contributes to climate change.

Read Dino Grandoni’s story from The Washington Post - “The Energy 202: Scott Pruitt's climate message is now official EPA guidance.”

Scott Pruitt’s dirty politics

How the Environmental Protection Agency
became the fossil fuel industry's best friend.

One afternoon last April, Scott Pruitt, the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, travelled to the Harvey Mine, in Sycamore, Pennsylvania, to declare that the agency had a new direction, which he called “Back to Basics.” It was an unusual place for the nation’s chief steward of clean air, land, and water to set out a policy agenda. Consol Energy, the owner of the Harvey facility, which is part of the largest underground coal-mining complex in North America, has been fined repeatedly by the E.P.A. for violations; in 2016, it had to pay three million dollars for having discharged contaminated wastewater into the Ohio River and its tributaries. Past E.P.A. administrators have spoken of creating jobs as a welcome potential by-product of the agency’s work, especially if they are green jobs, but creating or protecting energy jobs is not supposed to be the mission—protecting human health and the environment is. As the speech that Pruitt gave at the mine demonstrated, he seems to have these priorities reversed.

Pruitt, who is forty-nine, looked cheerful, as he generally does at public appearances. (He declined my requests for an interview.) Unlike many people who have joined the chaotic Trump Administration, he seems unconflicted about his new role, his ideological and career goals fitting together as neatly as Lego blocks. The former attorney general of Oklahoma, Pruitt ascended politically by fighting one regulation after another. In his first year at the E.P.A., he has proposed repealing or delaying more than thirty significant environmental rules. In February, when the White House announced its intention to reduce the E.P.A.’s budget by twenty-five per cent—one of the largest cuts for any federal agency—Pruitt made no objections. His schedule is dominated by meetings and speaking engagements with representatives of the industries he regulates. He has met only a handful of times with environmental groups.

Read the New Yorker story - “Scott Pruitt’s dirty politics.”

The Problem With the Climate Movement? Too Much Science

Next month, EPA chief and coal-industry darling Scott Pruitt will likely kick off a ‘Red Team, Blue Team’ “debate” on climate science. The purpose, according to Pruitt, is to establish an “objective, transparent, public review of questions and answers around the issues around carbon dioxide,” wherein a ‘red team’ of conservative pundits tries to poke holes in decades of climate research. In reality, this isn’t science. It’s theater, a one-act play put on for coal-mining executives and conservative think tanks.

Bill Nye - too much science.

The fact that scientists overwhelmingly agree humans are causing a rapid and dangerous rise in temperature should come as little comfort to advocates. Pruitt shows that for many Americans, science isn’t the strength of the climate movement. It’s the Achilles heel, and fossil fuel firms have been hacking away at it for decades.

Read the Nexus Media story by Jeremy Deaton - “The Problem With the Climate Movement? Too Much Science.”

Hurricane Irma Linked to Climate Change? For Some, a Very ‘Insensitive’ Question

WASHINGTON — Scott Pruitt, the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, says it is insensitive to discuss climate change in the midst of deadly storms.

Scott Pruitt, administrator of the Environmental
 Protection Agency, at the White House in
June - he says it is insensitive to discuss
climate change now, but Republican Miami mayor, Tomás Regalado, says if not now, when?

Tomás Regalado, the Republican mayor of Miami whose citizens raced to evacuate before Hurricane Irma, says if not now, when?

“This is the time to talk about climate change. This is the time that the president and the E.P.A. and whoever makes decisions needs to talk about climate change,” Mr. Regalado told the Miami Herald. “If this isn’t climate change, I don’t know what is. This is a truly, truly poster child for what is to come.”

For scientists, drawing links between warming global temperatures and the ferocity of hurricanes is about as controversial as talking about geology after an earthquake. But in Washington, where science is increasingly political, the fact that oceans and atmosphere are warming and that the heat is propelling storms into superstorms has become as sensitive as talking about gun control in the wake of a mass shooting.

Read Lisa Friedman’s story in The New York Times - “Hurricane Irma Linked to Climate Change? For Some, a Very ‘Insensitive’ Question.”

Pruitt slams scientists for talking about ‘cause and effect’ of Harvey, Irma

For Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt, the right time to talk about the link between climate change and hurricanes is… never.

President Donald Trump and EPA
Administrator, Scott Pruitt.

In an interview with CNN on Hurricanes Irma and Harvey, Pruitt slammed scientists for discussing “the cause and effect of these storms,” saying that “to use time and effort to address it at this point is very, very insensitive to the people in Florida.”

That statement flies in the face of a growing body of scientific evidence connecting climate change to more intense and destructive hurricanes. As we’ve written, if we can’t talk about what’s to come, and what’s driving it, then how can we plan for it? How can we rebuild wisely?

Pruitt himself apparently never wants to address the issue. Indeed, Politico reported Friday that “EPA’s climate change adaptation staff will be dissolved.” Specifically, this is “the team formerly focused on preparing for sea-level rise and extreme weather.”

Read Joe Romm’s ThinkProgress story - “Pruitt slams scientists for talking about ‘cause and effect’ of Harvey, Irma.”

E.P.A. to Give Dissenters a Voice on Climate, No Matter the Consensus.

WASHINGTON — Scott Pruitt, the head of the Environmental Protection Agency, plans to convene a team of researchers to test the scientific premise of human-caused climate change, he told coal industry executives on Thursday.

A coal-fired power plant in Juliette, Ga.

Speaking at a board meeting of the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity, a lobbying group for coal companies and their industry allies, Mr. Pruitt said his staff had already begun preparations for a “red team-blue team” exercise to challenge mainstream climate science, according to two people who attended the meeting but were not authorized to speak about it publicly.

The initiative, first reported by E&E News, is the latest in a series of moves at the E.P.A. that critics say is undermining the role of academic research at the agency charged with protecting the nation’s environment and public health.

Read the story by Brad Plumer and Carol Davenport on The New York Times - “E.P.A. to Give Dissenters a Voice on Climate, No Matter the Consensus.”

Heatwaves to soar above the hot air of climate politics

Scott Pruitt achieved something of a political first last week. The controversial head of the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was grilled by the officials who control his budget and told that he had asked for too little cash. In fact, the officials insisted, they were determined to give his agency more than he had requested.

Keeping cool will become increasingly difficult
 as heatwaves become more severe and frequent.

“I can assure you, you’re going to be the first EPA administrator that’s come before this committee in eight years that actually gets more money than they asked for,” said Oklahoma congressman Tom Cole, a member of the US House of Representatives Committee on Appropriations who, as a Republican, is nominally on the same side as Pruitt. In a gruelling session, Pruitt was left in no doubt of what the committee members thought of proposals from Donald Trump’s administration to slash both the spending and the remit of the EPA.

“I’ll get straight to it. The fiscal year 2018 budget request for EPA is a disaster,” said Nita Lowey, a Democratic representative for New York who sits on the committee. The intended cuts of US$2.4 billion to the agency budget, she said, would “surely impact EPA’s ability to fulfil its critical mission of protecting the air we breathe and the water we drink”.

Read the story in Nature - “Heatwaves to soar above the hot air of climate politics.”

Scientists just published an entire study refuting Scott Pruitt on climate change

In a sign of growing tensions between scientists and the Trump administration, researchers published a scientific paper Wednesday that was conceived and written as an explicit refutation to an assertion by Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt about climate change.

Environmental Protection Agency Administrator
 Scott Pruitt speaks with coal miners in Sycamore, Pa., in April.

The study, in the journal Nature Scientific Reports, sets up a direct test of a claim by Pruitt, made in written Senate comments following his confirmation hearing, that “over the past two decades satellite data indicates there has been a leveling off of warming.”

After reviewing temperature trends contained in three satellite data sets going back to 1979, the paper concludes that the data sets show a global warming trend — and that Pruitt was incorrect.

Read Chris Mooney’s on The Washington Post - “Scientists just published an entire study refuting Scott Pruitt on climate change.”

EPA dismisses climate change scientists 'to replace them with industry reps’

The Environmental Protection Agency has dismissed at least five members of a major scientific review board, the latest signal of what critics call a campaign by the Trump administration to shrink the agency’s regulatory reach by reducing the role of academic research.

Donald Trump with Scott Pruitt, administrator
 of the Environmental Protection Agency. 

A spokesman for the EPA administrator, Scott Pruitt, said he would consider replacing the academic scientists with representatives from industries whose pollution the agency is supposed to regulate, as part of the wide net it plans to cast. “The administrator believes we should have people on this board who understand the impact of regulations on the regulated community,” said the spokesman, JP Freire.

The dismissals on Friday came about six weeks after the House of Representatives passed a bill aimed at changing the composition of another EPA scientific review board to include more representation from the corporate world.

Read Coral Davenport’s story on the Independent - “EPA dismisses climate change scientists 'to replace them with industry reps’.”

EPA Chief Scott Pruitt Disputes Carbon Dioxide’s Role in Global Warming, Contradicting His Own Agency's Research

Today Scott Pruitt, the recently appointed head of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, stated in a CNBC interview that he does not believe that carbon dioxide is one of the primary contributors to global warming.

The new head of the U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency, Scott Pruitt, is in
conflict with he own agency's advice.

According to a partial excerpt of Pruitt’s interview posted on The Hill, Pruitt stated the following:

“I think that measuring with precision human activity on the climate is something very challenging to do and there’s tremendous disagreement about the degree of impact. So no, I would not agree that it’s a primary contributor to the global warming that we see … But we don’t know that yet … we need to continue the debate and continue the review and the analysis.”

The Hill also points out that Pruitt gave the interview outside of a fossil fuel industry conference that he will be speaking at this week.

Pruitt’s statement runs contradictory to his own agency’s research. The EPA has already concluded that carbon dioxide is the primary driver of human-caused climate change since the Industrial Revolution and especially since the mid-20th century. According to the EPA website:

Carbon dioxide is the primary greenhouse gas that is contributing to recent climate change. CO2 is absorbed and emitted naturally as part of the carbon cycle, through plant and animal respiration, volcanic eruptions, and ocean-atmosphere exchange. Human activities, such as the burning of fossil fuels and changes in land use, release large amounts of CO2, causing concentrations in the atmosphere to rise.

Atmospheric CO2 concentrations have increased by more than 40% since pre-industrial times, from approximately 280 parts per million by volume (ppmv) in the 18th century to over 400 ppmv in 2015. The monthly average concentration at Mauna Loa now exceeds 400 ppmv for the first time in human history. The current CO2 level is higher than it has been in at least 800,000 years.

Read the DeSmog Blog story - “EPA Chief Scott Pruitt Disputes Carbon Dioxide’s Role in Global Warming, Contradicting His Own Agency's Research.”

Watch Bill McKibben Talk Climate Change Battle on 'Real Time’

Bill McKibben - 'a bad day
 for earth's wellbeing'.

On a particularly bad day for Earth's wellbeing – the EPA revealed massive budgetary cuts while the Trump administration waffled on the Paris Agreement on climate change – environmentalist and 350.org founder Bill McKibben appeared on Real Time With Bill Maher to discuss the dire situation and how the American people can fight back.

"The level of complete corruption from the fossil fuel industry that marks this administration is like nothing we've ever seen," McKibben said, adding that new EPA chief Scott Pruitt frequently sued the EPA on behalf of energy companies while Attorney General of Oklahoma.

Read the Rolling Stone story - “Watch Bill McKibben Talk Climate Change Battle on 'Real Time’.”

EPA Nominee Pruitt Ordered to Produce Documents About Fossil Fuel Ties.

Scott Pruitt - details of his relationship
 with the fossil fuel industry. 

An Oklahoma judge on Thursday ordered the state's attorney general, Scott Pruitt, to quickly release thousands of pages of documents after years of delay. 

The records could reveal details of his relationship with the fossil fuel industry, which he will be in charge of regulating nationwide once confirmed as head of the Environmental Protection Agency.

The ruling, in response to a public records request from an advocacy group, came a day before a planned Senate vote to confirm Pruitt as Donald Trump's chief of the Environmental Protection Agency. The state judge gave Pruitt's office until Tuesday to produce the records.

Senate Democrats who have been seeking some of the same records tried to delay the confirmation vote, arguing that the documents requested could shed light on Pruitt's ties to industries he would be charged with regulating as EPA administrator.

Oklahoma district judge Aletia Haynes Timmons issued the order after agreeing to expedite a lawsuit brought by The Center for Media and Democracy ahead of the confirmation vote. Timmons ruled that "there was an abject failure to provide prompt and reasonable access to documents request by plaintiff.”

CMD sued Pruitt earlier this month in Oklahoma state court, saying he had failed to produce public records in response to nine requests the group had submitted dating back to 2015.

Read the Inside Climate News story - “EPA Nominee Pruitt Ordered to Produce Documents About Fossil Fuel Ties.”

Follow the Money: Koch Brothers Back Pruitt to Head EPA

The Koch brothers - Charles and David
Koch dig deep to keep the fossil fuel
industry alive and the public confused.

The two dozen nonprofit groups and Senate committee members defending Scott Pruitt, President Donald Trump's nominee for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) administrator, have at least two things in common.

Like Pruitt, they're climate science deniers. And, like Pruitt, most of them are funded by Charles and David Koch, the billionaire brothers who own the coal, oil and gas conglomerate Koch Industries.

That funding helps explain why they all consistently misrepresent the scientific consensus on climate change. After all, money buys influence and since 1997, Koch foundations have paid a network of think tanks and advocacy groups more than $88 million to spread climate science disinformation—more than twice what Exxon, the second-biggest denier-network funder, has spent. Likewise, Koch Industries has contributed $38.5 million to federal candidates over the last 25 years and spent another $117 million since 1998 on lobbying.

Read the EcoWatch story by Elliott Negin - “Follow the Money: Koch Brothers Back Pruitt to Head EPA.”

More dire data, less climate change concern?

More carbon will be released from
soil as the planet gets hotter.

Donald Trump has appointed an opponent of climate action to head America's environment agency - but reaction has been muted. As climate change becomes more apparent, are people becoming fatigued on the topic?

Donald Trump, set to become president of the United States in about a month's time, has chosen Scott Pruitt - a leading opponent of federal environment and climate regulation - to head the country's Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

Pruitt, currently the attorney general in the state of Oklahoma, is currently suing the EPA in an effort to limit carbon emission limits on power plants put in place by outgoing president Barack Obama.

Pruitt does not believe that manmade climate change is a certainty, and has described the issue as "far from settled." United States campaign group Sierra Club described his nomination, which must still be confirmed by the US Senate, as "putting an arsonist in charge of fighting fires.

Read the DW story - “More dire data, less climate change concern?