President-Elect Trump And The Environment

The president-elect and the environment.  His pick to run the EPA is a close ally of fossil fuel companies and questions climate change?  What can we expect?

Word over the weekend that the front-runner for Secretary of State under Donald Trump is CEO of the world’s biggest oil company, Exxon-Mobil. Climate change denier and top foe of EPA policy, Scott Pruitt, is up to head the EPA. And pro-drilling Congresswoman Cathy McMorris Rodgers for Secretary of Interior. Climate scientists say we are at a tipping point – cut back fossil fuel use or pay a brutal price. Trump says pedal to the metal. This hour On Point: The incoming Trump administration and the environment. — Tom Ashbrook

Emily Holden, reporter for E & E News' ClimateWire and Power Plan Hub. E & E is a trade journal that covers environmental and energy policy and markets. (@emilyhholden)

Bill McKibben, author, environmentalist and founder of 350.org. Distinguished scholar at Middleburry College. Author of "The End of Nature" and "Oil and Honey." (@billmckibben)

Amb. C. Boyden Gray, founding partner of Boyden Gray & Associates, a law and strategy firm. Former U.S. Ambassador to the European Union and former counsel to the Presidential Task Force on Regulatory Relief.

ClimateWire: What does Scott Pruitt believe about climate science? — "Environmental groups yesterday sounded off against Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt (R) leading U.S. EPA, calling him a climate denier with deep fossil fuel ties who has relentlessly aimed to thwart greenhouse gas standards. Pruitt is among the chief attorneys general leading a 28-state fight against the agency's carbon regulations for power plants, and he joined a lawsuit against methane emissions limits for the oil and gas sector."

Bloomberg Politics: Trump Team’s Memo Hints at Broad Shake-Up of U.S. Energy Policy -- "Advisers to President-elect Donald Trump are developing plans to reshape Energy Department programs, help keep aging nuclear plants online and identify staff who played a role in promoting President Barack Obama’s climate agenda."

Washington Post: A dire week for climate change activists closes on a grim note -- "As attorney general of a state that makes a lot of money from the fossil-fuel industry, Pruitt was perhaps unsurprisingly hostile to attempts by the EPA to curtail the greenhouse gas emissions that fossil fuels produce. Pruitt (along with a number of officials from other states) sued the EPA. But his advocacy often went further. In 2014, the New York Times won a Pulitzer for its reporting on the conflicts between state attorneys general and business interests. One story singled out Pruitt for having taken a letter from the energy industry and simply putting it on his official letterhead. Pruitt, simply put, rejects established science linking climate change to human activity."