{"id":283542,"date":"2016-12-09T10:23:54","date_gmt":"2016-12-09T09:23:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/the-end-of-the-epa-trump-taps-climate-change-denier-and-fossil-fuel-ally-scott-pruitt-to-head-agency\/"},"modified":"2016-12-09T17:38:37","modified_gmt":"2016-12-09T16:38:37","slug":"the-end-of-the-epa-trump-taps-climate-change-denier-and-fossil-fuel-ally-scott-pruitt-to-head-agency","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/latest-news\/the-end-of-the-epa-trump-taps-climate-change-denier-and-fossil-fuel-ally-scott-pruitt-to-head-agency\/","title":{"rendered":"The End of the EPA? Trump Taps Climate Change Denier and Fossil Fuel Ally Scott Pruitt to Head Agency"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p>President-elect Donald Trump has announced he will nominate Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt to head the Environmental Protection Agency. Pruitt is seen as a close ally of the fossil fuel industry. In 2014, The New York Times revealed that Pruitt and other Republican attorneys general had formed what the paper described as an &#8220;unprecedented, secretive alliance&#8221; with the nation&#8217;s top energy producers to fight Obama&#8217;s climate efforts. Senator Bernie Sanders said, &#8220;Pruitt&#8217;s record is not only that of being a climate change denier, but also someone who has worked closely with the fossil fuel industry to make this country more dependent, not less, on fossil fuels.&#8221; For more, we speak with May Boeve, executive director of 350 Action, and Wenonah Hauter, executive director of Food &amp; Water Watch.<\/p>\n<p><strong>TRANSCRIPT<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><em>This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong><span class=\"caps\">NERMEEN<\/span> <span class=\"caps\">SHAIKH<\/span>:<\/strong> President-elect Donald Trump has announced he will nominate Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt to head the Environmental Protection Agency. Pruitt has been one of the EPA&#8217;s fiercest critics and has led a legal effort to overturn parts of President Obama&#8217;s climate change policies, including his Clean Power Plan. Pruitt claimed the science of climate change is, quote, &#8220;far from settled.&#8221; He is also seen as a close ally of the fossil fuel industry. In 2014, The New York Times revealed that Pruitt and other Republican attorneys general had formed what the paper described as a, quote, &#8220;unprecedented, secretive alliance&#8221; with the nation&#8217;s top energy producers to fight Obama&#8217;s climate efforts.<\/p>\n<p><strong><span class=\"caps\">AMY<\/span> <span class=\"caps\">GOODMAN<\/span>:<\/strong> The New York Times also exposed Pruitt&#8217;s close ties to the Oklahoma firm Devon Energy. In 2014, Pruitt sent the <span class=\"caps\">EPA<\/span> a letter accusing federal regulators of overestimating the amount of air pollution caused by energy companies drilling new natural gas wells in Oklahoma. What Pruitt didn&#8217;t reveal was that the letter was secretly drafted by lawyers at Devon Energy. In 2015, Pruitt testified before&#8230;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.truth-out.org\/news\/item\/38670-the-end-of-the-epa-trump-taps-climate-change-denier-and-fossil-fuel-ally-scott-pruitt-to-head-agency\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>President-elect Donald Trump has announced he will nominate Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt to head the Environmental Protection Agency. Pruitt is seen as a close ally of the fossil fuel industry. In 2014, The New York Times revealed that Pruitt and other Republican attorneys general had formed what the paper described as an &#8220;unprecedented, secretive [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[519,18],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-283542","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-newswire","7":"category-latest-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/283542","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=283542"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/283542\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=283542"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=283542"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=283542"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}