Donald Trump's choice to head the US Environmental Protection Agency told senators today that climate change is real, breaking with both the president-elect and his own past statements.
Pressed by Democrats during his Senate confirmation hearing, Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt said he disagreed with Trump's past statements that global warming is a hoax created by the Chinese to harm the economic competitiveness of the United States.
"I do not believe climate change is a hoax," said Pruitt, a Republican.
Though his academic degrees are in political science and law, Pruitt has previously cast doubt on the extensive body of scientific evidence showing that the planet is warming and man-made carbon emissions are to blame. In a 2016 opinion article, Pruitt suggested that the debate over global warming "is far from settled" and claimed "scientists continue to disagree about the degree and extent of global warming and its connection to the actions of mankind."
Pruitt's comments today came less than one hour after NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration issued a joint statement affirming that 2016 was officially the hottest year in recorded history. Studies show the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets have decreased in mass, while the world's oceans have risen on average nearly 7 inches in the last century.
Despite his apparent shift on climate science, Pruitt defended his past record of opposing any federal regulation of the man-made carbon emissions that are warming the planet. As Oklahoma's attorney general, Pruitt joined with other Republican state attorneys general in opposing the Obama administration's Clean Power Plan, which seeks to limit planet-warming carbon emissions from coal-fired power plants. Pruitt also sued over the agency's recent expansion of water bodies regulated under the federal Clean Water Act, which has been opposed by industries that would be forced to clean up polluted wastewater.
Today, Pruitt said as EPA administrator he would work cooperatively with states and industry to return the federal watchdog to what he described as its proper role.
"Environmental regulations should not occur in an economic vacuum," Pruitt said. "We can simultaneously pursue the mutual goals of environmental protection and economic growth." Pruitt has a long history of criticizing and suing the agency he is now being tapped to lead. His nomination was fiercely opposed by environmentalists who cite his cozy relationships with oil and gas industry executives who have donated generously his political campaigns. He is expected to win approval by the Republican-led Senate.
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