Pruitt Out at EPA, No Change in Trump’s Ecocide Agenda
by Stephen Lendman (stephenlendman.org – Home – Stephen Lendman)
Washington is no friend of the earth under Republicans or undemocratic Dems – supporting corporate interests over ecosanity, public health and welfare.
Friends of the Earth (FOE) denounced Trump’s environmental agenda, saying he surrounded himself with “dirty-energy industry” advisors, “fill(ing) his cabinet with climate change skeptics and deniers.”
His Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke is beholden to dirty-coal interests, the recipient of tens of thousands of dirty-industry dollars.
Ousted EPA administrator Scott Pruitt earlier fought against the agency’s clean air regulations, suing it to overturn Obama’s Clean Power Plan.
The former president is no friend of the earth either, strongly supporting Big Oil and other fossil fuel interests, along with companies involved in nuclear energy.
In response to Trump’s appointment of Pruitt as EPA administrator in December 2016, an unnamed agency scientist called his action an “unprecedented disaster” for nature and public health.
FOE’s Erich Pica denounced Trump, saying “(t)he world must unify in treating (him) as a pariah and not as an excuse for inaction,” calling his agenda “catastrophic.”
His energy policy is environmentally destructive. He’s pro drill, drill, drill, pro-fracking, pro-dirty-coal, lukewarm on renewable energy – America spending one-third as much as China on renewables.
When Trump appointed Pruitt EPA administrator, one critic said he put “one of the agency’s most hostile critics and a skeptic of climate change science at its helm.”
According to 350.org executive director May Boeve at the time, “(y)ou couldn’t pick a better fossil fuel industry puppet” than Pruitt.
He’s a longtime enemy of the earth, not its friend, prioritizing corporate interests exclusively – hostile to clean air, clean water and public health.
In March 2017, Trump directed Pruitt to eliminate Clean Water Rule protections, covered under the Nixon era’s 1972 Clean Water Act, acknowledging that “all waters of the US” are interconnected.
Trump called clean water protections “a horrible, horrible rule,” FOE responding at the time, saying:
Trump “ordered a review of the Clean Water Rule, which could roll back critical protections for streams and wetlands and put the drinking water sources for millions of Americans at risk from pollution.”
Friends of the Earth Oceans Campaigner Marissa Knodel blasted Trump’s “dirty water order,” calling it “dangerous and illegal, based on corporate greed and unlawful environmental pollution” – an agenda Pruitt and his acting successor endorse.
Pruitt is out over lavish travel and other excessive expenses, other ethnics scandals and numerous dubious practices, ongoing probes into them, planet earth getting no reprieve from his successor at EPA. More on this below.
In response to Pruitt’s sacking, Public Citizen tweeted the following:
He “was the stuff of late-night parody, but he also was emblematic of the entire Trump administration – its corruption, its pervasive ethical failures, its deadly deregulation and its handover of total power to the very industries agencies are tasked with regulating.”
His “departure may cost us some jokes but won’t change the Trump administration or help save the planet or Americans’ health. Next in line to run the @EPA is a coal lobbyist – but what Americans actually need is someone who gives a damn about the EPA’s lifesaving mission.”
Planet earth remains endangered under acting EPA administrator Andrew Wheeler. He’s a former dirty-coal industry lobbyist, a critic of climate change and limits on greenhouse gas emissions.
He’s hostile to clean air and water regulations, Trump’s EPA deputy administration until named its acting director.
Former EPA official Judith Enck compared Wheeler’s appointment to “having a tobacco lobbyist heading up the American Lung Association,” adding:
He’ll “continue the polluting policies of Pruitt but perhaps have the good sense not to violate federal ethics rules.”
FOE also blasted his appointment, saying he “ha(s) no business leading the EPA,” vowing to challenge “his efforts to harm our public health and environment.”
Trump and hardliners surrounding him are hostile to virtually everything just societies cherish, his anti-environmental agenda one of countless other destructive regime policies.
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