US President-elect Donald Trump has picked Scott Pruitt, attorney general of Oklahoma and a skeptic of climate change, to head the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), drawing criticism from environmental activists.
Pruitt, 48, is one of the main leaders of a Republican battle against President Barack Obama’s policies to curb global warming, a phenomena that Trump does not believe exists.
During his campaign, Trump insisted that climate change was a climatehoax “created by and for the Chinese in order to make US manufacturing non-competitive.”
The Republican president-elect has indicated that he would pull out of the 2015 Paris Agreement to cut greenhouse gas emissions which entered into force on November 4.
Pruitt is part of a legal action by 28 states against the EPA over the agency’s so-called Clean Power Plan, which seeks to limit greenhouse gas emissions from coal-fired power plants.
Describing the EPA’s plan as “unlawful and overreaching,” Pruitt says the debate on whether human activity leads to global warming is “far from settled.”
“Scientists continue to disagree about the degree and extent of global warming and its connection to the actions of mankind,” he said in May.
Environmental groups condemned Trump’s move, calling Pruitt a “puppet” of the fossil fuel industry.
Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders also denounced the appointment as a “sad and dangerous” development.
“The American people must demand leaders who are willing to transform our energy system away from fossil fuels. I will vigorously oppose this nomination,” said Sanders, a member of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, the committee that must confirm Pruitt.
In reaction to the backlash, Trump’s top advisor Kellyanne Conway said that Pruitt was the right person for the job.
“We’re very accustomed to the naysayers and the critics,” she said, adding that Pruitt was one of the many candidates Trump had interviewed for the job. “We look forward to the confirmation hearings.”
After Trump’s meeting with prominent environmentalist and former vice president Al Gore on Monday, many thought that Trump was going to change his stance on climate change.
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