The American people should be concerned about who Trump has nominated for high-ranking government positions so far. The President-elect by and large has picked billionaires and right-wing extremists that show that Trump is a committed ideologue who cares about craven loyalty and blind adherence to principles over experience.
But if nominating men like Ben Carson and Jeff Sessions to Cabinet posts is concerning, then Trump’s decision to select Oklahoma attorney general Scott Pruitt to run the EPA is outright dangerous. While the Democrats will not be able to fight each and every one of Trump’s nominations, they must not allow Pruitt to take charge of the EPA.
It is not just the fact that Pruitt is a climate change denier, though that alone should preclude anyone from serving as EPA head. The bigger problem is that as The Atlantic shows, Pruitt seems to be opposed to the idea of the EPA regulating the environment whatsoever. Over his legal career, Pruitt has brought lawsuits against the EPA challenging them from their ability to regulate coal plants to ensuring that national parks have clean air.
Pruitt is convinced that environmental regulations can be left up to the states, but that’s crazy. If there is no overarching environmental regulatory body, then the states will engage in a race to the bottom and try to outdo each other in order to attract polluting industries and businesses. And this does not get into the obvious fact that pollution as well as the effects of climate change do not stop at state lines.
But perhaps Pruitt is fine with that race to the bottom effect, because it means that his oil and gas handlers will pay him more. Slate points out that Pruitt has long been cozy with the petroleum industry and has never taken money. And while Pruitt and his defenders would love to claim that he is a principled advocate of state’s rights, his willingness to demand that the federal government crackdown on Colorado’s marijuana laws show that his only principles are defending the companies that pay him.
If the idea of an oil and gas affiliate running the EPA was not bad enough, what makes Pruitt’s nomination so particularly dangerous is the powers which he will wield. As every child learns in government class, Congress makes the laws and the President enforces the law. Except that when it comes to environmental laws, it is the EPA who largely enforces those laws.
As EPA head, Pruitt could practically shut down every environmental law on the books by deciding not to enforce them. Factories want to create acid rain or spew carbon dioxide? Go ahead. Pollute the water? Sure. There are few limits outside the President on what Pruitt could do, and Trump certainly will not care enough about the environment to rein in Pruitt’s worst impulses.
Given that Trump loves to talk about bringing coal and gas back to America as well as his belief that climate change is a hoax, it is too much to hope that he will nominate someone committed to protecting our environment. But the EPA cannot have be led by someone who has made his career out of fighting the EPA. The American people should be alarmed at the prospect of a Pruitt and the Democratic Party must be prepared to fight this nomination above all else.