Reacting to Scott Pruitt as Trump’s EPA admin pick, the WSJ’s Kimberly Strassel praised the choice in her column. She opens by characterizing the reaction of “the left” as, “He’s an untrained anti-environmentalist. He’s a polluter. He’s a fossil-fuel fanatic, a lobbyist-lover, a climate crazy.”
Strassel, obviously, doesn’t agree with that assessment, and suggests that the left doesn’t really either. They’re really upset because “He’s a constitutional scholar, a federalist (and a lawyer).”
Of course. Opposition to putting a man who sues the EPA in charge of it and has time and again backed polluters is actually just a front for anger about him being a constitutional scholar. Strassel may be the only person on the planet to write about Pruitt without mentioning the NY Times story about Pruitt’s “unprecedented, secretive alliance” with the fossil fuel industry.
What she did say, however, bore a striking resemblance to some of the comments at last week’s Heritage event. Specifically, praising Pruitt’s “federalism” and invoking the concept of states’ rights.
Judging by reports of what Trump’s DoE transition team is looking for, what the Heritage crew said last week and the addition of coal-funded climate scientist-harassing Chris Horner to the EPA landing team, here’s what we can expect in the coming years:
Every effort will be made to justify a reduction to the Social Cost of Carbon, which in turn would loosen existing climate regulations. They’ll probably let the Clean Power Plan die of neglect in order to stall litigation there, and then do everything possible to make life miserable for the government’s climate scientists.
Some might say this sounds like the incoming administration is looking to free polluters from the shackles of the regulations that protect the public and planet from unchecked industry greed.
But fear not, Strassel assures us that it’s all a very noble pursuit to protect states’ rights.
Which, just like when it’s used to reject the claim that slavery was the cause of the Civil War, is definitely not a euphemism for putting economic interests of the few above the health and safety of the many.
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