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BE SMART ABOUT: Terrible New Pruitt Nominees to Powerful EPA Positions
Scott Pruitt, who has called for the dissolution of much of the agency’s authority, has been destroying our Environmental Protection Agency since February 2017. He is a seasoned legal opponent of the agency and likely Trump's most effective minion until recently, working every day to dismantle regulations on climate change and clean water.
Pruitt, who has deep ties to industry and rejects the science behind climate change, has aggressively rolled back environmental regulations during his first year in office, attracting fierce criticism from former EPA chiefs, including Republicans, and potentially setting the agency back decades.
Several recent nominees by Trump and Pruitt to top EPA positions are uniquely unqualified for the proposed positions because they fit Trump and Pruitt's mission to end the EPA.
William Charles “Chad” McIntosh, Trump’s pick to lead the EPA’s Office of International and Tribal Affairs, ran Ford’s environmental compliance and policy divisions from 1998 until he retired last year. ....nominated Friday [March 23rd] to a top Environmental Protection Agency position, he is accused of overseeing an industrial spill that contaminated the groundwater of a Michigan suburb with a cancer-causing chemical.
McIntosh's career is highlighted by his direct efforts to eliminate environmental laws. He is being put into a position in our EPA to aid in its destruction by Scott Pruitt.
During McIntosh’s seven-year tenure at the [Michigan EPA] agency.... spearheaded a historic effort to slash environmental regulations.... abolished 19 citizen commissions and oversight boards and split the state agency in two, separating the Department of Natural Resources from the Department of Environmental Quality and reducing the budgets for both.
Here is a another example of an early-March EPA appointee who will work on behalf of corporations, not our society and our people.
Trump has announced his choice for Environmental Protection Agency assistant administrator for solid waste: Peter Wright, now managing counsel of Dow Chemical, formerly of Monsanto. If confirmed, Wright.... will be in charge of overseeing toxic waste sites that are tied to the company that once employed him.
Trump is filling the swamp with lobbyists of polluters who are giving a green light to profits over the future of our earth.
An analysis by the AP shows that nearly half of the political appointees hired at the Environmental Protection Agency under Trump have strong industry ties. Of 59 EPA hires tracked by the AP over the last year, about a third worked as registered lobbyists or lawyers for chemical manufacturers, fossil fuel producers and other corporate clients that raise the very type of revolving-door conflicts of interests that Trump promised voters he would eliminate.
For example:
Erik Baptist, a top EPA lawyer, worked until 2016, as senior lawyer and registered federal lobbyist for the American Petroleum Institute, the national trade group for the oil and gas industry.
Jeffrey Sands previously worked as a top lobbyist for Syngenta, a major pesticide manufacturer.... now works as Pruitt’s senior adviser for agriculture.
Dennis Forsgren, the deputy assistant administrator helping oversee the EPA’s enforcement clean water regulations, was allowed to work on the EPA’s hurricane response efforts involving the Miccosuke tribe in Florida for whom he was a registered lobbyist up until 2016.
Sources:
https://www.cnn.com/2018/03/02/politics/peter-wright-epa-nominee/index.html
https://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/politics/2018/03/08/trump-ethics/32726489/