President-elect Donald Trump's pick to lead the Environmental Protection Agency, Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt, is testifying this morning at his confirmation hearing on Capitol Hill, telling lawmakers that climate change is no hoax and acknowledging that human activity is a contributing factor to the phenomenon.
"Science tells us that the climate is changing and that human activity in some manner impacts that change," he told the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. "The ability to measure with precision the degree and extent of that impact and what to do about it are subject to continuing debate and dialogue, and well it should be."
Responding later to one senator's question about whether he agrees with Trump’s past declaration of climate change as “a hoax,” which he tweeted in 2014, Pruitt said, “I do not believe that climate change is a hoax."
More recently, though, Trump told The New York Times in November, “I think there is some connectivity” between human activity and climate change.
Pruitt, 48, a Kentucky native, has argued in the past that global warming is not a scientifically settled phenomenon.
"Healthy debate is the lifeblood of American democracy, and global warming has inspired one of the major policy debates of our time," he wrote last year in a National Review opinion piece. "That debate 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 also told lawmakers today that his role at the EPA would be to "make things regular" as the administrator of the nation's environmental regulations, and that he believes the EPA plays a vital role in ensuring water and air quality, as well as enforcement on matters that cross state lines.
Trump, in a YouTube video announcing his priorities for his first 100 days in office, pledged, "On energy, I will cancel job-killing restrictions on the production of American energy, including shale energy and clean coal, creating many millions of high-paying jobs."
Pruitt also received tough questioning from Democrats over his multiple suits against the EPA (some of which are still active) and his connections to the oil and gas industry.
Of pending litigation, Pruitt said he had “every willingness” to recuse himself from active suits at the direction of EPA lawyers. That pledge fell short of appeasing some Democrats, who say Pruitt can proactively recuse himself to avoid any potential conflicts.
Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Oregon, today presented a blown-up copy of a letter that Pruitt sent to the EPA as attorney general but was actually heavily drafted by oil company Devon Energy.
“Why do you need an outside oil company to draft a letter when you have 250 people working for you?” Merkley asked.
“That was an effort that was protecting the state's interest in making sure that we made the voices of all Oklahomans heard on a very important industry to our state,” Pruitt replied.
“But you only sent it on behalf of a single voice: the oil company,” Merkley shot back.
from ABC News: Politics http://ift.tt/2jo9zbr
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