Brady Dennis of the Washington Post details a Donald Trump appointment that should please critics of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency‘s bureaucratic overrreach.
President-elect Donald Trump has made no secret of his disdain for the Environmental Protection Agency, saying the regulations it has put out under President Obama are “a disgrace.” He has vowed to roll back Obama’s signature effort to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions, known as the Clean Power Plan, and to scrap a litany of other “unnecessary” rules, especially those imposed on the oil, gas and coal sectors.
The man planning how a Trump administration can obliterate Obama’s environmental legacy is Myron Ebell, a Washington fixture who has long been a cheerful warrior against what he sees as an alarmist, overzealous environmental movement that has used global warming as a pretext for expanding government. Ebell has argued for opening up more federal lands for logging, oil and gas exploration and coal mining, and for turning over more permitting authority to the states. And he has urged the Senate to vote to reject an international climate accord signed last year in Paris.
The self-described public-policy wonk has for years made his home at the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI), a conservative policy group that once received considerable funding from ExxonMobil. More recently, the organization has been funded in part by Donors Trust. The Virginia-based organization, which is not required by law to disclose its contributors, is staffed largely by people who have worked for Koch Industries or nonprofit groups supported by the conservative Koch brothers.
Ebell, who is not a scientist, has long questioned the overwhelming scientific consensus that human activity is fueling unprecedented global warming. He also has staunchly opposed what he calls energy rationing, instead arguing that the United States should unleash the full power of coal, oil and gas to fuel economic growth and job creation.
All that makes him an ideal ambassador for Trump, who has repeatedly called the notion of man-made climate change a “hoax.”
As the Post report makes clear, the appointment also will send environmental zealots into a tizzy.
