Center for Biological Diversity


For Immediate Release, December 7, 2016

Contact: Patrick Sullivan, (415) 517-9364, psullivan@biologicaldiversity.org

Trump Nominates Wholly Owned Subsidiary of Oil Industry to Head EPA

WASHINGTON— Days after meeting with Al Gore to discuss the threat of global warming, President-elect Donald Trump is preparing to nominate climate change-denier and oil-industry advocate Scott Pruitt to head the Environmental Protection Agency.

As Oklahoma attorney general, Pruitt turned his public office into an arm of the petroleum industry, working closely with major oil companies to fight federal efforts to reduce pollution from drilling and fracking. Pruitt has sued the EPA over the Clean Power Plan, as well as federal regulations meant to protect Americans from ozone, mercury and contaminated water.

If confirmed by the U.S. Senate, Pruitt would head an agency critical to protecting America's air, water, climate and health from oil-industry pollution.

Pruitt has accepted hundreds of thousands of dollars in donations from oil companies and other fossil fuel interests. Ignoring the scientific consensus on climate change, he has questioned the link between global warming and carbon pollution: “That debate is far from settled,” he wrote.

“Pruitt is a wholly owned subsidiary of the oil industry," said Kassie Siegel, director of the Center for Biological Diversity's Climate Law Institute. “Nominating him to lead the agency that protects our air, water and climate from pollution is like putting the Swamp Thing in charge of draining the swamp. Any Senator who doesn't fight this nomination is handing corporate polluters a wrecking ball to destroy our future.”

The Center for Biological Diversity is a national, nonprofit conservation organization with more than 1.1 million members and online activists dedicated to the protection of endangered species and wild places.


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