I basically blame the Democrats for Trump's victory. I don't understand why they chose Hillary Clinton over Bernie Sanders. I honestly believe Bernie Sanders would have had a better chance than Clinton to bring it home for the Democrats. So wouldn't you think, at least now, the Democrats would do what is in their power to oppose Trump's course of destruction? Well obviously not all of them. Two Democrats, Joe Manchin III of West Virginia and Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota voted for Scott Pruitt as new head of the EPA. Are you kidding me? They should be ashamed of themselves. Let us take a look at Mr. Pruitt's interest for the environment and his relationship to the agency which once did make an effort to protect the environment, and which yes, might indeed, in the future better be named as a "so-called" environmental protection agency.
During the time Scott Pruitt served as the attorney general of Oklahoma, he sued the E.P.A. fourteen times in an effort to block federal air and water pollution regulations. He repeatedly sought to block policies designed to address climate change and has openly stated he is sceptical that climate change actually even exists. Why did Republicans insist on holding a confirmation vote on Friday when the Oklahoma attorney general’s office is under order to release about 3,000 of Mr. Pruitt’s emails related to his communications with the fossil fuel industry during a period in which, as that state’s attorney general, he repeatedly sued the E.P.A. and sought to block policies designed to address climate change. Pruitt is so shameless a choice that over 700 former E.P.A. employees have signed a letter to senators opposing his confirmation. According to Greenpeace, here is the real dirt on Pruitt....
via Greenpeace
"Pruitt’s public statements on climate and energy are frustrating (to say the least) for anyone who understands basic science. But it’s what he hasn’t said that’s even worse.
In 2014, Pruitt was caught in a secretive alliance with oil and gas industry insiders aimed at tearing down environmental protections. Emails obtained by the New York Times show Pruitt and other Republican attorneys general collaborating with corporations and lobbyists to file lawsuits and challenge federal regulations on everything from fracking to air pollution.
One of those fossil fuel insiders was Harold Hamm, Trump’s top energy adviser and CEO of the country’s largest fracking company. Hamm would go on to chair Pruitt’s 2013 re-election campaign. More recently he’s made news as one of the biggest proponents of the Dakota Access Pipeline; it’s his company’s fracked oil that would have flowed through the pipeline if it had been completed.
Meanwhile, Pruitt has received $318,496 in campaign contributions from the fossil fuel industry since 2002, leaving little doubt about whose interests he’ll protect as EPA head — and it’s not people or the environment."
So-called crazy activists and scientists who care about the future of the planet and and warn us that we must change our habits if future generations are to have clean air and water have little chance of making the profit the fossil fuel industry has by encouraging us to keep calm and carry on destroying the planet. Trump wants to dismantle the E.P.A. and has taken a huge first step in doing so. This is really a disaster.
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