Pruitt-talking about climate change is insensitive to Floridians

[LeeG]

Of course we should just deal with the crisis as it comes an not worry our little minds with causes and consequences. Better yet defund programs that deal with causes, consequences, planning, science, research. Hunt down epa employees that attended climate change conferences. Elect people who actually strip references to climate change. Remove funds for updating flood maps based on updated findings. How in the world did anti-science become an acceptable foundation for a politician or party? This rat-freaker cannot even say the words climate change. Can't wait for the Tweeter in Chiefs next tweet.

http://www.cnn.com/2017/09/07/politics/scott-pruitt-hurricanes-climate-change-interview/index.html

Washington (CNN)Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt told CNN in an interview about Hurricane Irma on Thursday that the time to talk about climate change isn't now.

"Here's the issue," Pruitt told CNN in a phone interview. "To have any kind of focus on the cause and effect of the storm; versus helping people, or actually facing the effect of the storm, is misplaced."


Gradually warming temperatures in the Gulf of Mexico -- as much as 2 degrees Celsius above average -- could be a pressure cooker for key ingredients of a hurricane: extreme winds, rainfall and storm surge.
Pruitt said that it's up to Congress to eventually address the issue, but right now the EPA's focus is on providing assistance to those in need in Florida.
"Congress should address that at some point. And Congress hasn't," he said. "All I'm saying to you is, to use time and effort to address it at this point is very, very insensitive to this people in Florida."

[Garret]

Re: Pruitt-talking about climate change is insensitive to Floridians

We were already impressed with him, right?

[Peerie Maa]

Re: Pruitt-talking about climate change is insensitive to Floridians

It sounds as though he is incapable of thinking about two topics at the same time.

[LeeG]

Re: Pruitt-talking about climate change is insensitive to Floridians

We were already impressed with him, right?

It'll be interesting how far Trump/Pruitt will go to destroy the EPA.
They are an abomination and danger to the country.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/01/us/politics/trump-epa-chief-pruitt-regulations-climate-change.html

Since February, Mr. Pruitt has filed a proposal of intent to undo or weaken Mr. Obama’s climate change regulations, known as the Clean Power Plan. In late June, he filed a legal plan to repeal an Obama-era rule curbing pollution in the nation’s waterways. He delayed a rule that would require fossil fuel companies to rein in leaks of methane, a potent greenhouse gas, from oil and gas wells. He delayed the date by which companies must comply with a rule to prevent explosions and spills at chemical plants. And he reversed a ban on the use of a pesticide that the E.P.A.’s own scientists have said is linked to damage of children’s nervous systems.
...
Within the agency, Mr. Pruitt relies on the counsel of a small network of political appointees, including a number of former lobbyists and senior industry officials. For example, he tapped Nancy Beck, previously a policy director for the American Chemistry Council, which lobbies on behalf of companies such as Dow and DuPont, to oversee the E.P.A. office charged with enforcing regulations on hazardous

“It amounts to a corporate takeover of the agency, in its decision- and policy-making functions,” said Robert Weissman, the president of Public Citizen, a government watchdog group.
...
Attorney General Ken Paxton of Texas, who worked closely with Mr. Pruitt when he was Oklahoma’s attorney general to sue the E.P.A., said he was pleased that Mr. Pruitt’s new job hadn’t changed him. On March 1, Mr. Paxton met with Mr. Pruitt to request that the agency withdraw a rule requiring energy companies to collect data on emissions of methane from oil and gas wells. Mr. Paxton delivered the letter with the signatures of 11 attorneys general, laying out the case for walking back the rule.

“I personally handed him the letter, and the next day the rule was personally withdrawn,” Mr. Paxton said.
...

[Garret]

Re: Pruitt-talking about climate change is insensitive to Floridians

It'll be freakin' scary to see how far Trump/Pruitt will go to destroy the EPA.

ftfy

[Chip-skiff]

Re: Pruitt-talking about climate change is insensitive to Floridians

This is a perfect example of right-wing political correctness.

Despite the guff emanating from the right flank, PC (can't talk about climate change, racism, anti-Semitism, Christian lunacy, income inequality, class issues, corruption, self-dealing, etc.) is a much bigger factor in right-wing circles than on the left.

[Paul Pless]

Re: Pruitt-talking about climate change is insensitive to Floridians

strewth

[LeeG]

Re: Pruitt-talking about climate change is insensitive to Floridians

Christine Todd Whitman OpEd about the bum.
Pruitt politicization of science is right up there with Cheney/Rumsfeld distorting intel to justify hegemonic war disguised as counterterrorism. The outcome will not meet the goals. The environment and public health will be sacrificed for industries short term interests. Without a strong resistance Trump/Pruitt will sell out the common good.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/08/opinion/how-not-to-run-the-epa.html

I have been worried about how the Environmental Protection Agency would be run ever since President Trump appointed Scott Pruitt, the former attorney general of Oklahoma, to oversee it. The past few months have confirmed my fears. The agency created by a Republican president 47 years ago to protect the environment and public health may end up doing neither under Mr. Pruitt’s direction.
...
The E.P.A.’s recent attack on a reporter for The Associated Press and the installation of a political appointee to ferret out grants containing “the double C-word” are only the latest manifestations of my fears, which mounted with Mr. Pruitt’s swift and legally questionable repeals of E.P.A. regulations — actions that pose real and lasting threats to the nation’s land, air, water and public health.

All of that is bad enough. But Mr. Pruitt recently unveiled a plan that amounts to a slow-rolling catastrophe in the making: the creation of an antagonistic “red team” of dissenting scientists to challenge the conclusions reached by thousands of scientists over decades of research on climate change. It will serve only to confuse the public and sets a deeply troubling precedent for policy-making at the E.P.A.
...
Policy should always be rooted in unbiased science. The E.P.A. is too important to treat like a reality TV show. People’s lives and our country’s resources are at stake. Mr. Pruitt should respect his duty to the agency’s mission, end the red team and call on his agency’s scientists to educate him. No doubt they’re willing and eager to impart the knowledge they’ve dedicated their lives to understanding.

If this project goes forward, it should be treated for what it is: a shameful attempt to confuse the public into accepting the false premise that there is no need to regulate fossil fuels.

[LeeG]

Re: Pruitt-talking about climate change is insensitive to Floridians

The new conservatism, when a huge challenge is presented, reduce assets and capabilities to deal with it.

Pruitt:"We’re proud to report that we’re reducing the size of government, protecting taxpayer dollars and staying true to our core mission of protecting the environment and American jobs.”

http://www.the-scientist.com/?articles.view/articleNo/50275/title/Hundreds-of-EPA-Workers-Leave-the-Agency/

Buyouts offered by the Trump administration to more than 1,200 Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) employees have prompted 400 people to leave their posts since the end of last month, The Wall Street Journal reports. This mass exit has resulted in a 2.5 percent cut in the agency’s staff, the report states, and if workers continue to take the buyouts, the EPA could be facing its smallest operating staff since the late 1980s.