Saturday, February 10, 2018

Reject Trump's coal lobbyist pick at the EPA

purple mountains majesty 

The petition to the Senate reads:
"Block and resist the nomination of coal lobbyist Andrew Wheeler for deputy administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency."
Add your name:
Sign the petition ►

If you thought Donald Trump's war on the climate and our environment couldn't get any worse, think again.
Last year, Trump nominated coal industry lobbyist Andrew Wheeler to fill the number two spot at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), doubling down on his anti-climate agenda and his dangerous campaign promise to prop up the failing dirty coal industry.
News broke Wednesday morning that after Wheeler was nominated, he hosted fundraisers for at least two Republican senators on the Environment and Public Works Committee.1 Republicans on the committee responded just a few hours later by advancing his nomination to the full senate on a party line vote. We must urge the Senate to block and resist this dangerous climate change denier’s nomination before it comes up for a vote in the next few weeks.
For nearly a decade, Wheeler lobbied for the coal industry and other polluters, and since 2009, he has been a registered lobbyist for Murray Energy, the largest coal mining conglomerate in the country. Murray Energy's CEO, Robert Murray, who famously tried to sue HBO's John Oliver over an accurate exposé about the coal industry, is an outspoken climate change denier who regularly peddles in blatant lies, believes the Earth is cooling and recently falsely claimed 4,000 scientists told him that "mankind is not affecting climate change."2
During the time Murray Energy was Wheeler's client, the coal giant regularly sued the EPA to prevent stricter regulations on ozone and carbon emissions and other pollutants, including leading a lawsuit with a number of Republican-led states against the Obama administration's Clean Power Plan, of which Trump and EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt recently moved to reverse.3
Wheeler, who believes the Earth may be going through a "cooling phase," also previously served as a close adviser to notorious anti-science climate change denier Sen. James Inhofe, who once brought a snowball to the Senate floor in a pathetic attempt to disprove climate change.4
Time and time again, Trump is attempting to put the fox in charge of watching the henhouse and packing the EPA with anti-climate zealots to line the pockets of his friends in the fossil fuel industry. The Senate will be holding a final vote on Wheeler's nomination soon, so we must act now to demand they stop this climate-denying coal lobbyist from ever setting foot inside the EPA.
Tell the Senate: No coal lobbyists at the EPA. Click the link below to sign the petition:
- Josh Nelson, CREDO Action
Add your name:
Sign the petition ►
Photo: Educational Images/Getty Images
References
  1. Lee Fang and Nick Surgey, “Coal lobbyist hosted fundraisers for Senators evaluating his nomination for top EPA post,” The Intercept, Feb. 7, 2018.
  2. Marianne Lavelle, "Coal Boss Takes Climate Change Denial to the Extreme," InsideClimate News, Oct. 11, 2017.
  3. Samantha Page, "Coal company loses 'war on coal' case," Think Progress, June 29, 2017.
  4. Natasha Geiling, "Trump nominates a coal lobbyist to the number two spot at EPA," Think Progress, Oct. 5, 2017.

No comments:

Post a Comment