NYT : "Fear and Disdain Grip Tump's EPA"

Scott Pruitt, Trump's administrator/destroyer of the Environmental Protection Agency and Jeff Sessions at the Justice Department are perhaps Trump's most effective cabinet secretaries -- at least in terms of carrying out Trump's policies.   Sessions, of course, with one glaring exception:   he recused himself and wound up with Mueller investigating the Russia collusion question.

But over at EPA, there's Scott Pruitt, who as Oklahoma's Attorney General the EPA somewhere up in double digits of times.   Now he's in charge of the EPA and is undoing almost everything that Barack Obama accomplished.     The latest, yesterday, is that he's rolling back the increase in emissions standards for automobiles -- even more than the auto manufacturers themselves want.

Let's look at the larger picture, as penned in a New York Times editorial on Sunday, excerpted and edited for brevity:

*     *     *     *     *

"The other day, Scott Pruitt . . . took yet another step to muzzle the scientific inquiry . . . he seems determined to destroy.   He told his subordinates that they could no longer make policy on the basis of studies that included data from participants who were guaranteed confidentiality. . . .Limiting policy makers  to  only those studies with publicly available health data greatly narrows the field of research."

[It's also totally nuts, obviously just a ploy to severely limit available research data.   Who's going to participate in a study if your whole medical history, including your identifying data, can be published along with the study?   And, with rare exceptions, there almost no scientific reason to require it. - RR]

". . . The word that best describes the Trump administration's hostility to scientific inquiry:  'Disdain' jumps to mind. . . .  There's another word:  Fear.  From the top down, the people who run this government seem absolutely terrified of scientific inquiry and the ways in which it could threaten Mr. Trump's promise to ease regulations on fossil fuel companies and increase their profits, no matter the cost to public health and the planet. .

"Why would he want a scientific adviser telling him that the link between climate change and the burning of fossil fuels is incontrovertible, that he should  stick with the Paris agreement on climate change, that it's a grave mistake to repudiate every one of President Obama's efforts to slow the dangerous warming of the earth's atmosphere? . . .  "

*     *     *     *     *

The editorial goes on to reveal more shocking antics that Pruitt has taken.   One was to announce that no one could serve on the nearly two dozen scientific advisory committees who had received federal research grants in the past.   The stated reason was to avoid conflict of interests;  but the real reason was to create multiple vacancies, which Pruitt then proceeded to fill with "industry experts and state officials pushing for lax regulations" -- as if none of them had conflicts of interest -- and it eliminates most of the ranking scientific experts in the field.   

The editorial ends with a warning about Mr. Pruitt's political ambitions,  It's been widely speculated that he might be picked by Trump to replace Jeff Sessions as Attorney General.   Pruitt is also rumored to be considering a bid for governor of Oklahoma next year.   And then there's always 2024 and the Oval Office.

Beware of the science deniers.

Ralph