Christine Todd Whitman, who led the Environmental Protection Agency under President George W. Bush from 2001 to 2003, came out strongly against President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee for that job Monday.
“I don’t recall ever having seen an appointment of someone who is so disdainful of the agency and the science behind what the agency does,” Whitman told the non-profit environmental publication Grist, referring to Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt.
“It doesn’t put us in a good place, in my mind,” she said of Pruitt’s relationship with the EPA, which he sued 13 times in five years as attorney general in the Sooner State. “And he’s going to have trouble within the agency if he does convey that kind of disdain to the career staff.”
Whitman, who was governor of New Jersey before joining Bush’s cabinet, was a notably high profile Republican opponent of Trump during the presidential campaign. She was also known as a centrist in Bush’s cabinet, reportedly advising him not to reject the Kyoto Protocol, an international environmental agreement (Bush ultimately rejected the deal).
“He obviously doesn’t care much for the agency or any of the regulations it has promulgated,” Whitman told Grist of Pruitt. “He doesn’t believe in climate change; he wants to roll back the Clean Power Plan.”
Whitman also expressed concern for the health of the agency as a whole under the incoming Trump administration.
“I worry about people retiring and losing institutional knowledge,” she told Grist. “They can slow things down, but he could too, and put a hard stop to regulations.”
This article has been updated.
Of course he’s disdainful of the agency. That was the entire point.
“And he’s going to have trouble within the agency if he does convey that kind of disdain to the career staff.”
He’ll likely just tell anyone who isn’t on the team to take a hike.
As governor of NJ, she gutted out public education by cutting taxes for the wealthy. Governor Horse face is hardly the voice of reason on any issue. Speaking the obvious is not insight.
I don’t know how I could possibly stress this enough: Trump is a real estate developer. When it comes to the EPA and environmental regulations, IT IS A PERSONAL BLOOD-VENDETTA. I deal with these people all the time doing eminent domain work for people whose land has been taken. Arguing about the highest and best use of a piece of property on which its fair market value must be determined runs us into everything from regulations on contamination to species habitats to waterways licensing. Explaining to a developer client that the environmental characteristics and sometimes severe restrictions on their properties limits development in this context (and no doubt in their normal business context of actually developing properties) drives them INSANE. Telling them they need to pay a separate expert for wetlands, engineering and contamination issues is just the cherry on top of their irrational anger sundae. So make no mistake: Trump is going t gut the EPA like Khal Drogo running amok with his Arakah after too much fermented mare’s milk and a handful of shrooms.
The first step will be to eliminate civil service protections so that everyone is at-will. Then comes the purge. Then come the toadies and goons.
WHITMAN: "Mr. President, what do you think of the Kyoto Accord?’
BUSH: “I prefer the Toyota Camry.”