Update (Feb. 2, 2017): Republicans voted on Feb. 2 to advance EPA nominee Scott Pruitt to the full Senate for a vote, despite Democrats’ opposition and a boycott.
Senate Democrats boycotted a committe vote Wednesday on President Donald Trump‘s pick to lead the Environmental Protection Agency, Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt, preventing the vote from occurring. The boycott came after Democrats complained Pruitt has not adequately addressed the 1,078 additional questions they sent to him after his confirmation hearing.
The questions covered a range of topics, including conflict-of-interest concerns over Pruitt’s deep ties to the fossil fuel industry and his views on climate change. (He has dismissed the scientific consensus.)
Among the questions were his views on ocean acidification—the absorption of carbon dioxide into the sea that’s changing the chemical balance of oceans and putting marine ecosystems in grave danger. It has become one of the most worrisome and intensely studied effects of the climate change crisis. In his answers Pruitt positioned himself as a doubter on this issue. As EPA head, he would be responsible for regulating emissions of carbon dioxide, which is at the root of the problem.
In this graphic, we compare what Pruitt told Congress to what the science says.
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Jack Cushman grew up in an Army family, living in many places in the United States and abroad. He studied political literature at Dartmouth College, where he graduated in 1976. Before joining the InsideClimate News staff, he worked for 35 years as a writer and editor in Washington, D.C., principally with the Washington bureau of The New York Times. Cushman has written extensively about energy, the environment, industry and military affairs, also covering financial and transportation beats, and editing articles across the full spectrum of national and international policy.
Among his many beat assignments at The Times, he covered climate and the environment during the Clinton administration. He served on the board of governors of the National Press Club and was its president in the year 2000. He has taught brief courses in media and environmental law at the Vermont Law School.
He is the author of Keystone and Beyond: Tar Sands and the National Interest in the Era of Climate Change.
