Catholics question Pruitt's commitment to environmental protection
by Brian Roewe | Jan. 19, 2017
For environmentally conscious Catholics, the Senate confirmation hearing for President-elect Donald Trump's pick to head the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency focused squarely on a single question: Would he actually protect the environment?
Scott Pruitt's selection to succeed Gina McCarthy as EPA administrator raised eyebrows in that, as Oklahoma attorney general, he has sued the agency 14 times, with eight cases pending — including a lawsuit joined by 26 other state attorneys general challenging the Clean Power Plan rules on carbon emissions from coal- and gas-fired power plants. The New York Times reported in 2014 on "a secretive alliance" among Pruitt and other Republican attorneys general and top energy companies.
In his opening statement at the confirmation hearing Wednesday, Pruitt said he rejected the "false paradigm that if you're pro-energy you're anti-environment, and if you're pro-environment, you're anti-energy. … In this nation we can grow our economy, harvest the resources God has blessed us with while also being good stewards of the air, land and water by which we've been favored. It is not an either-or proposition."
Great attention was focused on what Pruitt would say about climate change, given EPA's leading role in regulating and curbing the levels of greenhouse gases emitted by the U.S., the world's second largest polluter behind China. In the past, he had downplayed the level of agreement among scientists about the degree and extent of global warming and its connection to human activity.
https://www.ncronline.org/blogs/eco-catholic/catholics-question-pruitts-commitment-environmental-protection