Trump's Environmental Protection Agency chief says climate is not a top priority

[babylonsister]

Posted on Fri, Apr 12th, 2019 by Reuters
Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency chief says climate is not a top priority
By Timothy Gardner and Valerie Volcovici


(Reuters) – The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency will unveil a proposal to speed state-level permitting decisions for energy infrastructure projects soon, the agency’s chief told Reuters on Thursday, blasting states that have blocked coal terminals and gas pipelines on environmental grounds.

snip//

CLIMATE: NOT A PRIORITY

Wheeler said he believes climate change is a problem, but that it had been overblown by former President Barack Obama’s administration – at the expense of other bigger issues like water quality.

“Yes, climate is an issue and we are working to address it, but I think water is a bigger issue,” he said.

Wheeler dismissed the findings of a report released earlier this week by EPA scientists in the journal Nature Climate Change that detailed the scale and urgency of climate change.

He said while he encouraged EPA scientists to carry out and publish research, he stressed the recent paper “did not reflect EPA policy.”

more...

https://www.politicususa.com/2019/04/12/trumps-environmental-protection-agency-chief-says-climate-is-not-a-top-priority.html

[MBS]

1. Criminally irresponsible. N/t

[handmade34]

2. they go hand in hand...

climate change/water... think big Wheeler, we can do it all

[Hortensis]

4. Right. Also energy, environment, extinction, ag, etc.

[DFW]

3. Water is a bigger issue than climate???

That's like saying wood is a bigger issue than trees.

[Hortensis]

5. Gov. Jay Inslee visited Wheeler not long ago.

Rolling Stone:

On a recent Sunday morning, Jay Inslee, the Democratic governor of Washington state, paid a visit to the headquarters of the Environmental Protection Agency. He was part of a group of governors who had come to meet with EPA chief Andrew Wheeler, the face and leader of President Trump’s all-out assault on Barack Obama’s environmental legacy.

In a blue plastic folder tucked under Inslee’s arm was a summary of the latest National Climate Assessment, the fourth in a series of reports by the government’s best scientists that distilled what we know about the causes and outcomes of climate change. When he got a chance to speak, Inslee confronted Wheeler about some of the report’s most dire predictions — a trillion dollars’ worth of coastal property and infrastructure threatened by rising seas and storms, extreme heat leading to $160 billion in lost wages, as many as tens of thousands of new deaths each year due to air pollution.

“These are very dire consequences,” Inslee says he told Wheeler, “but as far as I can tell, this amount of damage is not enough to motivate you to do anything about it. How many dead people will it take before you decide to do something about climate change?” Wheeler responded by blaming Democrats, Inslee says, and the conversation went downhill from there. (An EPA spokesman confirmed the exchange.)

But Washington, D.C.’s intransigence on the existential issue of our time is something Inslee’s long accustomed to. Before he was elected governor in 2012, he served 15 years in the House of Representatives and earned a reputation as one of the fiercest climate warriors on Capitol Hill. He was for the Green New Deal before the Green New Deal existed, introducing a sweeping bill in 2005 to cap greenhouse-gas emissions, wean America off fossil fuels and scale up funding for clean-energy technologies. He was one of the earliest and loudest voices condemning the denialism of the Republican Party. But shaming only gets you so far. “Having expended considerable energy trying to persuade them and cajole them and inspire them, that has fallen on deaf ears, like talking to a rock,” he told me recently over drinks in downtown D.C. “The only solution is to remove them.” (Yes!) ...

Inslee’s résumé should make progressive voters swoon. As a congressman, he voted against the Iraq War, the repeal of Glass-Steagall and the bank bailout after the 2008 financial crash. As governor, he’s signed into law the first state net-neutrality bill, declared a moratorium on the death penalty, proposed a public option for health care and unveiled a plan to pardon thousands of low-level drug offenders. ...

For someone who’s spent his career working on the climate, Inslee is the most unlikely of things: an optimist. Climate change is the most complex problem humans have ever faced, but it’s also an opportunity to reinvent the economy and create millions of jobs while ensuring a livable planet for future generations. “This is a time of great peril,” he says. “But it’s also a time of great promise.”

https://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=post&forum=1002&pid=12007048

I love optimists who see problems as opportunities to advance, won't vote for anyone who isn't.