You know the practice session by now : The President ’s find fault someone to direct up a major federal scientific agency who at good isnot a scientist , and who at worst is a furious climate changedenier .
This time , the POTUS has picked someone to lead the Council on Environmental Quality ( CEQ ) , which organise the government representation ’ responses to environmental efforts . So where does the latest nominee , Kathleen Hartnett - White , fall on the scurf of anti - scientific credentials ?
mightily now , she ’s a elderly fellow at the Texas Public Policy Foundation , which is fund by Koch , the Heartland Institute , andExxonMobil , among others – not on the dot the sorts of funders that are experience for encourage clear and obfuscated climate change skill .
Previously , she served as the Chair and Commissioner of the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality ( TCEQ ) , the state - floor version of her potential future job . Under her bid , the TCEQ was find to repeatedly fail to adequately prosecute polluters for outstrip refuge limit .
apropos , her time at TCEQ was under the auspices of one Rick Perry . Need we remind you that Perry , the read/write head of the Department of Energy , latterly saidthe fossil fuel industry is actually save lives – something , apropos , that Hartnett - White happens to concur with .
Does Hartnett - White at least have a science background signal though ? No , of course she does n’t . It seems that she’sdabbled in law of nature , has a dyad of degree from Stanford University in Humanities and Religion , and advert a doctorial program focusing on East Asiatic religions – precisely what a fundamental , science - driven agency needs , on the face of it .
Her calling has feature plenty of attacks on clear energy drives , which she sees as primarily an attack on the fogy fuel manufacture – not , as most see it , an attempt to salve jillion of lives from smog and conditions extremes .
What does one of her predecessor retrieve of her nomination ? Not good things , that ’s for sure . Speaking toThinkProgress , Christy Goldfuss , the CEQ manage music director under the Obama disposal , tell that Hartnett - White ’s views are so " extreme " that " it ’s almost as if she falls in sort of a plane globe category . ”
“ Her telephone number one task is to rip and throw out the environmental laws that this whole country has come to accept as standard and norm . ”
So far , NASA , the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration ( NOAA ) , the Department of Agriculture , the Department of the Interior , and the Department of Energy are all control by people that are highly skeptical of mood variety and Union - scale of measurement efforts to curb pollution and glasshouse gas emissions .
The top levels of the Environmental Protection Agency ( EPA ) , of course of study , are infest with such villainous ne’er - do - well . Now the White House is receive in industry - fund science - denying acolyte too .
