EPA chief still to warm up to C02 as ‘threat’
US govt to announce fuel efficiency standards for cars very soon: Pruitt
The new head of the Environmental Protection Agency said on Thursday he is not convinced that carbon dioxide from human activity is the main driver of climate change and said he wants Congress to weigh in on whether CO2 is a harmful pollutant that should be regulated.
In an interview with CNBC, EPA administrator Scott Pruitt said the Trump administration will make an announcement on fuel efficiency standards for cars “very soon,” stressing that he and President Donald Trump believe current standards were rushed through.
Mr Pruitt, 48, is a climate change denier who sued the agency he now leads more than a dozen times as Oklahoma’s attorney general. He said he was not convinced that carbon dioxide pollution from burning fossil fuels like oil, gas and coal is the main cause of climate change, a conclusion widely embraced by scientists.
“I think that measuring with precision human activity on the climate is something very challenging to do and there’s tremendous disagreement about the degree of impact,” he told CNBC.
“So no, I would not agree that it’s a primary contributor to the global warming that we see,” Mr Pruitt said. “But we don’t know that yet, we need to continue to debate, continue the review and analysis.”
Mr Trump campaigned on a promise to roll back environmental regulations ushered in by former President Barack Obama, including those aimed at combating climate change. He framed his stand as aimed at boosting US businesses, including the oil and gas drilling and coal mining industries.
“We can be pro-growth, pro-jobs and pro-environment,” Mr Pruitt said Wednesday in a Houston speech at Ceraweek, the world’s largest gathering of energy executives.
Scientists immediately criticized his statement, saying it ignores a large body of evidence collected over decades that shows fossil fuel burning as the main factor in climate change.
“We can’t afford to reject this clear and compelling scientific evidence when we make public policy. Embracing ignorance is not an option,” Ben Santer, climate researcher at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, said in a statement.