GOV’T IN FOG
PRESIDENT TRUMP may have not discussed one matter with his environmental chief before pulling the United States out of the Paris accord: climate change.
The Environmental Protection Agency administrator refused Sunday to say whether he and Trump discussed the world’s rising temperatures before the President withdrew from the global effort.
“Fox News Sunday” host Chris Wallace repeatedly tried and failed to get an answer from EPA chief Scott Pruitt about whether climate had come up during talks with Trump about ditching the Paris deal.
“The focus of the last several weeks was centered on the merits and demerits of the Paris agreement,” Pruitt said.
“The President has indicated the climate changes. It’s always changing. I’ve indicated the same,” Pruitt added.
It is unclear whether Trump believes the climate is changing.
There is broad consensus within the scientific community that humans are causing a buildup of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, resulting in rising temperatures.
In 2012, Trump tweeted that climate change was a Chinese hoax. In November, he said he had an “open mind to it.”
Since the U.S. withdrew from the Paris accord on Thursday, Pruitt and other White House officials — including press secretary Sean Spicer and counselor Kellyanne Conway — have refused to answer questions about Trump’s beliefs on climate change.
The closest recent answer came from United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley, who told CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday that Trump “believes the climate is changing.”
As attorney general of Oklahoma, Pruitt served as a close ally of the fossil fuel industry. In March, he said he did not believe carbon dioxide emissions were a primary cause of global warming.
The remark put Pruitt at odds with the scientific community — and even the EPA’s own website.
On Sunday, Pruitt echoed Trump’s justification for leaving the global pact, saying it was bad for the U.S. economy.
“I think the Paris agreement very much so put us at an economic disadvantage,” Pruitt said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
Among the many critics of Trump’s withdrawal was Al Gore, the former vice president and Nobel Peace Prize winner. Gore said on ABC’s “This Week” that the Trump administration has been “tongue-tied and confused about the climate crisis.”
“The rest of the world is moving forward,” said Gore, who in July will release his second global warming documentary, “An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power.”
“President Trump isolated the United States with this reckless and indefensible decision, but if he won’t lead, the American people will,” Gore said.
Gore met with Trump in December at Trump Tower and called him as recently as last month, urging him to stay in the Paris accord. Some of the nation’s top corporate executives also lobbied Trump to remain in the deal.
“I thought that he would come to his senses on it, but he didn't,” Gore said Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union.” FORMER SECRETARY of State John Kerry on Sunday compared President Trump’s claims that he will handle climate change to O.J. Simpson hunting for his ex-wife’s murderer. “When Donald Trump says we’re going to negotiate a better deal — you know, he’s going to go out and find a better deal?” Kerry (below) said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “That’s like O.J. Simpson saying he’s going to go out and find the real killer . . . Everybody knows he (Trump) isn’t going to do that because he doesn’t believe in it.” Trump on Thursday announced his plans to pull the United States out of the Paris climate deal, making it one of the few counties to not support the first international agreement to cut back on pollution. Trump said he planned to “negotiate” a climate deal that would not burden the United States with as many costs and regulations. But hundreds of business leaders argued the deal would have been a boon to the American economy, and the leaders of France, Germany and Italy said the accord “cannot be renegotiated.”