Views of Trump’s EPA pick alarm Democrats

WASHINGTON — Senate Democrats sharply questioned Environment Protection Agency administrator nominee Andrew Wheeler on Wednesday after he suggested that a failure to thin out heavy forests is a greater cause of wildfires than climate change.

During a confirmation hearing before the Senate Environmental Committee, the Butler County native said wildfires that burned millions of acres of forests and killed more than 80 people in California last year had “some relation to climate change, but the biggest issue, in my opinion, is forest management.”

Wheeler, who graduated from Case Western Reserve in Cleveland and lobbied for an Ohio coal company, testified Wednesday that he takes “very seriously” the job of protecting the nation’s environment and the health of Americans. Nonetheless, his comments on climate change alarmed committee Democrats.

Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-ore., acknowledged that thicker forests have contributed to the fires, but he called Wheeler’s answer “disheartening.” Merkley said forest management is not the reason these fires are so widespread, “it’s because the summer season is so much hotter and longer.”

Speaking of global warming, Wheeler said: “I would not call it the greatest crisis, no sir. I consider it a huge issue that has to be addressed globally,” adding that he believes human beings contribute to global warming.

Sen. Edward Markey, D-mass., said Wheeler was “100 percent wrong” in saying that climate change is an “issue” as opposed to a “crisis.”

Climate change sharply divides the parties, with Democrats generally insisting it is one of the paramount issues of our time while many conservative Republicans dismiss fears of global warning as exaggerated.

Ironically, in his prepared Wheeler remarks, Wheeler acknowledged the country’s dramatic improvement in air quality through federal regulation since 1970, when lawmakers from both parties supported creation of the EPA and the Clean Air Act.

He noted that from 1970 to 2017, the six major air pollutants — which include carbon monoxide, lead, ozone and sulfur dioxide — fell by “73 percent while the economy grew over 260 percent.”

Wheeler, tapped by President Donald Trump to replace Scott Pruitt as EPA administrator after Pruitt resigned last year, said he considers himself “a conservationist” and vowed to “follow the law and Supreme Court cases.”

Wheeler did not seem to inspire the intensity of anger that Democrats had against Pruitt.

“Mr. Wheeler is certainly not the ethically bereft embarrassment that Scott Pruitt proved to be and — to be fair — he has engaged more frequently and substantively than Scott Pruitt with both Congress and EPA career staff,” said Sen. Tom Carper, D-delaware, the committee’s ranking Democrat.

But Carper, a 1968 graduate of Ohio State University, said Wheeler’s “environmental policies appear to be just as extreme as his predecessor’s.”