Hartnett White dangerous for environmental council
With each new appointee to the Trump administration, it’s like the president is trolling us. Put someone who sued the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency 14 times in charge of the agency? Check. Appoint a man who wanted to eliminate the Department of Energy as its head? Check.
But you ain’t seen nothing yet. Trump’s newest choice for the U.S. Council on Environmental Quality — Kathleen Hartnett White of the Texas Public Policy Foundation — is beyond insulting to the American people.
As a Texan, I’ve had a front row seat to Hartnett White’s dangerous propaganda on climate and other environmental issues for years. If there were an adult version of “Kids Say the Darndest Things,” she’d be the show’s star. And it would be funny — if what she said didn’t mean death and illness for so many.
Despite regularly spouting claims that sound like science, Hartnett White is not a scientist, nor does she even bother to understand basic science. She says carbon dioxide is the “gas of life” and wants more, not less, carbon pollution. She’s also part of the CO2 Coalition, which alleges, “CO2 at current levels and higher enables plants, trees, and crops to grow faster and more efficiently.” By that logic, parents should be feeding their children a candy-only diet, because sugar provides energy. Meanwhile, actual scientists overwhelmingly agree carbon has reached dangerous levels and — without change in policy to reduce future carbon pollution, it will likely have catastrophic consequences.
Hartnett White also once declared: “We’re not a democracy if science dictates what our rules are.” To find out who’s dictating her rules, all you have to do is look at the Texas Public Policy Foundation’s donor list, which includes the Koch Brothers and Big Tobacco, as well as major coal players like the American Coalition for Clean Coal and Texas coal-burning electric generators.
It comes as no surprise that she’s a huge fan of fossil fuels; she even wrote a 30-page paper on “the moral case” for their use. The paper holds lots of insight into Hartnett White’s specious logic, including this doozy: “Fossil fuels dissolved the economic justification for slavery.”
The nonsense Hartnett White spouts can have real, harmful consequences, especially as chair of the U.S. Council on Environmental Quality. During her tenure as the chair of the Texas Council for Environmental Quality, she repeatedly fought efforts to slow global warming and was cozy with big polluters. Thousands of people miss work, suffer from asthma and heart attacks, and die every year as a result of breathing smoggy air. Hartnett White opposed health-based standards for smog. She also opposed limiting mercury pollution, which can cause brain damage in children.
It’s hard to figure out why any president would appoint a science-hating, baloney-loving person to such a critical position. Perhaps he’s simply trying to make himself and Scott Pruitt’s actions at the EPA appear less irrational. Regardless, if we are to protect Americans — as well as our air and water — we need leaders who respect science and appreciate the impact of fossil fuels on the environment.
Kathleen Hartnett White is simply an apologist for the polluters who have long paid her salary — and if confirmed, more Americans will get sick and die from air pollution. Fortunately, the U.S. Senate has a chance to stop this dangerous, worrisome choice. Let’s hope they vote to protect our kids’ health.