"Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt made a name for himself by suing the Environmental Protection Agency and fighting against its regulatory power. That work has also made him a contentious choice for EPA administrator, drawing comparisons to President Ronald Reagan’s first EPA administrator, Anne Gorsuch Burford, who cut the agency’s enforcement budget by more than 45 percent and was ultimately forced to resign after being found in contempt of Congress. Burford’s legacy could be felt in how the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works approached Pruitt in his confirmation hearing Wednesday — Republicans praised Pruitt for fighting federal overreach and regulatory madness, while Democrats voiced serious concerns that Pruitt would be working for the good of industry, rather than the good of the environment and Americans’ health."
"Donald Trump’s EPA Pick Imperils Science—And Earth" (TIME; 1/17/17)
"As the Attorney General of Oklahoma, Pruitt has shown he is not only a relentless opponent of EPA standards for climate pollution. He has been a relentless opponent of basic pollution limits as well, the kind that protect us from mercury, smog, arsenic and other deadly air toxics. He questions whether toxic mercury pollution is hazardous to public health. He shut down his office’s Environmental Protection Unit. And now he wants to do for the United States what he did for Oklahoma."
"Rex Tillerson is big oil personified. The damage he can do is immense." (The Guardian; 1/11/17)
"But instead of telling the rest of us, the investigations revealed [Exxon's] deep involvement in the effort to spread doubt and confusion about climate change. Given the consequences, this is a series of corporate crimes that makes VW’s emissions cheating seem like stealing a candy bar from the 7/11. In a rational world, Congress would be grilling Tillerson about the company’s conduct, not preparing to hand him the country’s plum unelected job."