WASHINGTON: US President-elect Donald Trump
will nominate Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt, a critic of
federal environmental regulation, to lead the Environmental Protection
Agency, his transition team said on Thursday (Dec 8).
The
choice, which enraged environmental activists and cheered the oil
industry, signals that the Republican president-elect plans to move
ahead with his promise to cut back regulation and free up drilling and
coal mining, in a likely reversal of Democratic President Barack Obama's
environmental agenda.
"For
too long, the Environmental Protection Agency has spent taxpayer
dollars on an out-of-control anti-energy agenda that has destroyed
millions of jobs, while also undermining our incredible farmers and many
other businesses and industries at every turn," Trump was quoted as
saying in a statement from the transition team.
Pruitt
has been a harsh opponent of Obama's measures to curb climate change and
has helped lead a legal effort by some states to throw out an integral
piece of Obama's climate change strategy that requires states to curb
carbon output.
Since becoming the top prosecutor for the
oil- and gas-producing state in 2011, Pruitt, 48, has launched multiple
lawsuits against regulations put forward by the agency he is now poised
to lead, suing to block federal measures to reduce smog and curb toxic
emissions from power plants.
"The American people are
tired of seeing billions of dollars drained from our economy due to
unnecessary EPA regulations, and I intend to run this agency in a way
that fosters both responsible protection of the environment and freedom
for American businesses," Pruitt was quoted as saying.
The
transition team statement called Pruitt "a national leader against the
EPA's job-killing war on coal" who will help implement Trump's energy
plan.