CNN continued to stoke fear of President-Elect Donald Trump’s nomination of Scott Pruitt to lead the Environmental Protection Agency on The Lead Thursday. “’At the risk of being dramatic. Scott Pruitt is an extension threat to the planet.’ That's quite a charge,” host Jake Tapper said, as he read a tweet from Dan Pfeiffer, a former adviser to President Barack Obama. He was speaking to reporter Rene Marsh who brushed way Republican grievances with the agency before giving a report smearing Pruitt.
“Today we take a look at Trump’s EPA pick and what it means for the air you breathe and the water you drink,” she stated as her report began to play, “Scott Pruitt's stance is clear, the EPA is guilty of over reach.” Seemingly trying to discredit his nomination, she called him a climate change denier and warned “He launched multiple legal battles against the Obama administration's key climate change laws attempting to essentially dismantle the very agency he will now lead.”
Marsh never discussed what the reason behind his lawsuits was, only saying he was for deregulation on energy and pollution. But Marsh was quick to paint him as a puppet of industry, “In 2014 his campaign committee received more than $700,000 in contributions, more than 17 percent [roughly $119,000] of that came from the energy industry.”
“Trump says his administration values clean air and water, but his EPA pick sued the agency 12 times,” she argued, as if the correlation meant some kind of hypocrisy. “Challenging [the EPA’s] Clean Power Plan which seeks to curb carbon emissions from power plants,” she continued, failing to mention that Congress did not charge the EPA in constructing such a plan, or that Pruitt had join with other states to oppose the agency’s coercive initiative.
The CNN reporter didn’t mention that the Clean Power Plan is responsible for many people losing their livelihoods. As plants were forced to shut down those workers, and the coal miners who suppled the fuel, lost their jobs. All while the cost of electricity skyrocketed for consumers. It also went unreported that Pruitt cares about the EPA’s abuse of Clean Water Act, which has been used to put people in jail for move dirt around on their property and for destroying wetlands (A.K.A removing thousands of discarded tires).
Wrapping up her segment Marsh quipped, “This goes beyond the environment. The philosophy of fewer environmental regulations really speaks to President-Elect Trump's larger goal of economic growth.” Tapper responded, “Of course, a lot of concern about the air we breathe and the water we drink.” But not too much concern for abuses by the federal government it seems.