President Trump Nominates Kathleen White to Environmental Quality Chair

Guest essay by Eric Worrall

President Trump has nominated a climate skeptic who credits the rise of fossil fuels for the end of slavery to head the Council on Environmental Quality.

Trump to nominate climate doubter as environmental adviser (Update)

October 13, 2017 by Michael Biesecker

President Donald Trump will nominate a climate change skeptic with ties to the fossil fuel industry to serve as a top environmental adviser.

The White House on Thursday announced the selection of Kathleen Hartnett White of Texas to serve as chair of the Council on Environmental Quality. White served under former Texas Gov. Rick Perry, now Trump’s energy secretary, for six years on a commission overseeing the state environmental agency.

White was fiercely critical of what she called the Obama administration’s “imperial EPA” and pushed back against stricter limits on air and water pollution. She is a senior fellow at the Texas Public Policy Foundation, a conservative think tank that has received funding from fossil-fuel companies that include Koch Industries, ExxonMobil and Chevron.

In a 2014 policy paper titled “Fossil Fuels: The Moral Case,” White praised the burning of coal and petroleum for “vastly improved living conditions across the world” and credited fossil fuels with ending slavery.

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Sierra Club Executive Director Michael Brune called White’s selection “outrageous.”

“The nomination of Kathleen Hartnett White is the nightmare scenario for anyone who wants clean air and clean water,” he said. “Her record makes clear she is completely ready and willing to sell out the health of our kids to corporate polluters.”