US Environmental Protection Agency(WASHINGTON) — Scott Pruitt, the head of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), expressed doubt as to whether carbon dioxide from human activity is the primary cause of climate change, apparently contradicting the language used on his own agency’s website.
“I think that measuring with precision human activity on the climate is something very challenging to do and there’s tremendous disagreement about the degree of impact,” Pruitt said Thursday morning in an interview with CNBC. “So no, I would not agree that it’s a primary contributor to the global warming that we see.”
The EPA’s website plainly states that humans, by burning fossil fuels and emitting carbon into the atmosphere, have played a significant role affecting climate change.
“Since the Industrial Revolution began around 1750, human activities have contributed substantially to climate change by adding CO2 and other heat-trapping gases to the atmosphere. These greenhouse gas emissions have increased the greenhouse effect and caused Earth’s surface temperature to rise. The primary human activity affecting the amount and rate of climate change is greenhouse gas emissions from the burning of fossil fuels,” the site reads.
Pruitt, who opponents painted as a climate change denier and a risky choice to head the EPA, was voted in by a close margin of 52 to 46 in February.
Democratic Senators Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota and Joe Manchin of West Virginia, who both hail from states whose economy depends on the energy sector, voted in step with Republicans to confirm the 48-year-old former Oklahoma attorney general. Only one GOP senator, Susan Collins of Maine, voted against his nomination.
During the campaign, President Donald Trump promised to roll back Obama-era regulations geared to reducing climate change as a way of bolstering the energy sector, and Pruitt was seen by his supporters as being an ideal fit to meet those promises.
Thursday’s remarks appeared to be a step backwards from language Pruitt used at his confirmation hearing in January.
“I do not believe that climate change is a hoax,” Pruitt said at the opening statement of his hearing. “Science tells us that the climate is changing and that human activity in some manner impacts that change.”
Later, in a tense exchange with Sen. Bernie Sanders, the self-described Democratic Socialist from Vermont, Pruitt said that the EPA has a role to play in regulating CO2 emissions.
“Senator, I believe that the administrator has a very important role to perform in regulating CO2,” Pruitt responded to Sanders at his confirmation hearing.
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