Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt
Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt
Some have accused Donald Trump of essentially putting the fox to guard the hen house when it comes to the Environmental Protection Agency.
Trump has picked Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt, who critics say is not a believer in global warming and has traditionally favored corporations over environmentalists. In other words, he sees it as the Corporate Protection Agency rather than the Environmental Protection Agency.
A possible indicator of how he'll protect the state's Great Lakes and other waterways may be found, according to Oklahoma environmentalists, in his handling of chicken manure from massive poultry farms in Oklahoma and neighboring Arkansas fouling the Illinois River, reports Keith Matheny of the Detroit Free Press:
While Pruitt helped develop a solution to chicken manure problems fouling a scenic river and popular lake in his state, he also worked to thwart EPA regulation of those very kinds of water pollution problems. And he also was a strong supporter of a referendum in Oklahoma that would have given large corporate farms nearly free rein on environmental matters.
A business community that feels overburdened by the Obama administration's expanded environmental regulations should love Pruitt.
Environmentalists? Not so much.
