Washington, D.C. \u2013 Oregon\u2019s U.S. Senator Jeff Merkley\u2014Ranking Member of the Senate Interior-Environment Appropriations Subcommittee and a senior member of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee\u2014today released the following statement on the nominations of Lee Zeldin for Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Doug Burgum for Secretary of the Department of Interior, and Chris Wright for Secretary of the Department of Energy:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\n\u201cClimate chaos is the existential threat of our time, and President Trump\u2019s handpicked Fossil Fuel Cabinet is making sure humanity fails that challenge.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
\n\u201cLee Zeldin\u2014who left Congress and immediately became a paid influencer for corporate polluters\u2014has shown very little of the necessary experience required to run the EPA, an agency crucial in the fight to protect human health, make sure our air and water is clean, and combat climate chaos. Zeldin failed to adequately answer basic questions about plastic pollution and parroted Big Oil talking points about how we could solve this crisis. <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
\n\u201cDoug Burgum was in the room when Trump hosted Big Oil executives at Mar-a-Lago and asked them to invest $1 billion in his presidential campaign. Burgum has failed to outline a strong vision for how he would effectively manage and protect our nation\u2019s treasures\u2014our public lands and national parks\u2014as head of the Department of Interior. Instead, he has cozied up to Big Oil and advocated for increasing fossil fuel leasing and fracking on public lands, which would accelerate climate chaos.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
\n\u201cRounding out the Fossil Fuel Cabinet is Chris Wright, a fracking executive who funds anti-climate disinformation propaganda. Nominating someone like Wright, who has made millions from oil and gas, to run the agency responsible for balancing the nation\u2019s energy needs is a clear conflict of interest. We cannot afford to have Big Oil capture the Department of Energy to further the industry\u2019s profits. The planet weeps.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
\n\u201cPresident Trump expects his Fossil Fuel Cabinet to roll back crucial protections for public health and our environment so that corporate polluters can make more money. These polluter profits will come right out of working families\u2019 pockets\u2014folks will pay more at the pump, more for insurance, and more health care costs due to rampant pollution. At Trump\u2019s bidding, his Fossil Fuel Cabinet even has plans to hollow out our federal agencies by going after the researchers, ecologists, scientists, chemists, and other specialists who work tirelessly to protect communities across America.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
\n\u201cI\u2019ll keep fighting to get Big Oil and their ill-gotten bucks out of our government.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
###<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Washington, D.C. \u2013 Oregon\u2019s U.S. Senator Jeff Merkley\u2014Ranking Member of the Senate Interior-Environment Appropriations Subcommittee and a senior member of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee\u2014today released the following statement on the nominations of Lee Zeldin for Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Doug Burgum for Secretary of the Department of Interior, and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":18847,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[45],"class_list":["post-21387","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-press-releases","tag-tackling-climate-change"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n
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