NEW YORK: President-elect Donald Trump announced on Thursday he had tapped Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt, criticised as a climate change denier and a staunch fossil fuel ally, to head the Environmental Protection Agency.

“For too long, the Environmental Protection Agency has spent taxpayer dollars on an out-of-control anti-energy agenda that has destroyed millions of jobs, while also undermining our incredible farmers and many other businesses and industries at every turn,” Trump said in a statement.

It was the property mogul’s formal confirmation of reports on Wednesday of Pruitt’s pick, which drew outrage from Trump opponents.

Pruitt “will reverse this trend and restore the EPA’s essential mission of keeping our air and our water clean and safe,” the billionaire businessman said.

“My administration strongly believes in environmental protection, and Scott Pruitt will be a powerful advocate for that mission while promoting jobs, safety and opportunity.” Opponents, however, said Pruitt is anything but an environmental advocate, pointing out that he has spent much of his time as Oklahoma’s top law enforcement official battling the very agency he is now being nominated to lead.

They described Pruitt as a spectacularly poor choice to lead the fight to protect America’s natural resources.

“Scott Pruitt has spent the past several years fighting tooth and nail to help polluters erase or circumvent the critical environmental protections our nation has put in place,” said Steny Hoyer, the number two Democrat in the House of Representatives, in a statement released Wednesday, as news of Pruitt’s nomination began to circulate.

“To put him in charge of the very agency he has worked to undermine is an affront to all Americans who care about the health of our air and water and the very real threat we face from climate change,” Hoyer said.

Published in Dawn, December 9th, 2016