At this point, most people don’t expect the Trump administration to listen to research on climate change. That doesn’t make it any less shocking when officials invent facts for themselves. Recently, the EPA failed to provide scientific evidence to back up claims that climate change damage was decades away. To environmental advocates, it’s proof that the Trump administration is playing the same old climate-denying games.
Last March, the Environmental Protection Agency’s Administrator Andrew Wheeler, a former coal lobbyist, was interviewed by CBS News’s Major Garrett. There, Wheeler told Garrett that he believed drinking water is the “biggest environmental threat” because “most of the threats from climate change are 50 to 75 years out.”
Wheeler’s remarks quickly drew attention from climate change activists. In response, the environmental organization Sierra Club filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) demanding that the EPA produce records to support Wheeler’s assertion. That simple request turned into a lawsuit in October after the EPA refused to turn over documents. Continue reading.