When the new White House website went live after Donald Trump's inauguration, many reports were published which took notice of the new changes on the site, most notably that the page about climate change had come down. In fact, visitors were hard-pressed to even find the words "climate change" in the same place together. To many, this was part of the normal process that takes place in a presidential transition. In fact, It a new website change happened during the transition between President Bush and Obama. But others saw this for what it was, the administration's determination to erase climate change from their nomenclature in order for them to meet their campaign promise, that they would challenge climate science and do away with climate change culture, which they've always considered a hoax.
On Tuesday, the Trump administration signed an executive order at EPA headquarters that will rewrite key rules that curb U.S. carbon emissions or rather, to completely undo President Obama's Clean Power Plan. According to Trump's platform, regulations and restrictions are considered job killers and he's looking to prop up the coal industry. Initially, the Obama administration considered its Clean Power Plan to be the former president's biggest climate change policy. But the first steps to essentially end climate change culture already started with President Trump making Scott Pruitt the head of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) which regulates for clean energy because Pruitt has always been known to want to cripple the EPA as much as possible to the point of doing away with the agency altogether.
Scott Pruitt, EPA enemy no. 1
Scott Pruitt was on This Week with George Stephanopolous on Sunday where he said that the executive order would be for energy independence and that for far too long the narrative in America has been to kill jobs. He continued to say that it's possible to have clean energy and improve job growth at the same time.
Following the confirmation of Scott Pruitt, the feeling from the EPA was that he would destroy years of research gathered on climate science. An example of the differences between an EPA before Pruitt and now against him is that the EPA has concluded that CO2 or carbon dioxide is the primary driver for man-made climate change.
But Scott Pruitt doesn't believe this and on March 9, he told CNBC that measuring with precision is hard to do and that it would still need to be analyzed and debated before coming to that conclusion.
Rewriting the science
But the data showing that carbon dioxide causes climate change is already proven, even with data from NASA which Republican lawmakers such as Ted Cruz are also looking to reign in, in order to weaken that research. An article published by The Guardian titled: "EPA head Scott Pruitt denies that carbon dioxide causes global warming" says: "Scientists have understood for more than a century that CO2 traps heat. Atmospheric concentrations of the gas have increased by more than a third since the industrial revolution, driven by the burning of fossil fuels and deforestation." But these are the kinds of statements that Scott Pruitt, Trump's side of the socio-political mindset and a large number of Republicans are determined to ignore.
The new executive order will put Scott Pruitt in charge of rewriting a new rule to replace Obama's Clean Power Plan. This means that they will review the former President's plan and see how they're going to change it. He's determined to make the EPA less aggressive against corporations that pose an environmental threat. If that means rewriting the science and helping to change the data that would prevent the EPA from acting as they have up until recently, then there's no doubt that under President Trump, Scott Pruitt will.
