CLIMATE CHANGE/EPA/TRUMP PEOPLE: “Andrew Wheeler, the former coal lobbyist who is now acting administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, was a ‘driving force’ behind the agenda of Sen. James Inhofe, who called climate change a ‘hoax,’ according to people familiar with Wheeler’s work for the senator. President Donald Trump has said he intends to nominate Wheeler as the head of the EPA, and in the past five months as acting administrator, Wheeler has moved aggressively to roll back key environmental regulations, prompting critics and environmentalists to say he is fast confirming their worst fears for the agency’s future. Inhofe, an Oklahoma Republican, is an outspoken climate change skeptic who was at different times chairman and ranking member of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works. Inhofe told CNN last year the EPA was ‘brainwashing our kids,’ and famously once brought a snowball onto the Senate floor to demonstrate his belief that global warming isn’t real.”
–Scott Bronstein, Drew Griffin and Collette Richards, “Trump’s pick for EPA already rolling back climate change protections,” CNN Politics, CNN.com, December 3, 2018 10:44 pm