In yet another famous hindrance for the President of the United States, Donald Trump, the white house recently withdrew the appointment of a top climate skeptic to become the chair of the Influential Council on Environmental Quality.
However, it is important to know that the appointment of this top skeptic by name, Kathleen Hartnett White has been delayed due to some of her controversial statements on climate change and other environmental issues in the past. Nevertheless, Kathleen Hartnett has been finding it difficult to get the support of most Republicans in the Senate. The appointment of Kathleen Hartnett had been delayed for over a year now.
Just like other nominees from the president of the United States, she doesn’t support environmentalism and she’s also in support of the Texas Public Policy Foundation which was a conservative think tank that got huge funds from Koch Industries, ExxonMobil, Chevron, and other big fossil-fuel industries.
Kathleen Hartnett White was declared last October by President Trump to be the chairperson of the Influential Council on Environmental Quality. It is also necessary to know that Kathleen has worked with the former Texas Governor, Rick Perry, who is now Trump’s energy secretary for 6 years to oversee the state environmental agency.
Furthermore, the nomination of White was flagged in the Senate and she is among the group of nominees that have been rejected by the Senate from the White House when the Congress concluded its activities for last year. Nevertheless, President Trump submitted White’s nomination at the beginning of this year again.
Kathleen Harnett White who has never been a researcher linked the work of environmentalists to “the rigid claims of ideologues and clerics”. When called for a Senate hearing last year November, she shielded and stood by her past comments, that environmental pollution which is caused by burning fuels does not cause any detrimental effect on the environment.
White’s opponents were against the nomination of her heading the council and they referred to her past comments on the support of fossil fuels to help improve the standard of living of people. White has often referred to carbon dioxide as not being a polluting agent but a necessity for plant nutrition and sustenance.
In the time when Perry was still the governor of Texas, White had often tagged the past American government headed by Obama as “imperial EPA (Environmental Protection Agency)” and she had constantly opposed several programs and measures on air and water pollution.
However, White has asked for her nomination to be withdrawn, according to a Washington Post. Also, she has also said in a statement: “I would love to thank President Donald Trump for his immense confidence in me. I will always support his policies and leadership on environment and energy issues and make them of critical importance in order to make our nation great, prosperous, and safe once more”.
The present U.S Senator, Tom Carper who is the top Democrat on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee said that, “it is totally clear that being the head of the Council on Environmental Quality is not the right job for White” Carper had said that the withdrawal of White’s nomination from the office was the best measure that has been taken; he has advised the government of the United States to choose a considerate environmental and public health personnel to lead this sophisticated position.
Kathleen Hartnett White has said lots of provocative statements in the past, in which she affirmed that “there are no environmental crises anywhere and that there are no major problems concerning the environment in the US”.
Also, White’s statement was also recorded saying that “renewable energy can’t be achieved, rather, it is a fabricated hope” and she called the findings made by researchers “dogmatic claims of ideologies and clerics”.
In addition to all of White’s statements, it is important also to note that September last year, she also stated that believing in “global warming” is a sort of paganism.
White’s opinions concerning global warming were also aired live in a show in November during her appointment hearing at the Senate committee on environment and public works, where she had problems trying to answer vital questions about carbon dioxide and climate. She said, “Carbon dioxide is not a characteristic air pollutant that you know to contaminate the atmosphere, thus, carbon dioxide has a direct impact on human health”. White was asked if she was concerned on the increase in the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, well, she stated that “carbon dioxide is an important gas that adds essential nutrients to plants”.
When she was asked if she knew of any issue on the oceans as a result of the discharges of fossil fuels, she answered: “there are lots of them”. When requested to name a few of them, she stated that she had only a shallow knowledge of these problems. White couldn’t give a good answer to the questions that were asked by Senator Sheldon Whitehouse on the effects of carbon dioxide on oceans.
However, the news of White’s withdrawal was welcomed by lots of Democrats in the U.S and it is also a cheered one for every thoughtful environmentalist all over the world today.
