EPA's leader is open to reconsidering crucial climate assessment. That's not good.

Scott Pruitt, the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), signaled in testimony before the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee on Tuesday that he is open to revisiting a bedrock scientific analysis that paved the way for his agency to regulate planet-warming greenhouse gases. If he does so, it could take the EPA entirely out of the ballgame when it comes to limiting emissions of carbon dioxide, methane, and other global warming pollutants. 

It would also set up an epic legal battle that could go on for years.

That Pruitt is willing to entertain the notion of revisiting what is known as an “endangerment finding” under the Clean Air Act tells you a lot about how Pruitt views his own agency. He has spent his first year as administrator as a kind of trojan administrator, bent on destroying the agency’s work from within. He has swiftly rolled back regulations on everything from pesticide use to methane emissions, all while downsizing the agency’s workforce to Reagan-era levels.  Read more...

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