Anti-Climate Change Hawks Have a Bone to Pick with Trump, Too

The Washington Examiner discusses the endangerment finding with Myron Ebell.

Climate change opponents are joining environmentalists in criticizing President Trump for not mentioning climate change in his State of the Union address last week, but for a different reason.

Myron Ebell, Trump’s EPA transition chief, and an avid opponent of climate regulation, has petitioned “the EPA to re-open the endangerment finding,” he told the Washington Examiner in an email. “EPA has not responded to our petition.” He is the director of the libertarian Competitive Enterprise Institute’s energy and environment office.

Ebell also wants strict prohibitions placed on a calculation developed by the Obama administration to justify regulations based on the Social Cost of Carbon.

“We also favor prohibiting the use of the Social Cost of Carbon guidance document rather than reforming it,” Ebell said.

The EPA is reducing the carbon cost metric by more than 80 percent in documentsused to justify scrapping such rules as the Clean Power Plan. The agency isn’t prohibiting its use, but is restructuring it in a way that doesn’t help to justify new regulations.

Ebell said he also would like to see the president send the Paris Agreement to the GOP-controlled Senate for a vote, where it most likely would fail. That would help to ensure it cannot easily be resurrected by the next administration.

Read the full article at The Washington Examiner.