This group thinks Trump hasn’t done enough to unravel environmental rules. Here’s its wish list.

The Washington Post quoted Myron Ebell on the failings of the personnel process within the EPA as being a major cause of dysfunction for the agency.

The activists gathered behind closed doors in a Houston hotel meeting room last week had long existed on the political fringe. They’d dismissed the science behind climate change, preached the virtues of fossil fuels and seethed about the Environmental Protection Agency’s power and reach.

They also had been largely ignored by many top federal officials. Until the election of President Trump.

But now, at the private meeting sponsored by a free-market think tank, the Heartland Institute, the activists were both giddy and grumpy. So much of what the Trump administration had done to roll back Obama-era environmental regulations was positive, they agreed, as were the White House’s efforts to promote the oil and gas industry and halt federal action to combat climate change.

…

Heartland officials handed out a three-page “Energy Freedom Scorecard” that evaluated the extent to which Trump and his deputies had delivered on their top policy priorities. As much as they welcome the administration’s efforts, the scorecard made clear that they think the president could do more, much more.

…

The scorecard lists several items as “done,” from rescinding Obama-era rules curbing carbon emissions from power plants and opting out of the Paris climate agreement to reducing “government funding of environmental advocacy groups” by limiting legal settlements and approving the Keystone XL pipeline as well as other oil pipelines. Nineteen other items fall into the “started” category, such as cutting “government funding of climate change research”; repealing “unnecessary restrictions and state bans on fracking”; and ending “conflict of interest on scientific review boards.”

But 15 goals listed “not done” include ending federal tax credits to wind and solar producers and no longer basing military planning and strategies “on the predictions of flawed climate models.”

…

Schnare and other participants also railed about other issues. Competitive Enterprise Institute senior fellow Myron Ebell, who headed the EPA’s transition team for the administration, described its “key failing” as a “totally dysfunctional personnel process.”

“We only got people nominated to the subordinate positions at EPA this summer,” Ebell said.

Read the full article at The Washington Post.