Kathleen Hartnett White, Trump's Environment Pick: Fossil Fuels Ended Slavery, CO2 Is Good for You

Source: The Daily Beast

Trump’s nominee bombed her Senate hearing. But a Daily Beast investigation reveals years of blog posts promoting conspiracy theories, quack science, and fake history.

JAY MICHAELSON
01.31.18 11:43 AM ET

One of the most embarrassing political flops of 2017 was Donald Trump’s nomination of Kathleen Hartnett White, a longtime fossil-fuel advocate, to direct the White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ). Her confirmation hearing was a disaster, captured for posterity on YouTube. While she made it out of committee on party lines, the full Senate declined to consider her nomination as part of a bipartisan deal. Now, she’s back.

To the surprise of Hill-watchers, White has been re-nominated, setting up a showdown with Democrats and Republicans alike. (Per Senate rules, nominees not confirmed at the end of the year must be re-submitted.) One observer called her “the most endangered of President Trump’s environmental nominees.”

Why?

We’re all used to the “fox guarding the henhouse” phenomenon in this administration: a longtime opponent of public schools heading the Education Department, a man who made his name suing the Environmental Protection Agency now heading it, and on down the line. So it’s not surprising that White has spent her career taking money from ExxonMobil and the Koch network and spouting nonsense about how fossil fuels ended slavery, emit “plant nutrients,” and, of course, do not contribute to global climate disruption.

Read more: https://www.thedailybeast.com/kathleen-hartnett-white-trumps-environment-pick-fossil-fuels-ended-slavery-co2-is-good-for-you