Pruitt’s remarks sparked a news cycle that is, to this 10-year veteran of the climate beat, extremely and tediously familiar. I could have scripted the whole thing in advance. As always, it seems to me that people are missing the point in two key ways.

It’s not about Pruitt, it’s about the Republican Party
My inbox is groaning with statements from previous EPA administrators, scientists, nonprofits, members of Congress, and assorted others, condemning Pruitt’s ignorance in florid terms.

But they are all about what Pruitt believes. And in the end, who cares what he believes? He is a functionary, chosen in part to dismantle EPA regulations on greenhouse gases. If it weren’t him, it would be some other functionary.

The GOP’s goal is to block or reverse any policy that would negatively affect its donors and supporters, who are drawn disproportionately from carbon-intensive industries and regions. That is the North Star — to protect those constituencies. That means, effectively, blocking any efficacious climate policy (which, almost by definition, will diminish fossil fuels).

They can’t just say that, though, so they have to retrofit a set of beliefs that justify inaction on climate change. Those beliefs shift around depending on context and can be maddeningly difficult to pin down. Among friendly audiences, Republicans are prone to dismiss climate change as a hoax. In public settings like Congressional hearings, they are more likely to adopt “lukewarmism,” accepting that climate change is happening (thus dodging the awkward “denier” label), waving their hands vaguely in the direction of action, but always emphasizing the uncertainties in the science and the grave economic dangers of any proposed policy solution.

But the reason GOP beliefs on climate are so difficult to pin down is that the beliefs are not the point. The party’s institutional opposition to action is the point. The beliefs are retrofit, on an opportunistic and sometimes case-by-case basis, to support the conclusion, which is: do nothing.

Pruitt is an avowed opponent of EPA who has spent his professional life suing it to stop it from regulating greenhouse gases. He was chosen to stop action on climate change. What he believes, or claims to believe, while doing so is ultimately not that important.

Alone among major parties in the developed world, the GOP rejects the need to act on climate change. That’s the outrage. Pruitt is an epiphenomenon.