2 Of Kentucky's Most Senior State Environment & Climate Leaders Fired, Because Freedumb, Jobzz

Two veteran public servants in the state's Energy and Environment Cabinet have lost their jobs, including a former air division chief who had been guiding the state's response to President Barack Obama's new climate pollution regulations.

John Lyons was named assistant secretary for climate policy in 2013 by former Gov. Steve Beshear. He had been promoted to run the Kentucky Division for Air Quality in 2002, and did that for four years under Republican Gov. Ernie Fletcher, then with Beshear.

Energy Secretary Charles Snavely, a former Arch Coal executive, confirmed late Tuesday that Lyons had left the agency. He also said veteran attorney and former general counsel for the environment cabinet, Mike Haines, was also let go. Snavely declined further comment on what he described as personnel matters.

Lyons had perhaps one of the toughest jobs politically in Frankfort. In Beshear and former energy secretary Len Peters, he had bosses who acknowledged that climate change was real even as the state fought EPA rules it considered unfair or onerous. But Peters also wanted Kentucky to be prepared with options should the EPA's Clean Power plan on coal-burning go foward, as it did, despite Kentucky lawmakers hostile to that idea even in the governor's own Democratic Party. Bevin, a Republican, has intensified the political rhetoric against the EPA and Snavely has said it's his job as the state's top environmental regulator to make sure "we are not a hindrance to any industry."

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http://www.courier-journal.com/story/tech/science/watchdog-earth/2016/02/16/beshear-climate-czar-sent-packing/80478192/#