Senate Democrats are calling out President-elect Trump for appointing fossil-fuel lobbyists and other special interest lobbyists to his transition team of advisors that they say undermine his commitment to “drain the swamp” in Washington.
Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., is spearheading the effort, and while Democrats can’t do much to prevent the appointments, Whitehouse pledged that Democrats will do all they can to ensure that Trump voters know that “their champion” who promised to “drain the swamp” is now “waist deep in swamp alligators” that he appointed to his transition team.
“The Koch brothers and the fossil-fuel industry are extremely powerful in this selection process” of the transition team advisers, added Robert Weissman, president of Public Citizen, a liberal-leaning government accountability group.
“I think there’s going to be a day of reckoning,” between the new president and his voters, and “I don’t think it’s going to take long,” Weissman said.
Whitehouse and Weissman argued that at the very least, Trump should adopt ethics rules similar to those implemented during President Obama’s transition. Those rules prevented lobbyists who have lobbied for the prior year from serving on the transition team and those officials who do serve from lobbying a full year after their service.
Even though Obama promised to exclude lobbyists from his administration, after his first term, he had granted waivers to more than 100 lobbyists to serve in it. Trump has tapped a host of recently deregistered lobbyists and other insiders to manage his transition, and a number of them are expected to fill top administration posts.
Whitehouse and eight other Democratic senators wrote Trump Thursday night expressing “alarm” over his hiring of corporate special interests from the fossil-fuel industry to lead transition efforts for the very agencies that impact fossil-fuel policy.
They also specifically asked how these appointments square with a full-page New York Times ad Trump and his children took out in 2009 urging the U.S. government to “strengthen and pass” climate change legislation, which the ad called “an immediate challenge facing the United States and the world today.”
“Please don’t postpone the earth,” the ad read. “If we fail to act now, it is scientifically irrefutable that there will be catastrophic and irreversible consequences for humanity and our planet.”
The senators specifically mentioned nominees under consideration to lead the Environmental Protection Agency, Department of Energy and Department of Interior. They also said they worry about his decision to pick Myron Ebell, Thomas Pyle and Doug Domenech to lead the transition effort for these same agencies.
They took issue with Ebell for his work with conservative groups like the Frontiers of Freedom and the Competitive Enterprise Institute, which they said at “various times” have been funded by Philip Morris, ExxonMobile and the Koch family foundations.
Ebell, they said, was one of the authors of the “infamous” Global Climate Science Communications action plan, a multimillion-dollar public relations campaign to “undermine” climate science.
Pyle, they pointed out, who was selected as the transition head for the Energy Deparment, is a former oil and gas lobbyist who has “made a career of fighting clean energy and denying climate science to benefit the fossil-fuel industry.”
Those signing the letter to Trump included Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Edward Markey of Massachusetts, Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley of Oregon, Tom Udall of New Mexico, Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, Ben Cardin of Maryland, Al Franken of Minnesota and Bernie Sanders of Vermont, an Independent.
