Sen. Elizabeth Warren on Thursday criticized President Trump’s nominee to lead the EPA for having “the nerve” to say the science behind climate change is still up for debate.
Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt is expected to be confirmed Friday afternoon to lead the EPA, despite Warren’s argument that he is a climate change denier who would dismantle the EPA’s ability to mitigate the human activity that she said is warming up the planet.
“Scott Pruitt has the nerve to say that the cause of climate change is ‘subject to more debate,'” she said of the Oklahoma attorney general on the Senate floor.
“More debate? We had that debate in the 1980s and the 1990s, and the 2000s,” she said. “Maybe Mr. Pruitt missed it buried under a pile of big oil money.”
Warren said the last century was one in which the U.S. and other countries “spewed fossil fuel filth” into the atmosphere, which came at a price in the form of a warning planet.
“Our planet is getting hotter,” she said. “Our coasts are threatened by furious storm surges that sweep away homes and devastate our largest cities.”
“Our poorest neighborhoods are one bad storm away from being underwater,” she continued. “Our naval bases are under attack, not by enemy ships, but by rising seas. Droughts and wildfires are all too familiar across the country.”
“Our coastal communities don’t have time for politicians who deny science,” Warren said. “Our farmers don’t have time for more debate. Our children don’t have time for more cowards who won’t stand up to big oil companies defrauding the American people.”
