The leader of the Environmental Protection Agency thinks the question of whether President Trump believes climate change is real and caused by humans is a distraction from examining the efficacy of the Paris Agreement.
EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt refused to answer if Trump believes climate change is real during an interview on “This Week” on ABC Sunday. He called the question a way for the environmental left to distract from the climate deal’s shortcomings.
“The whole question is an effort to get it off the point of whether the Paris accord is good or not,” he said.
When pressed, he said he hasn’t talked to Trump about his personal belief in climate change. Trump has said on multiple occasions he believes climate change is a hoax created to drive dollars to green technology companies.
“Our discussion has been about the agreement, the efficacy of the agreement,” Pruitt said.
Pruitt, who sued the EPA multiple times as Oklahoma’s attorney geneal, pointed out there’s no teeth in the Paris Agreement — there’s no mechanism for punishing countries that don’t live up to their commitments to reduce carbon dioxide emissions and most of the promises are pretty weak. He added that the agreement would have a $2.5 trillion drag on the country’s gross domestic product during the next decade.
Pruitt said Trump weighed those negatives and believes it’s better for the U.S. to go its own way on climate. He said the United States could continue to lead the way on cutting its carbon emissions without onerous regulations on fossil fuel industries.
“We’re leading with action, not words,” he said. “When you look at Paris, frankly when you look at what was supposed to be achieved by other nations around the globe, it was criticized by the environmental left [for being too weak].”
