Andrew Wheeler is Donald Trump’s new administrator at the Environmental Protection Agency. He’s also a former coal industry lobbyist.
In his first interview since being confirmed, Wheeler said safe drinking water is a bigger environmental concern than climate change.
Wheeler said on CBS, “We’re doing much better than most westernized countries on reducing their CO2 emissions, but what we need to do is make sure that the whole world is focused on the people who are dying today, the thousand children that die everyday from lack of drinking water.”
Axios writes:
- “Multiple scientific assessments, including from the Trump administration, have found that climate change is already harming Americans through hotter and longer-lasting heat waves, heavy precipitation events, and other impacts.
- “And polling earlier this year found that about 7 in 10 Americans (72%) say the issue of global warming is either “extremely,” “very,” or “somewhat” important to them personally — while 46% said they already personally experienced the effects of global warming.”
