Gov. Dannel P. Malloy, who during his tenure has ramped up renewable energy use and pledged major reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, is no fan of President-elect Donald Trump’s selection of an Environmental Protection Agency administrator.
In a statement Wednesday, Malloy called Scott Pruitt’s nomination “cynical and deeply unsettling.”
“It makes no sense to choose a person to lead an agency who has been a vociferous critic of the core, underlying mission of that very agency,” Malloy said. “This nomination also raises many questions in regards to whether the EPA would be able to actively combat the impacts of climate change if the person at the helm disregards overwhelming scientific evidence that climate change is having a major effect on our planet.”
Pruitt, who is attorney general of Oklahoma, has sued the EPA over its Clean Power Plan and earlier this year co-authored a column in the National Review calling the debate over climate change “far from settled.”
Pruitt would succeed Gina McCarthy, a former commissioner of Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection who has visited the state a number of times since her nomination by President Barack Obama.
