EPA boss leaves big footprint at his agency

Scott Pruitt has wasted little time in making his imprint on the Environmental Protection Agency.

The EPA director has ordered the removal of the “climate change” link on the agency’s website. That’s right. There’s no mention now of the planet’s changing climate, apparently because Pruitt doesn’t believe it’s occurring, or that it’s somehow part of nature’s cycle that cannot be manipulated by human activity.

This is a clear and present danger to our world.

EPA no longer in the “protection” business?

The EPA was created during the Nixon administration in 1970 to do as its title says clearly: to “protect the environment.” Pruitt, though, is a former Oklahoma state attorney general who made quite a bit of noise suing the EPA multiple times for the rules and regulations it imposes on businesses in its effort to do as its title says.

Pruitt acts as if he is no friend of the environment, although he surely declares that he is.

Why remove the link on the EPA website?

“We want to eliminate confusion by removing outdated language first and making room to discuss how we’re protecting the environment and human health by partnering with states and working within the law,” J.P. Freire, the EPA’s associate administrator for public affairs, said in a statement.

The timing of its removal also is a bit ironic. It came just before this weekend’s series of marches regarding the climate.

I know it’s weird to be talking about climate change/global warming on a day when snow is falling in late April on the High Plains of Texas. This kind of weather anomaly gives grist to climate change deniers who no doubt are relishing the very notion of snowfall so late into spring.

Yes, Mr. Administrator, the climate is changing

Of course, the deniers ignore the findings and the theories of a vast majority of scientists and other environmental experts who contend that human activity has contributed greatly to the warming of the planet. Deforestation and carbon emissions created by burning of fossil fuels has been labeled as the cause.

Polar ice caps are shrinking, sea levels are rising, worldwide average temperatures are increasing. Is the planet in peril?

We can discuss the cause of the changing climate. I’m open to that. What I find discouraging — and shameful — is the elimination of source material from the EPA’s website that allows that discussion to occur.