Reports: Trump will name Cathy McMorris Rodgers as his pick for Secretary of the Interior https://t.co/S5kZcYwEts pic.twitter.com/jGPJozJ7Ap
â BuzzFeed News (@BuzzFeedNews) December 9, 2016
An aide to Donald Trump leaked this morning that the President-elect will pick Washington Republican Congresswoman Cathy McMorris Rodgers, an outspoken abortion opponent and oil-drilling enthusiast, to run the Department of the Interior. McMorris Rodgers is the most recent addition to his Cabinet of Deplorables. As Secretary of the Interior, she would be in charge of the management and conservation of federal lands, national parks, and natural resources, and would administer programs relating to Native American tribes. McMorris Rodgers did not respond to calls for comment.
This could be terrible news for the environment. McMorris Rodgers, a known climate change denier, was given a lifetime voting score of just 4 percent by the League of Conservation Voters. She told the Spokesman-Review in 2012: âScientific reports are inconclusive at best on human culpability of global warming.â
Sounds like just the person to oversee land management, right? It gets better!
In partnership with Oklahoma's Republican Attorney General Scott Pruitt, who was recently nominated to lead the Environmental Protection Agency, McMorris Rodgers could undo environmental regulations President Barack Obama and his administration have pursued over the years, the Wall Street Journal reports.
Ms. McMorris Rodgers is a reliable backer of Republican energy and environmental policies, though she hasnât been a leading voice within the caucus on such issues. She supported legislation opening up federal waters to oil and natural-gas drilling, including the Atlantic Ocean, and preventing the Interior Department from regulating hydraulic fracturing, a controversial oil and natural-gas extraction technology. ...
[E]nvironmental groups criticized Mr. Trumpâs expected selection, pointing to her record backing energy policies they say are insufficiently sensitive to the environment.
âDonald Trump just posted a massive âfor saleâ sign on our public lands by nominating Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers for Secretary of the Interior,â said Gene Karpinski, president of the League of Conservation Voters. âIn Congress, Rep. McMorris Rodgers has consistently voted to prioritize drilling on our public lands and waters, including in sensitive areas like the Arctic, and even to open up our public lands for sale to the highest bidder.â
Cue the screaming.