Trump picks oil industry vets for key posts in energy, environment

Energy & Environment

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Trump picks oil industry vets for key posts in energy, environment

President Trump has selected people with significant ties to oil and other industries for key posts at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Interior Department.

Among them is Kathleen Sgamma, president of the Western Energy Alliance, a group that lobbies on behalf of the oil and gas industry. Sgamma, who would lead the Bureau of Land Management, has frequently spoken with journalists and appeared before Congress to promote the industry.

Sgamma co-wrote the chapter of Project 2025, the sprawling blueprint for governance under the next Republican president, concerning the Interior Department. Those plans, she told The Hill last year, are “all about increasing [oil and gas] development and production from federal lands.”

Trump disavowed Project 2025 on the campaign trail, but Sgamma is one of several of its authors he has named to positions, including one of its lead architects, White House budget chief Russell Vought.

At the EPA, Trump has named Aaron Szabo to lead the agency’s office of Air and Radiation. Szabo has lobbied on behalf of the sterilization industry on issues related to its use of the toxic chemical ethylene oxide.

In addition, Szabo has lobbied for a company called Chemours, which spun off from chemical giant DuPont and carried on its production of toxic “forever chemicals.”

Szabo, who would oversee an office that manages both climate and air pollution, has also lobbied on behalf of the oil and gas industry, including the American Petroleum Institute trade group.

The names of the nominees were included in the congressional record.

Read more at TheHill.com.

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