Former Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Gina McCarthy warned on Saturday that the Trump administration’s funding cuts to the agency and rollback of Obama-era rules pose a major threat to public health. “The Trump administration is really challenging our effort to maintain strong environmental protections that are necessary for public health,” McCarthy said in an interview with MSNBC’s Thomas Roberts. These are big-deal things.”McCarthy was responding to reports that President Donald Trump’s EPA, led by Scott Pruitt, a climate change skeptic with close ties to the oil and gas industry, will next week undo automobile emissions regulations put in place by former President Barack Obama. Trump will also instruct Pruitt to begin unraveling the Clean Power Plan, the Obama administration’s ambitious effort to reduce power plant carbon emissions. And in February, Trump signed legislation eliminating an Obama administration regulation aimed at protecting waterways from coal mining waste.

Source: Huffington Post March 04, 2017 18:56 UTC