The president-elect’s EPA transition team continues to be formed and yesterday (December 1), Donald Trump appointed Amy Oliver Cooke to it.
Currently the executive vice president and director of the Energy Policy Center at the Independence Institute, Cooke opposes President Barack Obama’s Clean Power Plan and supports fracking. Her bio on the Institute’s website includes what they call her "provacative messaging," including “Mothers In Love With Fracking” and “I’m an energy feminist because I’m pro-choice in energy sources.”
On November 30, she authored a blog post on the Institute’s website where Cooke discussed her hopes for the EPA. “In 2017 the EPA will be very different under a President Trump administration,” she writes. “During the campaign, Mr. Trump said the Clean Power Plan is DOA.”
Fossil fuel supporters often oppose the Clean Power Plan for its carbon emission goals, which would help prevent the planet from warming more than it already has. Yet this does not seem to be a priority for Cooke, despite 2016 being the warmest year in recorded history. Cooke has also been vocal against environmental policies such as a leaked carbon-reduction plan in Colorado, The Hill reports.
Cooke is the latest Trump appointment to concern environmentalists. Myron Ebell, whom Trump chose to lead the EPA transition team, is a long-time climate skeptic. His pick for attorney general, Jeff Sessions, has made claims in the past, according to The Huffington Post, that fighting climate change hurts poor people when, as studies have shown, ignoring climate change hurts these communities the most—particularly in the Global South.
Though the president-elect hasn’t decided who will lead the agency post-Inauguration, he has been considering two energy lobbyists to take the job. Both Mike Catanzaro, energy lobbyist for the CGCN Group, and Jeff Holmstead, energy industry attorney with law firm Bracewell, worked under the two Bush administrations.