“With a new political outlook in Washington, DC with climate and energy policy, Exxon Mobil should formally reject both cap-and-trade and a carbon tax.”

Rex Tillerson, whose confirmation hearing is scheduled for tomorrow, presided over a major public policy change while CEO of Exxon Mobil, reversing the prior policy of the principled realist Lee Raymond. Political forces, as well as a doomed attempt at appeasing its enemies (ending up in the state State Attorney General investigative war), led Exxon Mobil to reluctantly embrace a tax on carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions.

My interpretation of Rex Tillerson et al.’s (failed) policy shift finds support for “it was just PR” rather than a fundamental belief in climate peril. As such, this shift is easily reversible by Exxon Mobil’s new CEO, Darren Woods.…

“Some radical environmentalists and religious activists oppose Mr. Pruitt because he does not embrace their exaggerated fears of human-induced global warming—fears that go well beyond the empirical evidence crucial to genuine science—or their antipathy to the development of the abundant, reliable, affordable energy indispensable to lifting and keeping whole societies out of poverty and the disease and premature death that invariably accompany it.”

January 5, 2017

Dear President-elect Donald J. Trump:

We write to you as evangelical and mainline Protestant, Roman Catholic, and Jewish scientists, economists, legal scholars, policy experts, and religious leaders in support of your nomination of Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt to the office of Administrator of the federal Environmental Protection Agency.

The EPA has the crucial task of writing and enforcing regulations that apply statutes passed by Congress and signed by the President to protect the life and health of Americans.…

“Radical environmentalists have misled people about the green greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide. The indoctrination of school curricula, the ignorance of the public, and the well-crafted lies of the radical environmentalists have wrongly demonized CO₂.”

Today, some people portray carbon dioxide (CO₂) as an enemy of the earth. We hear negative things about it in almost every aspect of life, including in schools, TV shows, and the mainstream media.

But is CO₂ really a villain?

I was a little kid when I first came to know that in photosynthesis plants inhale CO₂ and exhale oxygen. I also understood why plants shrivel and die with too little of it but grow better and better as CO2 levels rise. That’s why CO₂ is not a pollutant.…

“No chemical can both be effective in controlling crop pests and at the same time pass the unrealistically stringent tests imposed by the EU’s BGRD. Catch-22! That’s why EU member nation governments have refused to approve the BGRD for three years.”

The past eight years provided abundant experience with unelected, unaccountable bureaucrats creating new policies, laws, science, and regulations on carbon-based and renewable energy, climate change, air and water pollution, and a host of other topics.

Favored technologies received preferential treatment; those they opposed were hyper-regulated, as they sought to fundamentally transform our economy, agriculture, and living standards.

The new Trump Administration is now taking shape, amid bountiful signals that it will not blindly accept or rubberstamp previous environmental prescriptions. Indeed, the President-Elect’s nominations are generating approvals from many quarters, but howls of outrage from displaced special interests.…