Washington: Donald Trump will pick an ardent opponent of President Barack Obama's measures to curb climate change as head of the Environmental Protection Agency - a choice that enraged green activists and cheered the oil industry.
Trump's choice, Oklahoma Attorney-General Scott Pruitt, fits neatly with the Republican President-elect's promise to cut back the EPA and free up drilling and coal mining, and signals the likely roll back of much of Obama's environmental agenda.
Since becoming the top prosecutor for the major oil and gas producing state in 2011, Pruitt has launched multiple lawsuits against regulations put forward by the agency he is now poised to lead, suing to block federal measures to reduce smog and curb toxic emissions from power plants.
He is also a leading figure in a legal effort by several states to throw out the EPA's Clean Power Plan, the centrepiece of Obama's climate change strategy that requires states to curb carbon output.
In September, Pruitt said he saw the Clean Power Plan as a form of federal "coercion and commandeering" of energy policy and said that his state should have "sovereignty to make decisions for its own markets".
Pruitt, 48, has also said he is sceptical of climate change.
In an opinion piece in an Oklahoma newspaper this year, he wrote that he believes the debate over global warming is "far from settled" and that scientists continue to disagree on the issue.
The Obama administration finalised the Clean Power Plan in 2015 as a key part of meeting US obligations under the Paris Climate Agreement, an accord among nearly 200 countries to curb global warming.
Trump vowed during his campaign to pull the United States out of the Paris deal, saying it would put American businesses at a competitive disadvantage.
Pruitt's selection came despite a softer tone Trump has struck on environmental regulation since his November 8 election.
He has stepped back from casting climate change as a hoax, signalled he might be willing to allow the United States to continue participating in the Paris climate change deal aimed at lowering world carbon emissions, and met former vice-president Al Gore, a leading environmental voice.
Pruitt's selection brought a quick rebuke from Democrats.
"The head of the EPA cannot be a stenographer for the lobbyists of polluters and Big Oil," House of Representatives Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi said.
Reuters
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