UPDATE:  Quoting unnamed transition team officials, The New York Times, The Washington Post and others reported Dec. 7 that President-elect Trump plans to nominate Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt as EPA Administrator. Trump confirmed the reports Dec. 8.

By Rich Heidorn Jr.

President-elect Donald Trump is sending EPA watchers conflicting signals, interviewing potential agency heads who are vocal critics of climate science while also claiming an “open mind” on the issue.

In an interview with editors and reporters of The New York Times on Nov. 22, Trump said he has an “open mind” on humans’ role in global warming, appearing to soften his campaign pledge to withdraw the U.S. from the Paris Agreement.

On Monday, Trump met with former vice president and climate activist Al Gore at the invitation of Trump’s daughter Ivanka. Gore told reporters afterward the “lengthy and very productive session” was a “sincere search for areas of common ground.”

Politico reported Dec. 1 that Ivanka intends to make climate change “one of her signature issues.” Quoting a source close to her, Politico said Ivanka, who has endorsed liberal positions on pay equity and parental leave, “is in the early stages of exploring how to use her spotlight to speak out on the issue,” seeing herself as a “bridge” to moderate and liberal women.

That would put her in conflict both with her father’s prior statements on the issue and those of EPA transition leader Myron Ebell and the candidates rumored to be in the running to head the agency.

The Associated Press reported Nov. 29 that it had seen internal documents from the president-elect’s transition team that indicate the new administration plans to stop defending the Clean Power Plan in court. (See CPP, FERC’s Bay, Honorable Among Losers in Trump Win.)

‘Bunch of Bunk’

Trump’s Chief of Staff Reince Priebus told Fox News on Nov. 27 that the president-elect’s “default position” on climate change is that “most of it is a bunch of bunk.”

“The only thing he was saying after being asked a few questions about it [by the Times] is, look, he’ll have an open mind about it, but he has his default position, which most of it is a bunch of bunk, but he’ll have an open mind and listen to people,” Priebus said.

On Nov. 28, Trump met in New York with two rumored EPA candidates, Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt, one of the state officials leading the legal challenge to the CPP, and Kathleen Hartnett White, former head of the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, who has criticized “the imperial EPA.”

Other EPA candidates, according to Reuters, include two former EPA executives during the George W. Bush administration, energy attorney Jeff Holmstead and Mike Catanzaro, a lobbyist for CGCN Group. Venture capitalist Robert Grady of Gryphon Investors, who served in President George H.W. Bush’s administration, also is in the running, Reuters reported.

‘Looking Very Closely’

Although Trump did not specifically mention the CPP during the Times interview, his moderate tone was a marked contrast to his previous bombast on global warming.

Trump was asked by Times columnist Thomas Friedman if he would “take America out of the world’s lead of confronting climate change.” Trump responded that he is “looking at it very closely.”

“I absolutely have an open mind. I will tell you this: Clean air is vitally important. Clean water, crystal clean water is vitally important. Safety is vitally important,” Trump said.

Editorial page editor James Bennet asked, “When you say an open mind, you mean you’re just not sure whether human activity causes climate change? Do you think human activity is or isn’t connected?”

Trump responded: “I think right now … well, I think there is some connectivity. There is some, something. It depends on how much. It also depends on how much it’s going to cost our companies. You have to understand, our companies are noncompetitive right now.”

White House correspondent Michael Shear followed up with a question about the potential of foreign leaders to impose tariffs on American goods to offset the carbon that the U.S. had pledged to reduce.

“I think that countries will not do that to us,” Trump responded. “I don’t think if they’re run by a person that understands leadership and negotiation, they’re in no position to do that to us, no matter what I do. They’re in no position to do that to us, and that won’t happen, but I’m going to take a look at it. A very serious look. I want to also see how much this is costing, you know, what’s the cost to it, and I’ll be talking to you folks in the not too distant future about it, having to do with what just took place.”

‘Hoax’

In a 2012 tweet, he called climate change a hoax created “by the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing noncompetitive.” During the campaign, he said he would “cancel” the U.S.’s involvement in the Paris Agreement, which aims to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels. (See NARUC Panel: CPP Poised to Fall Under Trump, New Congress and CPP, FERC’s Bay, Honorable Among Losers in Trump Win.)

But in a video released Nov. 21, Trump also made clear that he will steer a different course than President Obama on energy policy, renewing his promise to “cancel job-killing restrictions on the production of American energy, including shale energy and clean coal.”

Trump and the Republican Congress could use the Congressional Review Act to cancel some of the Obama administration’s most recent regulations, including a Nov. 15 Interior Department rule requiring oil and gas producers to use “currently available technologies and processes” to cut methane flaring in half at oil and gas wells on federal and Native American lands.

The act allows an incoming Congress to reject regulations finalized within 60 days of the end of either the House’s or Senate’s sessions.

The Congressional Research Service has concluded the act would apply to regulations finalized after May 30, if Congress holds no more sessions this year, The Washington Post reported Nov. 22.

In contrast, an EPA regulation intended to reduce methane gas leaks was finalized on May 12, making it likely exempt from being reversed under the act, the Post reported. EPA said the rule, designed to reduce methane emissions from new or modified oil and gas wells, will prevent 11 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent emissions by 2025.