“FrackNation,” the documentary film about hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”) with close conservative movement ties, recently had its showing cancelled at Winona, Minnesota's annual Frozen River Film Festival (FRFF).

Citing DeSmogBlog's two-partinvestigative series published in May 2013 on “FrackNation,” FRFF Director Mike Kennedy told the Winona Post his rationale for cancelling the film is that it was, “pretty apparent they were paid to make these movies to counter Gasland [Part II].”

“DeSmogBlog.com appears to be the main source of allegations that 'FrackNation' was industry-funded,” wrote the Post. “DeSmogBlog claims connections between [film Co-Director Phelim] McAleer and conservative groups, industry groups help[ing] promote the film after its was made, and the fact that McAleer directed an industry-funded documentary in the past, as proof that 'FrackNation' is cut from the same cloth.”

The cancellation has caused a major kerfuffle in conservative media circles, covered by outlets ranging from Fox News, Fox Business, The Blaze TV, Town Hall, Watchdog.org, Hot Air and others. McAleer was a featured guest on “Fox and Friends” on January 23. 

Right before the champagne bottles began popping for activists engaged in a grassroots struggle to halt the construction of Williams Companies' prospective Bluegrass Pipeline project — which the company suspended indefinitely in an April 28 press release — Williams had already begun raining on the parade.

The pipeline industry giant took out the trash on Friday, April 25, announcing its intentions to open a new Louisiana pipeline named Gulf Trace.

Akin to TransCanada's ANR Pipeline recently reported on by DeSmogBlog, Gulf Trace is not entirely “new,” per se. Rather, it's the retooling of a pipeline system already in place, in this case Williams' Transco Pipeline system. 

The retooling has taken place in the aftermath of Cheniere's Sabine Pass LNG export facility receiving the first ever final gas export permit from the U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) during the fracking era.

Williams' Transco Pipeline System; Photo Credit: William Huston

Both ANR and Gulf Trace will feed into Sabine Pass, the Louisiana-based LNG export terminal set to open for business in late 2015. Also like ANR, Transco will transform into a gas pipeline flowing in both directions, “bidirectional” in industry lingo.

Bluegrass, if ever built, also would transport fracked gas to the Gulf Coast export markets. But instead of LNG, Bluegrass is a natural gas liquids pipeline (NGL). 

“The project…is designed to connect [NGLs] produced in the Marcellus-Utica areas in the U.S. Northeast with domestic and export markets in the U.S. Gulf Coast,” it explained in an April 28 press release announcing the project's suspension. 

With Bluegrass tossed to the side for now, Williams already announced in a press release that the company has launched an open season to examine industry interest in Gulf Trace. It closes on May 8, 2014.

“Although we recognized the suspension of the Bluegrass could impact non-conventional drilling here in Western Pennsylvania, we should all know better than to get too excited about this announcement,” Carrie Hahn, a Pennsylvania-based activist told DeSmogBlog. “There is too much at stake here for them to give up that easily.”

The announcement follows in the aftermath of the flurry of federal-level lobbying activity by Williams during the first quarter of 2014. 

Williams Spends Big Lobbying for Exports

First-quarter lobbying disclosure forms indicate Williams spent $450,000 lobbying at the federal level for both shale gas exports and pipeline permitting issues. It has done so utilizing both its in-house lobbyists and outside lobbying firms.

In-House Lobbyists 

In-house, Williams spent $410,000 on its own to advocate for gas exports and pipeline permitting issues during the first quarter. Williams' lobbying efforts were headed by its vice president for governmental affairs, Deborah Lawrence and director of governmental affairs, Glenn Jackson.

Outside Lobbying Firms

No smart corporation makes a big announcement of this sort without first greasing the skids and Williams is no different in that regard, utilizing the age-old government-industry revolving door to curry favor.

In that vein, meet Ryan, MacKinnon, Vasapoli and Berzok, LLP, which Williams paid $40,000 to lobby on its behalf during the first quarter.

Lobbyist Thomas Ryan formerly served as chief counsel for the U.S. House Energy & Commerce Committee. That committee has pushed forward shale gas exports in a big way so far in 2014. Ryan is one of the lobbyists listed on the firm's first-quarter disclosure form on the Williams file.

Jeffrey MacKinnon, another lobbyist listed on the firm's lobbying disclosure form, also has close ties to the Energy & Commerce Committee. MacKinnon formerly served as legislative director for U.S. Rep. Joe Barton (R-TX), the climate change denier and former chairman of the Energy & Commerce Committee.

U.S. Rep. Joe Barton: Photo Credit: Wikimedia Commons

Add Joseph Vasapoli to the list, as well. 

Vasapoli, who helped write the Energy Policy Act of 2005 that transformed fracking into a widespread practice in the U.S., formerly served as Republican Counsel for the Energy & Commerce Committee. He also has spent time working at both FERC and the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), the two federal agencies responsible for overseeing the LNG export permit process.

The other three lobbyists listed on Ryan, MacKinnon, Vasapoli and Berzok, LLP's disclosure form for the work it did on behalf of Williams — Matthew Berzok, Nick Kolovos and Jeffrey Mortier — also passed through the revolving door as former staffers for congressional members who were on the Energy & Commerce Committee.

“Empire State of Mind:” New York Connection

Burgos and Associates, also registered to lobby on behalf of Williams at the federal level, is a New York City-based firm at the center of a February 2013 investigation published on DeSmogBlog on the New York Fracking Scandal.

The episode earned the unflattering name because New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, who has the final say over whether the floodgates will be opened for fracking the Marcellus Shale in his state, has a powerful aide named Larry Schwartz.

Schwartz, DeSmog revealed, has thousands of dollars worth of investments in Williams Companies and other companies standing to gain if fracking goes forward in New York.

And in New York, like at the federal level, Burgos and Associates lobbies on behalf of Williams.

Not coincidentally, the powerful Tonio Burgos owns Burgos and Associates and is the former aide to Andrew Cuomo's father, Gov. Mario Cuomo.

Burgos was described by the Chicago Tribune in a 1993 article as Mario Cuomo's “patronage chief.” He was also identified in 2012 by The Wall Street Journal as “one of [Andrew] Cuomo's closest outside advisers and top fund-raisers.”

A reminder: Williams' Transco runs from New York and the northeast down to the Gulf.

Transco is connected to fracked gas produced in Marcellus Shale via the company's Springville Pipeline and its proposed Constitution Pipeline, which is set to connect to Springville when if and when it opens for business in 2015 or 2016.

Williams' Constiution Pipeline and Springville Pipeline; Photo Credit: William Huston

In short, New York — a state geographically distant from Louisiana, Gulf Trace and Sabine Pass LNG—is directly connected to Williams' latest export pipeline announcement both via its lobbyists and Williams' gas pipeline empire.

And so while fracking has yet to commence in the Empire State, that doesn't mean the shale gas industry doesn't have an increasingly heavy footprint there, as it proceeds with business as usual by using an “empire state of mind.” 

Photo Credit: Shutterstock | Oleksandr Kalinichenko

For those familiar with U.S. Energy Information Administration's (EIA) work, objectivity and commitment to fact based on statistics come to mind. Yet as Mark Twain once put it, “There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.”

That's where John Krohn comes into play. A former spokesman for the gas industry front group Energy in Depth (EID), Krohn now works on the Core Team for EIA's “Today in Energy!“ 

Krohn has been at EIA since at least January 2014, when his name first appeared on the EIA website. On his Twitter account, he describes himself as an EIA communications manager.

As DeSmog revealed in February 2011, Energy In Depth was launched with a heavy injection of funding from oil and gas industry goliaths such as BP, Halliburton, Chevron, Shell and XTO Energy (now owned by ExxonMobil).

With its public relations efforts conducted by FTI Consulting, EID now serves as a key pro-industry front group promoting unfettered hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”) to the U.S. public.

Krohn follows in the footsteps through the government-industry revolving door of the man President Barack Obama named to head the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) for his second term, former Massachusetts Institute of Technology “frackademic,” Ernest Moniz. DOE is the parent agency for EIA. 

Further, EIA Administrator Adam Sieminski, another second-term appointee of President Obama, also passed through the same revolving door as Krohn and Moniz in his pathway to heading EIA. He formerly worked in the world of oil and gas finance. 

“From 1998 to 2005, he served as the director and energy strategist for Deutsche Bank's global oil and gas equity team,” his EIA biography explains. “Prior to that, from 1988 to 1997, Mr. Sieminski was the senior energy analyst for NatWest Securities in the United States, covering the major U.S. international integrated oil companies.”

Adam Sieminski, U.S. Energy Information Administration Administrator; Photo Credit: U.S.EIA

The revolving door, though, is as American as apple pie. What makes the Krohn appointment more alarming to some observers: what this means in the context of the potential looming shale gas and oil bubble.

This revelation comes after EIA downgraded its Monterey Shale oil reserves estimate from 13.7 billion barrels to 600 million barrels, a 96-percent decrease

EIA: “Seriously Exaggerating Shale Gas Production”

In February 2013, Post Carbon Institute fellow David Hughes authored the report, “Drill Baby, Drill.” The report sounded the alarm about a potential looming bursting bubble if fracking proceeds at break-neck speed in order to meet investors' expectations — as promoted by the oil and gas industry — of 100 years of recoverable shale gas and a “Saudi America” of oil. 

Hughes, 40 years of experience as a geoscientist, says the productivity numbers coming out of wells around the country point to a far less rosy picture about the future of fracked oil and gas in the United States. The industry must maintain a constant “drilling treadmill” to ensure steady amounts of oil and gas come out of the ground. 

David Hughes; Photo Credit: Post Carbon Institute

In an April article, Hughes said he believes EIA is “seriously exaggerating shale gas production.” His piece critiqued EIA's April “Drilling Productivity Report.”

“Production in February 2014, is stated to be more than 7.8 bcf/d higher in the EIA Drilling Productivity Report than it actually is…equivalent to more than 10 percent of the total gas production of the U.S,” wrote Hughes.

“Real production data usually lags two months behind, and the most recent months are subject to revisions. Yet the EIA’s Drilling Productivity Report confidently reports production for the current and following month.”

Krohn has also co-authored two articles for “Today in Energy!” painting a rosy picture of shale gas and oil production numbers — one a summary of EIA's March Drilling Productivity Report and the other a summary of EIA's Annual Energy Outlook 2014. In line with the rosy numbers and figures published by EIA, Krohn's articles served to echo those findings.

“The productivity of oil and natural gas wells is steadily increasing in many basins across the United States because of the increasing precision and efficiency of horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing in oil and natural gas extraction,” reads the March article. “Many resource-producing basins are experiencing an increasing yield over time in either oil (Bakken, Eagle Ford, Niobrara) or natural gas (Marcellus, Haynesville).”

Hughes'“Drill Baby, Drill” comes to far different conclusions about those fields. The day after Krohn's article was published, Energy in Depth published an article citing and quoting from it.

“Critics of shale development have frequently alleged that the industry is a 'bubble' about to burst, owing to an alleged need to drill more and more wells to maintain production,” wrote Energy in Depth's Dana Bohan. “But EIA’s latest report tosses cold water on that theory, demonstrating that technology is not static — unlike the bizarre musings of anti-fracking activists.” 

Bohan did not respond to a request for comment for this article.

Krohn's Track Record

Before coming to EIA, Krohn denied fracking has ever contaminated groundwater, promoted climate change denial, called for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency not to act on fracking and berated New York Governor Andrew Cuomo for not ushering in fracking to his state.

Image Credit: Twitter Screenshot

Image Credit: Twitter Screenshot

Though his name has been removed from the website, Krohn also served as a media contact for “Truthland,” which served as EID's rebuttal to Josh Fox's “Gasland.” His name still appears on an archived version of the website.

In between leaving EID and heading to EIA, Krohn was a self-described “consultant for major energy producers and energy coalitions.” Among those he did consulting work for: Natural Gas Now, a website and blog run by former EID-Marcellus Campaign Director Tom Shepstone.

Krohn has removed his resumé from his website, which also has no mention of his previous job at EID. Before his resumé was taken down, though, DeSmogBlog made a copy here.

Since coming to EIA, Krohn still maintains a pro-fracking stance on his Twitter account, which contains the “All opinions are my own” boilerplate language. 

“North Dakota added more millionaires last year than any other state as #energy and #shale drive wealth in the state,” reads a January 17 tweet from Krohn. Another January tweet by Krohn gives a shout out to people on Twitter who work for the oil and gas industry for “keeping us warm during the cold.”

Both Krohn and the EIA have denied repeated requests for comment. 

“Troubling” Hire

U.S. Public Law 95-91, Section 205, which created the EIA, suggests its reports should steer clear of policy prescriptions:

The [EIA] Administrator shall not be required to obtain the approval of any other officer or employee of the Department in connection with the collection or analysis of any information; nor shall the Administrator be required, prior to publication, to obtain the approval of any other officer or employee of the United States with respect to the substance of any statistical or forecasting technical reports which he has prepared in accordance with law.

Post Carbon Institute, which has been at the forefront of raising awareness about a prospective looming shale gas bubble, told DeSmogBlog it finds the hiring of Krohn “troubling.”

“The Energy Information Administration is viewed by government agencies — both here in the US and abroad — and media as the trusted source of energy information,” said Asher Miller, Executive Director of Post Carbon Institute. “It plays an invaluable role in determining energy policy, which is why it’s so troubling that the EIA would hire staff with a recent history of pro-industry propaganda.”

Photo Credit: Facebook; Krohn on the left at a fracking site while working at EID

Martin A. Armstrong

Credentials

• After finishing high school, Armstrong attended RCA Institutes (now TCI College of Technology) in New York City and audited courses at Princeton University but never completed a college degree. [1]

Background

Martin Arthur Armstrong is former chairman of Princeton Economics International Ltd. and the CEO of Armstrong Economics. Martin Armstrong is known for developing the Economic Confidence Model based on business cycles and pi. He has claimed to have predicted the crash of 1987 to the very day, as well as Nikkei's collapse in 1989, and Russia's financial collapse in 1998. [2], [1], [3]

In September 1999, the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission prosecuted Armstrong for fraud. He was imprisoned for over seven years for civil contempt of court, one of the longest-running cases of civil contempt in American legal history. In August 2006, Armstrong pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit fraud and began a five-year sentence. Armstrong appeared in a 2015 documentary titled “The Forecaster” regarding his mathematical model and prosecution. [4],[5],  [11]

Armstrong started Armstrong Economics in 2007 while he was still in prison. Inspired by letters he was receiving, Armstrong began producing research reports. He relied mainly on the Financial Times for information. In his essays and letters, he compares himself to Adam Smith, Abraham Lincoln, Galileo, and Neo, from “The Matrix.” [1]

Armstrong has published a number of articles where he suggests we are moving into a period of global cooling, or a new ice age. According to Armstrong, “Every possible data series warns that we are heading back into a cooling — not warming — period.” [12]

He has posted photos of snow in Austria, a “dusting of snow reported at Mauna Kea in Hawaii,” and a cold period in Britain as supposed evidence that “Britain is moving into an Ice Age.”[13], [14], [15]

Stance on Climate Change

January 16, 2018

Writing at his blog, Armstrong described climate change mitigation measures as an “agenda to eliminate your freedom” and “move toward an authoritarian state”: [20]

“Climate is changing and it is part of the normal cycle – not human-induced. You are actually correct that I support capitalism and freedom and am against authoritarianism and totalitarian systems. What you fail to understand is that climate change is an agenda to eliminate your freedom. The entire argument is to support a move toward an authoritarian state. You better wake up. This is not truly about the climate change, it is all about controlling society, eliminating democracy, and changing the entire economic model that changes society. There is far more at stake here than most people realize.” [20]

July 6, 2016

“There is now growing concern among scientists that we may indeed be heading into global cooling rather than warming. The concerns center on the apparent weakening of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation. This seems to be triggering a growing amount of speculation about abrupt cooling,” Armstrong declared at his blog, ArmstrongEconomics.  [12]

February 14, 2014

“[T]here is ABSOLUTELY no evidence whatsoever that the planet is going through some warming stages created by mankind. That is total nonsense,” Armstrong wrote in a blog article titled “Global Warming Why it is Nonsense.” [6]

Key Quotes

February 20, 2018

Armstrong claimed that CO2 is not a pollutant, that we should not be concerned about rising sea levels, and that there is a population control conspiracy behind global warming prevention measures: [22]

“CO2 levels have been much higher than currently over the millennia. The Global Warming crowd has an agenda and the core of that is to reduce the population. They remain influenced by the Malthus theory and have been hell-bent on stopping population growth.

“Over the past 100 million years, we have been in a decline in CO2 level dropping from 500 ppm to 200 ppm with an average of about 300 ppm. They refuse to address any of the historical evidence no less the cycle of life itself.

“Humans exhale typically consists of 40,000 ppm to even 50,000 ppm of CO2. Should we be fined or extinguished because we are a major contributor to COs levels? Those who are demonizing CO2 as a 'pollutant' fail to explain that in a room filled with people CO2 levels can commonly reach 2000 ppm with no apparent ill effects.”

December 20, 2017

Writing at his blog, Armstrong warned of impending global cooling: [21]

“The danger from the Global Warming crowd is that they are misleading the entire world and preventing us from what is dangerously unfolding that sparks the rapid decline in civilization – GLOBALCOOLING. I previously warned that this is not my opinion, but simply our computer. If it were really conscious it would be running to store to buy heating pads. This year will be much colder for Europe than the last three. It will also be cold in the USA. We are in a global cooling period and all the data we have in our computer system warns that the earth is turning cold not warm.

“This cooling is very serious. This decline in the energy output of the sun will manifest in a commodity boom in agriculture as shortages send food prices higher. We will see famine begin to rise as crops fail and that will inspire disease and plagues. We will see the first peak in agricultural prices come probably around 2024 after the lows are established on this cycle. We have been warning that this rise would begin AFTER 2017.”

June 9, 2016

“Britain is moving into an Ice Age and energy prices are rising, for the U.K. is as cold today as it was in December,” Armstrong wrote at ArmstrongEconomics. [15]

March 21, 2015

“Instead of wasting all this effort to try to support government raising taxes on people to prevent 'Global Warming' or 'Climate Change', it might be better spent informing people we are going back into a cooling period and there will be wild swings back and forth for the next 25 years. It snowed here on Friday and the back 60 degrees for Saturday,” Armstrong wrote in an ArmstrongEconomics article titled “The Ice Age Cometh.”[9]

February 2, 2015

“An investigation of the raw data recording temperature, has revealed that once again these academics are manipulating the data to keep billions of dollars flowing into their hands. No matter how many times they are caught, government will not change course because they want to believe in global warming to justify higher taxes,” Armstrong wrote at ArmstrongEconomics. [8]

May, 2014

“Anyone who thinks that Global Warming is really caused by man is naive to say the least. This is a political agenda to raise taxes by politicians and to reduce population growth among academics.” [7]

“Global Warming is all about money and raising taxes for politicians to pay for their pensions and support all their illegitimate children,” Armstrong wrote at ArmstrongEconomics. [7]

October 12, 2009

Martin Armstrong contended that global warming is “nonsense” in an article at his blog, ArmstrongEconomics:  [6]

“[P]eople ASSUME that we even have the power with nuclear bombs to destroy then planet. That is probably not even likely. They also assume that if we set one-off all life will be dead forever. They make a lot of assumptions based upon a guess that is NOT even EDUCATED.”  [6]

“We can impact a local area, but we CANNOT alter the course of the entire planet. On that score, we are but a pimple on a fly’s ass. So until I see HARD evidence beyond assumptions for a few decades, I will keep it real. We can not alter the trend of a market anymore than we can change the environment of the entire world” (emphasis in original). [6]

Key Deeds

January 16, 2018

In a blog post titled “Is Climate Change a Tool to Eliminate Democracy?” Armstrong argued that “climate change is an agenda to eliminate your freedom. The entire argument is to support a move toward an authoritarian state.” [20]

Armstrong made the unsubstantiated claim that all climate models have been found in error: [20]

“It’s a well-kept secret, but 95 per cent of the climate models we are told prove the link between human CO2 emissions and catastrophic global warming have been found, after nearly two decades of temperature stasis, to be in error. It’s not surprising.” [20]

He concluded with a call-to-action for readers to resist: [20]

“Resisting will be politically difficult. But resist we should. We are already paying an unnecessary social and economic price for empty gestures. Enough is enough.” [20]

January 7, 2013

Martin Armstrong published a climate change report for the Princeton Economics Research Institute. He included a inflammatory photo of Al Gore in the report, and referenced climate change skeptic Sallie Baliunas's work as “highly important in understanding the long-term interaction between weather and the economy.” [10]

Armstrong reached the following conclusion (emphasis added):

“The climate record shows that the global warming of 1°F observed over the last 100 years is not unusual.  Global temperature changes of this magnitude have occurred frequently in the past and are a result of natural factors in climate change.

But is it possible that the particular temperature increase observed in the last 100 years is the result of carbon dioxide produced by human activities?  The scientific evidence clearly indicates that this is not the case.

All climate studies agree that if the one-degree global warming was produced by an increase in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, the additional CO2 first warms the atmosphere, and the warmed atmosphere, in turn, warms the earth’s surface.  However, measurements of atmospheric temperatures made by instruments lofted in satellites and balloons show that no warming has occurred in the atmosphere in the last 50 years. This is just the period in which human made carbon dioxide has been pouring into the atmosphere and according to the climate studies, the resultant atmospheric warming should be clearly evident.

The absence of atmospheric warming proves that the warming of the earth’s surface observed in the last 100 years cannot be due to an increase in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere caused by human activities. The recent global warming must be the result of natural factors in climate change.”

Skeptical Science has provided an analysis of common assertions made by climate change skeptics. Here is a breakdown of what scientists have said about similar arguments to those in Armstrong's report. 

Skeptic Argument: Climate has changed before. 

What the Science Says: Greenhouse gasses, principally CO2, have controlled most ancient climate changes. This time around humans are the cause, mainly by our CO2 emissions. [16]

Skeptic Argument: Global Warming has stopped/is not happening. 

What the Science Says:  Global temperatures continue to rise steadily beneath the short-term noise. [17]

Skeptic Argument: Global Warming is due to natural causes, not humans. 

What the Science Says:   There are many lines of evidence which clearly show that the atmospheric CO2 increase is caused by humans.  The clearest of these is simple accounting - humans are emitting CO2 at a rate twice as fast as the atmospheric increase (natural sinks are absorbing the other half).  There is no question whatsoever that the CO2 increase is human-caused.  This is settled science.

Affiliations

• Armstrong Economics — CEO. [19]
• Princeton Economics International — Former Chairman of the Board. [18]

Social Media

• @StrongEconomics on Twitter.
• @ArmstrongEcon on Twitter.
• Martin Armstrong on Facebook.

Publications

• Martin Armstrong has not published any articles in Peer-Reviewed journals, according to a search of Google Scholar. His website provides a full list of his economic publications, mostly through Armstrong Economics, back to 1995. 

• Martin Armstrong is featured in The Forecaster, a movie that details how he formed the Economic Confidence Model.

Armstrong Economics

Martin Armstrong has started commented regularly on climate change at his blog at Armstrong Economics. Originally dedicated to economic predictions, the blog later featured a number of articles denying the existence or importance of man-made climate change. Samples below:

• Snowing in July in Austria - Jul 24, 2016
• It Snowed in Hawaii? - Jun 19, 2016
• Britain’s Ice Age Is Unfolding - Jun 09, 2016
• 'Paris Under Water but Not as Bad as 1910 - Jun 04, 2016
• Historical Evidence of Climate Change Links to Political Change - Apr 25, 2016
• Yes, We Were Hit Hard With Global Warming - Jan 29, 2016
• Digging Out of Global Warming - Jan 25, 2016
• Snow in Hong Kong? No Possible Way — Or Maybe? - Jan 20, 2016
• Global Warming Scandal Heating Up - Dec 24, 2015
• The Climate Change/Global Warming Crowd Paid to Produce Bullshit - Nov 20, 2015
• Climate Always Changes - Nov 04, 2015
• Refusal to Publish Research that Shows Anti Man-Made Climate Change - Oct 16, 2015
• Global Warming & Climate Change: The Tax Agenda - Oct 05, 2015
• Global Warming/Climate Change Guide for Dummies - Sep 13, 2015
• Climate Change – A Fraud to Justify More Taxes - April 27, 2015
• Using Pollution to Manufacture “Climate Change” - March 11, 2015
• Man Made Climate Change is a Fraud - October 24, 2014
• Australian Scientists Caught Rigging Climate Number to Fake Global Warming - September 30, 2014 
• Britain Headed Back to a Mini Ice Age - June 25, 2015
• Global Warming: Weather Is the Newest CIA Weapon - June 10, 2015
• Global Warming Stopped 16 Years Ago - June 2, 2015
• Duke University Disagrees with Global Warming - April 27, 2015
• Democrat Claims Global Warming Will Turn Women into Prostitutes - March 27, 2015
• The Ice Age Cometh - March 21, 2015
• Trial by Ice – Not Fire – The New Ice Age Cometh? - March 13, 2015
• Double Standard about Manipulations – Environment v Wall Street - February 9, 2015
• Global Warming Crowd Forgot About Underwater Volcanoes – Oops! - February 7, 2015
• Scientists Caught Again Faking Global Warming Data - February 2, 2015
• Global Warming Crowd Now Argue It is Cycles That Mask the Warming Trend? - July 21, 2014
• Computer Modeling Depends upon the Input – UN Global Warming Model DEAD Wrong for 18 Years! - July 7, 2014 
• Global Warming Fascist Movement & Academic Welfare - May 18, 2014
• Global Warming & Random Walk Theory Have a Lot in Common – They are Both Nuts 0- February 12, 2014

Resources

1. Nick Paumgarten. “The Secret Cycle,” The New Yorker, October 12, 2009. Archived July 9, 2015. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/kSnD8

2. Robin Goldwyn Blumenthal. “Circular Reasoning: A Market for Pi in the Sky?“ Barron's, June 25, 2011. Archived July 9, 2015. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/86nr9

3. Zeke Faux and David Glovin. “After Prison, a Forecaster Aims for a Comeback,” Bloomberg Business Week. October 13, 2011. Archived July 9, 2015. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/lU2EP

4. Michael J. de la Merced. “Jailed 7 Years for Contempt, Adviser Is Headed for Prison,” The New York Times, April 28, 2007. Archived July 9, 2015. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/982sQ

5. Ashby Jones. “No Charge: In Civil-Contempt Cases, Jail Time Can Stretch On for Years,” The Wall Street Journal, January 8, 2009. Archived July 9, 2015. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/Lym4b

6. Martin Armstrong. “Global Warming Why it is Nonsense,” ArmstrongEconomics.COM, February 13, 2014. Archived July 9, 2015. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/mXHFw

7. Martin Armstrong. “Global Warming Fascist Movement & Academic Welfare,” ArmstrongEconomics.COM, May 18, 2014. Archived July 9, 2015. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/zMmSc

8. Martin Armstrong. “Scientists Caught Again Faking Global Warming Data,” ArmstrongEconomics.COM, February 2, 2015. Archived July 9, 2015. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/n0mGd

9. Martin Armstrong. “The Ice Age Cometh,” ArmstrongEconomics.COM, March 21, 2015. Archived July 10, 2015. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/cemue

10. “Climate Change,” Princeton Economics Research Institute (Published at ArmstrongEconomics.COM). January 7th, 2013. Archived July 10, 2015. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/cemue

11. Michael O'Sullivan. ”'The Forecaster': Criminal or financial Wizard?” The Washington Post, April 9, 2015. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/jy6z2

12. “The End of Global Warming — the New Ice Age — Bundle Up!” ArmstrongEconomics, July 6, 2016. Archived July 5, 2016. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/ahROk

13. “Snowing in July in Austria,” ArmstrongEconomics, July 24, 2016. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/Cwr3U

14. “It Snowed in Hawaii?” ArmstrongEconomics, June 19, 2016.  Archived August 6, 2016. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/dVMFf

15. “Britain’s Ice Age Is Unfolding,” ArmstrongEconomics, June 9, 2016. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/Pk7gA

16. “What does past climate change tell us about global warming?” SkepticalScience. Archived August 4, 2016. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/ICA3i

17. “Did global warming stop in 1998, 1995, 2002, 2007, 2010?” SkepticalScience. Archived August 4, 2016. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/iYRXn

18. “ABOUTMARTINARMSTRONG” (PDF), Forecaster-Movie.com. Archived .pdf on file at Desmog.

19. “About,” ArmstrongEconomics. Archived August 6, 2016. Archive.is URL: http://archive.is/CE9L7

20. “Is Climate Change a Tool to Eliminate Democracy?” ArmstrongEconomics, January 16, 2018. Archived February 25, 2018. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/2SrPA

21. “The Sun is Cooling Faster than Anyone Suspected,” ArmstrongEconomics, December 20, 2017. Archived February 25, 2018. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/CWolS

22. “Climate Change Conspiracy Against us All,” ArmstrongEconomics, February 20, 2018. Archived February 25, 2018. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/QkKea

Other Resources

• “Martin A. Armstrong,” Wikipedia entry. 

* Profile Image Rick Maiman/Bloomberg News

Stephen Moore

Credentials

Stephen Moore is a graduate of the University of Illinois and holds an MA in Economics from George Mason University. [1]

Background

Stephen Moore is the founder and former President of the Club for Growth and currently a visiting fellow at the “arch-conservative“ Heritage Foundation. Moore has held a wide range of positions at conservative think tanks including the Cato Institute (former senior fellow), the Media Research Center (former advisor), and Donors Capital Fund (former director). In 2016, Moore was chosen to become part of Donald Trump's Economic Advisory Team. [2], [3]

Stephen Moore previously served as Senior Economist for the Joint Economic Committee under Chairman Dick Armey of Texas (former chair of FreedomWorks) and Research Director of President Reagan’s commission on Privatization in 1987. [1]

Stephen Moore, who has called climate change “climate improvement,” has repeatedly cited the debunked Oregon Petition as well as Bjorn Lomborg's “Copenhagen Consensus” to suggest there is still a debate on climate science. More has also called anyone who believes in man-made climate change “Stalinistic.” [4]

Moore is co-author, with Kathleen Hartnett-White (who also serves on Trump's Economic Advisory Team) of Fueling Freedom: Exposing the Mad War on Energy. According to a review of the book in American Thinker, “Rather than worrying that carbon energy resources are destroying the planet and looking to renewable energy as an alternative, the authors suggest we should celebrate the vast contributions fossil fuels made during the past century.” [5]

Moore, a regular Fox News contributor, has compared fracking to a cure for cancer in the past, and has also distorted a NASA study to claim that it was an “indication” that global warming is “actually not happening.” [6], [7]

Donald Trump's Economic Advisor

Stephen Moore was chosen as Donald Trump's campaign adviser and was picked by Trump, along with CNBC contributor Larry Kudlow, to re-write Trump's tax plan. He is currently listed on Trump's “Economic Advisory Council.” [3], [8], [9]

“What we’ve been trying to do is help advise him a little bit to try to reduce the cost of the plan,” Moore said in an interview. [8]

E&E News noted that “Since Moore came on board this spring to advise Trump on his tax plan, he’s been encouraging Trump to hit back against Democrats’ claims that the transition to more wind and solar energy will be good for the economy and the environment.” [10], [11]

Moore wrote a February 2016 article in The American Spectator featuring a glowing review of Donald Trump:

“Meanwhile, Trump surges. His splendid victory speech last night, ‎was all about love of country – about patriotism,” Moore wrote.

“It is striking that Trump is the anti-Obama in every way. Obama blames America first for every problem on the earth, from global warming to terrorism. Trump emanates love for America and pledges to “make America great again.”

[…]

The rub against Trump that he can't win in November looks to be wrong. Trump certainly has some profound defects and his problem with minorities and women cannot be ignored. ‎He's unpredictable and sometimes crude.

On the other hand, Trump could expand the Republican base to include independents and union Democratic voters. Trump is also getting better each day as he expands his base rather than shrinking it. Trumpmania is a Black Swann political event that we've never seen before and may not ever see again.” [12]

Criticism

Stephen Moore's critics have called Moore a  “A voodoo economist … [who uses] especially devious methods to torture the data,” (The New Republic's Jonathan Chait), [13] with a career “marked by a pattern of errors, deception and falsehood,” (Brendan Nyhan and Ben Fritz) [14]. Economist Brad DeLong said that “Moore has zero credibility.” [15]

Economist Jared Bernstein of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP) responded to Moore’s claim that “right-to-work” laws would offer extra protection to workers in Wisconsin in a March 2, 2015, op-ed in The Washington Post: [16]

“Workers in a bargaining unit in non-RTW states don’t even have to pay full union dues. If they object to, say, the union’s political activities, they can pay reduced dues that cover only the costs of negotiating and enforcing the contract. Since that’s most of what local unions do, by the way, such fees amount to 80 percent to 90 percent of full dues.

So when Steve Moore of the Heritage Foundation claims that workers in non-RTW states 'can be compelled to join a union and pay dues at a union shop whether they wish to or not' or that they “can even be forced to pay union dues for partisan political activities with which they don’t agree,” he’s deep within a fact-free zone.” [16]

In a 2015 New York Times blog post, Paul Krugman investigated the “mystery” of Moore’s successful career in economic policy, concluding that Moore is not held accountable for consistently making bad predictions and misstating basic facts about the economy because “incompetence is actually desirable” in his field: [17]

“But here’s the mystery: evidently Moore has had a successful career. Why?

Think about Heritage: It’s immensely wealthy, and could surely afford to hire a technically competent right-wing hack. The Wall Street Journal, similarly, could have attracted someone much less likely to trip over his own intellectual shoelaces. Again, the problem isn’t even that Moore got the macroeconomics of recent years all wrong, although he did; it’s the inability to write without making embarrassing mistakes.

So why is he there (and he’s not alone — there are some other incompetent hacks at Heritage)?

I suspect that the incompetence is actually desirable at some level — a smart hack might turn honest, or something, But it’s remarkable.” [17]

The editorial page director of the Kansas City Star said that she “won’t be running anything else from Stephen Moore” after she discovered “substantial factual errors” in an Op-Ed that Moore had written criticizing economist Paul Krugman. [18]

Stance on Climate Change

June 3, 2016

In an interiew on the Janet Mefford Today Show, Moore described global warming as “one of the greatest propoganda campaigns in world history” and a “dingbat idea,” CNSNews.com reported. [19]

“It’s really amazing, I have to say. I have to tip my hat to the left: This has been one of the greatest propaganda campaigns in world history that the left has pulled off,” Moore said.  [19]

“I mean, they’ve taken this dingbat idea of global climate change and they’ve put it in the schools, they’ve put it in the movies, they’ve put it in the media and the churches — you know, I’m Catholic, even the Pope talks about climate change.”

 “So, it’s very alarming how this propaganda campaign, that they made this stuff out of, almost completely out of thin air and they’ve convinced millions and millions of thought leaders that this stuff is real.”

“They're becoming more militaristic. They are young Stalinists. I can't go on college campuses today even question their religion of global warming — and it is a religion by the way.” [19]

Key Quotes

February 14, 2018

“We need a change in strategy and philosophy when it comes to mining. For federal land development, the 20th-century philosophy of 'lock up and preserve' needs to be replaced with an ethic of 'use and explore.' We have hundreds of years of these resources with existing technology,” Moore wrote at the Daily Journal in an article titled “Let's make America a mineral superpower.” [49]

January 28, 2018

Moore suggested that President Donald Trump may be the reason for a boost in the economy, and that “the economy was decelerating at the end of the Obama presidency”: [51]

“If Mr. Trump had continued Mr. Obama’s policies, one might not credit him for today’s strong economy. But Mr. Trump has begun to systematically overturn Obama policies on taxes, regulations, energy, climate change, net neutrality, budget priorities and health care — as well as replacing Janet Yellen as chairwoman of the Federal Reserve. Trumponomics is Obamanomics in reverse,” Moore wrote at the New York Times.

November 15, 2016

“We have the cleanest coal in the world,” Moore said on Fox Business's Varney & Co.  [20]

September, 2016

Media Matters reported that a week after Stephen Moore said that Donald Trump's economic plan was designed to be vague, he contradicted himself by saying  it was the “most detailed” plan of any candidate: [21]

“But, back to this idea that there's no detailed plan, because I never really answered your question about that. We've put forward the most detailed economic plan, I think, of any candidate in 40 years. I mean, we've got a very detailed tax plan.” [21]

August 1, 2016

On the August 1 edition of C-SPAN2'S Book TV, Moore compared fracking to a cure for cancer, Media Matters reported.

“Now, look, to be against fracking is like being against a cure for cancer. This is one of the great seismic technological breakthroughs. We're way ahead of the rest of the world. It's giving us access to huge amounts of energy at very low prices. How could anybody be against this?” [6]

July, 2016

Appearing on the July 29 edition of Fox News'Your World with Neil Cavuto, Moore declared: [22]

“Now, why not tax the rich? I'll tell the mayor why not. When you talk about those people in the top one percent, Mayor, you know this, over half of them, nearly 2/3rds of them, are small business owners, investors, and operators. How are you going to get more businesses and how are you going to get more jobs, Mr. Mayor, if you're going to tax the very businesses that create the jobs?”

March 15, 2015

“I am no scientist, but I’m highly skeptical of a movement whose first advice is to steer the U.S. economy off a cliff toward financial ruin,” Moore wrote in a Washington Times Article. [23]

October, 2013

“Hydraulic fracturing is like the equivalent in health care for a cure for cancer,” Moore declared on Fox News's Happening Now. [24]

May 10, 2011

“The problem I have with though, this circles back to the whole issue of when we pay for gasoline at the pump. If you raise the taxes on gasoline and oil, the price of gasoline and oil isn't going to go down. The price of gasoline and oil is going to go up,” Moore declared on an edition of Fox News's Happening Now. [25]

April, 2011

On Glenn Beck's podcast, Moore said that “Radical Environmentalists” Are “Plot[ting]” To “Grind The American Economy To A Halt.” [26]

March, 2011

“I hope, I sincerely hope the president doesn't really believe that we can engine and power a $15 trillion industrial economy with windmills. It ain't going to happen,” Moore said on Fox News's Hannity. [27], [28]

February 7, 2011

“I love the idea of eliminating entire agencies like the Department of Energy,” Moore declared on Fox News's America's Newsroom.  [29]

June, 2009

Stephen Moore called a recent white house climate impacts report “Stalinistic”:

“What I object to about this report is some of the language in this is sort of almost Stalinistic, that there’s an unequivocal conclusion that it’s inarguable that this is happening, that there’s overwhelming agreement among the scientists. None of that is true.”

“We’ve talked about global warming as climate improvement. […] The good news is that the bad news is wrong.” [4]

Key Deeds

August 19, 2018

Moore wrote an op-ed that was published at The Washington Times and RealClear Politics suggesting that recent data about GHG emissions in the United States was justification that “President Trump was completely right to pull the United States out of the flawed Paris accord.” [53], [54]

“Those who think they are helping save the planet by purchasing an electric car, or putting a solar panel on their roof, or trying to shut down coal production in the United States are barking up the wrong tree. If we want to stop greenhouse gases, there is no way to make progress without China and India on board — which they clearly are not,” Moore wrote. [53]

Earlier in the summer, InsideClimate News reported on the same issue as Moore. However, ICN noted that in 2017 “[w]hile most countries' emissions increased, some, including the United States, saw declines driven largely by renewable energy deployments.” [55] 

Rather than reaching Moore's conclusion, that “[t]hose who think they are helping save the planet by purchasing an electric car, or putting a solar panel on their roof, or trying to shut down coal production in the United States are barking up the wrong tree,” ICN highlighted how market forces have been partially responsible for the increase in renewable energy as well. [53]

“Renewable energy provided a record 17 percent of U.S. electricity generation in 2017. That's a percentage that will likely continue to grow, said Glen Peters, researcher director at the Center for International Climate Research in Oslo,” the ICN article noted.  [55] 

January 29, 2018

The Washington Times announced that Moore would become its new associate opinion editor. “There is no greater voice preaching prosperity and free markets in Washington today than Stephen Moore,” Times Opinion Editor Charles Hurt said. “He doesn’t just talk and write about these things. He has a track record of proving their success. We are delighted to have him join the Opinion pages.” [50]

“It’s exciting to add to my role at The Washington Times. The paper has long served as a premier news outlet in the nation’s capital,” Mr. Moore said. “The commentary section has been a must-read for conservatives every morning for as long as I have lived in Washington.” [50]

December 8, 2016

Stephen Moore was a speaker at the “At the Crossroads III Energy and Climate Summit,” an event co-hosted by the Heritage Foundation and the Texas Public Policy Foundation (TPPF). The event was billed as “the premier energy-and-climate policy event in America,” and attracted a range of prominent climate change deniers as well as a range of names connected to Donald Trump and his transition team. [47]

Doug Domenech, director of the Texas Public Policy Foundation's “Fueling Freedom” project, wrote about the proceedings at The Hill. Domenech outlined the common climate change denial message shared among the speakers: “Is climate change real? Yes, it has happened in the past and will happen in the future. Is man making an impact on the climate? Perhaps but in very small ways. But the overarching consensus remains the climate change we are experiencing is by no means catastrophic.” [48]

Speakers included:

• Brooke Rollins
• Becky Norton Dunlop
• Mike Lee
• Lamar Smith
• Pete Olson
• Gary Palmer
• James Inhofe
• Kathleen Hartnett White
• Stephen Moore
• Bud Brigham
• David Kreutzer
• Patrick J. Michaels
• Mark P. Mills
• Horace Cooper
• Patrick Forkin
• Allen Gilmer
• Dan Byers
• Nicolas Loris
• Richard Lindzen
• Willie Soon
• Andrew M. Grossman
• William Happer
• Craig Idso
• Roy Spencer
• Patrick J. Michaels
• Brooke Rollins
• Becky Norton Dunlop
• David Legates
• James Taylor

November 15, 2016

Stephen Moore went on Fox Business' Varney & Co where he discussed “Stalinist global warming rules.” According to Moore, “we have the cleanest coal in the world. Video below. [20]

STUARTVARNEY (Host): This is a quote from you. Defy Stalinist global warming rules and burn coal. Are we gonna do that, and when? 

STEPHENMOORE (Trump Adviser): Yeah. I mean look, Donald Trump made a very specific promise to the coal miners of America: We're going to try to put as many of them back in their jobs. These Stalinistic rules that deal with climate change have put so many tens of thousands of our coal miners out of work. By the way, Stuart, do you know how much coal – guess how many years of coal we have in this country. Just take a wild guess.

VARNEY: Couple of hundred years worth? 

MOORE: You're wrong. 500 years. We have more coal than any other country in the world. We're the Saudi Arabia of coal. Hell yes, we should use our coal resources. And by the way, for the environmentalists, we have the cleanest coal in the world. Great story in The Wall Street Journal people didn't pay too much attention to on Wednesday because of the election: China is building like 100 new coal plants. How does it help the environment when we shut down our coal and China builds ten plants for every one we shut down? How does that reduce global warming? 

August 1, 2016

During an episode of C-SPAN2's Book TV, while discussing his new book Fueling Freedom: Exposing the Mad War on Energy, Stephen Moore stated that opposing fracking “is like being against a cure for cancer” because it is “one of the great seismic technological breakthroughs” that is “giving us huge amounts of energy at very low prices.” Moore went on to criticize Florida high school students opposing fracking, saying they were “indoctrinated in their high school classes” to think that “somehow fracking is a bad thing.” Video below. [6]

November 2, 2015

Stephen Moore appeared on the November 2 edition of Fox Business' Varney & Co. The host, Stuart Varney, claimed a NASA study is “putting some doubt that some global warming theories are going the right way. That's NASA saying that.” [7]

Varney later brought on Stephen Moore, who complained that the media touts every “story that seems to validate global warming,” while supposedly ignoring studies like the NASA study, which are an “indication that it's actually not happening.” At the end of the segment, Moore joked that “this might be the start of another Ice Age.” Media Transparency noted that Moore was distorting the original NASA study. [7]

July 2015

Moore founded a group called the Committee to Unleash Prosperity with fellow economists Steve Forbes, Larry Kudlow, and Arthur B. Laffer. The group reportedly “aims to end America's growth slump and restore faith in the American Dream.” [56]

May 10, 2015

Stephen Moore declared in a Washington Times column that ”[t]he green energy movement in America is dead.” Media Matters notes that a video, airing directly above Moore's column,  “makes clear that his characterization of the U.S. clean energy industry is blatantly false.” [30], [31]

According to Media Matters, “Moore egregiously distorted quotes from the IEA to falsely claim it 'concedes that green energy is in fast retreat' and that the clean energy industry 'is getting crushed' by low fossil fuel prices.” 

April 5, 2013

Stephen Moore was confronted by science education activist Zack Kopplin about myths about climate science funding on an episode of Real Time with Bill Maher. Kopplin points out that Moore, who questioned the need for funding research on “snail mating habits,” is “not a scientist”: [32]

Affiliations

• Club for Growth— Founder, Former President &CEO (1999 - January 2005). [2]
• Heritage Foundation— Distinguished Visiting Fellow, Project for Economic Growth (2014 -). Former Grover M. Hermann Fellow in Budgetary Affairs (1984 - 1987). [33]
• Cato Institute— Former Director of Fiscal Policy Studies and Former Senior Fellow. [34]
• Media Research Center (MRC) — Former Member of the Board of Advisers, Free Market Project. Note that the Free Market Project is now the Business & Media Institute (BMI). [35], [36]
• Institute for Policy Innovation (IPI) — Former Senior Research Fellow for the IPI Center for Economic Growth [1]
• The Washington Times — Associate opinion editor. [50]
• National Review— Former Contributing Editor. [37]
• Virginia Institute for Public Policy (VIPP) — Former Member, Board of Governors. [38]
• Donors Capital Fund— Former Director (as of 2010). [39]
• American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC)— Former member, Board of Scholars. Member, Private Enterprise Advisory Council. [40], [52]
• Searle Freedom Trust— Grant Advisor[41]
• Alexis de Tocqueville Institution— Former adjunct scholar. [42]
• Dick Armey (R-TX)— Former Advisor and Senior Economist on the Joint Economic Committee of the U.S. Congress. [43]
• Hoover Institution— Former Visiting Scholar. [44]
• National Economic Commission — Former Consultant (1987) [45]
• President Ronald Reagan's Commission on Privatization — Former Research Director. [45]
• Wall Street Journal — Former member, Editorial Board. [46]
• Time magazine — Former Member, Economic Board of Directors  [1]

Social Media

• @StephenMoore on Twitter.

Publications

Moore has been contributing editor to both the National Review, was on the Editorial Board of the Wall Street Journal (WSJ), and on the Economic Board of Advisors for Time. His television appearances have included CNN’s Inside Politics, Crossfire and Moneyline, NBC’s Nightly News, Fox Morning News, and The McLaughlin Group.  [1]

Moore is the co-author of It’s Getting Better All the Time: 100 Greatest Trends of the Past 100 Years and author of Government: America’s #1 Growth Industry and the editor of Restoring the Dream: What House Republicans Plan to Do Now to Strengthen the Family, Balance the Budget, and Replace Welfare (Times Mirror, 1995).  [1]

Stephen Moore has been a prolific contributor to a range of publications including:

• Hoover Institution
• Human Events
• Forbes
• National Review
• Fox News
• The Daily Signal
• Townhall

^{Image of Stephen Moore at top by Gage Skidmore from Peoria, AZ, United States of America [CCBY-SA 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons.}

Resources

1. Stephen Moore. “Putting Taxpayers First: A Federal Budget Plan to Benefit the Next Generation of American Taxpayers” (PDF), Institute for Policy Innovation, February, 2004. Archived .pdf on file at DeSmog.

2. “Moore Passes Torch to Toomey,” The Club For Growth, January 6, 2005. Archived March 6, 2005. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/Bnb6H

3. Rachael Bade. “Stephen Moore to huddle with House GOP whips,” Politico, November 14, 2016. Archived November 14, 2016. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/ywwdJ

4. “Denier Stephen Moore says climate change is 'climate improvement' and 'the truth is the 1930s was a warmer decade than the last decade',” ThinkProgress, June 20, 2009. Archived November 15, 2016. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/t3hNI

5. Janet Levy. “Green Energy Revolution Folly,” American Thinker, September 19, 2016. Archived November 13, 2016. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/xJOAx

6. “Trump Adviser Stephen Moore Compares Fracking To 'The Cure For Cancer',” Media Matters, August 2, 2016. Archived.mp4 on file at DeSmog. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/XUrEb

7. Denise Robbins. “NASA Scientist Warned Deniers Would Distort His Antarctic Ice Study – That's Exactly What They Did,” Media Matters, November 4, 2015. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/O9olI

8. “Trump launches tax plan rewrite,” Politico, May 11, 2016. Archived November 15, 2016. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/ZDvE1

9. “TRUMPECONOMICADVISORYCOUNCIL” (PDF), donaldjtrump.com. Archived .pdf on file at DeSmog.

10. Ben Adler. “This Trump advisor might be even more confused about climate and energy than Trump himself,” Grist, September 9, 2016. Archived November 15, 2016. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/fSdCf

11. Hannah Hess. “Economic adviser pushes Trump to throw more punches on energy,” E&E News, September 7, 2016. Archived November 15, 2016. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/WuRg3

12. Stephen Moore. “America Trumpted,” The American Spectator, February 11, 2016. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/L2Nu3

13. Jonathan Chait. “Less is Moore,” The New Republic, June 30, 1997. Archived January 11, 2003. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/UguLd

14. Brendan Nyhan and Ben Fritz. “The deceptive advocacy of Stephen Moore,” Spinsanity, September 22, 2003. Archived November 14, 2016. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/RwRY1

15. J. Bradford Delong. “Cranks and Charlatans,” Semi-Daily Journal, March 1, 2003. Archived November 14, 2016. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/xx3u7

16. Jared Bernstein. “Right to work for less: Gov. Scott Walker wants to lower worker pay in Wisconsin,” The Washington Post, March 2, 2015. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/jzv2g

17. “The Mystery of Moore,” New York Times (Blog), February 18, 2015. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/xo4Mx

18. Deron Lee. “Why one editor won’t run any more op-eds by the Heritage Foundation’s top economist,” Columbia Journalism Review, July 31, 2014. Archived November 15, 2016. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/YHAIG

19. Michael W. Chapman. “Stephen Moore: Climate Change 'One of Greatest Propaganda Campaigns in World History’–'Very Stalinistic',” cnsnews.com, June 9, 2016. Archived November 15, 2016. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/DdOeT

20. “Trump Adviser Stephen Moore: 'We Have The Cleanest Coal In The World',” Media Matters for Americas, November 15, 2016. Archived .mp4 on file at DeSmog. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/fouHO

21. “Trump Adviser Can’t Decide If Candidate Is 'Too Specific' Or Intentionally Vague,” Media Matters, September 6, 2016. Archived .mp4 on file at DeSmog. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/5JXhZ

22. “On Fox, Trump Economic Advisor Steve Moore Defends Tax Reductions For Top One Percent,” Media Matters, July 29, 2016. Archived .mp4 on file at DeSmog. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/eyzgt

23. Stephen Moore. “The myth of 'settled science',” The Washington Times, March 15, 2015. Archived November 15, 2016. Archive.is URL:https://archive.is/YlZ31

24. “WSJ's Stephen Moore: Fracking Is 'Like The Equivalent In Health Care Of A Cure For Cancer',” Media Matters, October 3, 2013. Archived .mp4 on file at DeSmog. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/tawvT

25. Jocelyn Fong. “Conservative Media Defend Tax Breaks For Big Oil With False Claim About Gas Prices,” Media Matters, May 10, 2011. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/uf26T

26. “WSJ's Moore In Beck Webcast: 'Radical Environmentalists' Are 'Plot[ting]' To 'Grind The American Economy To A Halt',” Media Matters. Archived .mov on file at DeSmog.

27. “Obama Finds Time for NCAA Bracket, Golf Amid Global Turmoil,” Fox News, March 15, 2011. Archived November 15, 2016. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/MVeYQ

28. Jill Fitzsimmons. “Myths & Facts About Wind Power,” Media Matters, May 25, 2012. Archive.is URL:https://archive.is/xfyll 

29. “Steve Moore: 'I Love The Idea Of Eliminating Entire Agencies',” Media Matters, February 7, 2011. Archived .mp4 on file at DeSmog.

30. Stephen Moore. “Promoters of renewable energy failed to account for the return of cheap oil,” The Washington Times, May 10, 2015. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/m5aZ8

31. Andrew Seifter. “Fox's Stephen Moore Preemptively Debunked On Clean Energy By Video Affixed To His Column,” Media Matters, May 12, 2015. Archived November 15, 2016. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/mMrVM

32. “Stephen Moore, Rush Limbaugh, And The Right-Wing War On Science,” Media Matters, April 8, 2013. Archived November 15, 2016. Archived .mp4 on file at DeSmog. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/oz7gc

33. “Stephen Moore,” The Heritage Foundation. Archived November 15, 2016. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/juKhK

34. “Stephen Moore: Former Senior Fellow,” Cato Institute. Archived November 14, 2016. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/li4X3

35. “Media Research Center: 2003 Annual Report” (PDF), Media Research Center. Archived .pdf on file at DeSmog.

36. “About the Media Research Center,” Media Research Center. Archived November 14, 2016. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/gUEIm

37. “Executive Profile: Stephen Moore,” Bloomberg. Archived November 14, 2016. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/mCl19

38. “Chicken Little Was Wrong” (PDF - see biographical sketch at bottom), Virginia Viewpoint, May 2, 2001. Archived .pdf on file at DeSmog.

39. Donors Capital Fund, Inc. 2010 Form 990 (PDF) - retrieved from DocumentCloud.

40. “Board of Scholars,” American Legislative Exchange Council. Archived April 13, 2011. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/Q2Ij5

41. Searle Freedom Trust 2014 990-PF (PDF). On file at DeSmog.

42. Stephen Moore. “Immigration and the Rise and Decline  of American Cities,” Hoover Institution. Archived June 30, 2011. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/INz9E

43. “Stephen Moore,” CNBC.com. Archived November 15, 2016. Archived .pdf on file at DeSmog.

44. “Hoover Essay in Public Policy: Welfare For The Well-Off: How Business Subsidies Fleece Taxpayers by Stephen Moore,” Hoover Institution, May 5, 1999. Archived November 14, 2016. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/pQn2S

45. “Stephen Moore,” SourceWatch. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/duh9M

46. Dana Milbank. “Brothers in Arms, But Sisters at Odds,” The Washington Post, August 31, 2005. Archived .pdf on file at DeSmog. Archiveis URL: https://archive.is/kxnyC

47. “At the Crossroads III: Energy and Climate Policy Summit,” Heritage Foundation, December 8, 2016. Archived December 22, 2016. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/AKaKq

48. Doug Domenech. “Climate change: Speaking truth to power,” The Hill, December 13, 2016. Archived December 21, 2016. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/zAEH5

49. “Stephen Moore: Let's make America a mineral superpower,” Daily Journal, February 14, 2018. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/8zSq8

50. “Moore named new associate opinion editor,” The Washington Times, January 29, 2018. Archived February 19, 2018. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/DRILW

51. “It’s Trump’s Economy Now,”The New York Times, Janaury 28, 2018. Archived February 20, 2018. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/MB6eW

52. “Private Enterprise Advisory Council,” ALEC. Archived February 20, 2018. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/qwyhZ

53. Stephen Moore. “'Who's the cleanest of them all',” The Washington Times, August 19, 2018.

54. Stephen Moore. “Who's the Cleanest of Them All,” RealClear Politics, August 21, 2018. Archived September 5, 2018. Archive URL: https://archive.fo/7yaLM

55. Phil McKenna. “Global Emissions Rose in 2017, But U.S. and China Both Made Progress,” InsideClimate News, March 22, 2018. Archived September 5, 2018. Archive URL: https://archive.fo/nkzJO

56. “Economists Steve Forbes, Larry Kudlow, Dr. Arthur B. Laffer, Steve Moore Launch the Committee to Unleash Prosperity,” PR Newsire, July 25, 2015. 

Other Resources

• “Stephen Moore (economist),” Wikipedia.

• “Stephen Moore,” NNDB.

• Media Matters reporting on Stephen Moore.

• “What Media Need To Know About Trump Economic Policy Advisers Steve Moore And Larry Kudlow,” Media Matters, May 12, 2016. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/LP5Fw

Donald Trump

• Credentials
• Background
• Energy Policy
• Stance on Climate Change
• Key Quotes
• Key Deeds
• Funding
  • Top Campaign Contributors
  • Assets & Personal Finances
• Trump's Cabinet & Staff (2017)
• Landing Teams (2016)
• Transition Team (2016)
  • Executive Committee
  • Agency Action
  • Defense
  • National Security
  • Economic Issues
  • Domestic Issues
  • Management/Budget
  • Economic Advisory Council
• “Shadow Transition Team”
• Affiliations
• Publications
• DeSmog Reporting on Trump
• Resources

Credentials

• Donald Trump graduated from the Wharton School of Finance at the University of Pennsylvania with a degree in economics in 1968. [1]

Background

Donald J. Trump, 45th president of the United States, is an American businessman, real-estate developer, and reality television personality. Trump announced his candidacy for president of the United States in 2015, and became the official Republican candidate for president on July 19, 2016. Forbes listed Donald Trump's net worth at $3.7 billion as of November, 2016 (down from $4.1 billion in 2015). [1], [225]

Donald Trump, who has called climate change a “hoax” perpetrated by the Chinese, has picked a range of advisors with links to the fossil fuel industry. Trump's team includes Steve Bannon, former head of Breitbart News, a network that hosts such columnists as James Delingpole who called Climate Change “the biggest scam in the history of the world.” Scott Pruitt, administrator of the EPA under the Trump Administration, has a long history of suing the agency he new heads. [2], [220], [221]

Trump also pledged to do away with the United States' ratification of the Paris Agreement on Climate change, which President Barack Obama hailed as “the moment that we finally decided to save our planet.” On June 1, 2017, Trump announced his decision to withdraw from the Paris Accord by 2020. [3], [4], [210]

When asked what departments or services he would cut, Trump pointed to environmental protection which he called a “disgrace.” When asked who would protect the environment, Trump replied “we'll be fine with the environment.” Prominent climate change denier Myron Ebell was picked by New Jersey Governor Chris Christie to lead Trump's transition team for the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). [219], [5]

Trump's Energy Plan vows to “Rescind all job-destroying Obama executive actions” and “eliminate all barriers” to energy production through strategies such as increasing oil and gas drilling on federal lands, opening up the Atlantic to offshore drilling, and repealing the Clean Power Plan. [6], [7]

Energy Policy

Trump's “Energy Independence” plan promises to do away with many regulations on the fossil fuel industry, open up offshore drilling and drilling on federal lands, and “refocus the EPA”: [8]

“Rather than continuing the current path to undermine and block America’s fossil fuel producers, the Trump Administration will encourage the production of these resources by opening onshore and offshore leasing on federal lands and waters. We will streamline the permitting process for all energy projects, including the billions of dollars in projects held up by President Obama, and rescind the job-destroying executive actions under his Administration.  We will end the war on coal, and rescind the coal mining lease moratorium, the excessive Interior Department stream rule, and conduct a top-down review of all anti-coal regulations issued by the Obama Administration.  We will eliminate the highly invasive 'Waters of the US' rule, and scrap the $5 trillion dollar Obama-Clinton Climate Action Plan and the Clean Power Plan and prevent these unilateral plans from increasing monthly electric bills by double-digits without any measurable effect on Earth’s climate.  Energy is the lifeblood of modern society. It is the industry that fuels all other industries.  We will lift the restrictions on American energy, and allow this wealth to pour into our communities. […]”

Vox outlines what they consider to be 11 environmental priorities for Trump and the GOP Congress, quoted below: [9]

1. Kill Obama’s Clean Power Plan
2. Withdraw from the Paris climate agreement
3. Dismantle US environmental rules around coal power
4. Weaken fuel economy standards for cars and light trucks
5. Open up new public lands to oil and gas drilling
6. Scale back federal support for wind and solar power
7. Dramatically limit the EPA’s ability to regulate in the future
8. Reverse the White House’s climate guidance to federal agencies
9. Make the Supreme Court more hostile to environmental regulation
10. Pack the executive branch with industry-friendly appointments
11. Anti-EPA budget bills that will emerge every year, without end

Donald Trump on Climate Change

October 14, 2018

Trump sat down for an interview with 60 Minutes' Lesley Stahl where he discussed climate change, among other issues. View the full transcript here. [258], [259]

Lesley Stahl: “Do you still think that climate change is a hoax?”

President Donald Trump: “I think something's happening. Something's changing and it'll change back again. I don't think it's a hoax, I think there's probably a difference. But I don't know that it's manmade. I will say this. I don't wanna give trillions and trillions of dollars. I don't wanna lose millions and millions of jobs. I don't wanna be put at a disadvantage.”

Lesley Stahl: “I wish you could go to Greenland, watch these huge chunks of ice just falling into the ocean, raising the sea levels.”

President Donald Trump: “And you don't know whether or not that would have happened with or without man. You don't know.”

Lesley Stahl: “Well, your scientists, your scientists–”

President Donald Trump: “No, we have–”

Lesley Stahl: “At NOAA and NASA–”

President Donald Trump: “We have scientists that disagree with that.”

Lesley Stahl: “You know, I– I was thinking what if he said, 'No, I've seen the hurricane situations, I've changed my mind. There really is climate change.' And I thought, 'Wow, what an impact.'”

President Donald Trump: “Well– I'm not denying.”

Lesley Stahl: “What an impact that would make.”

President Donald Trump: “I'm not denying climate change. But it could very well go back. You know, we're talkin' about over a millions–”

Lesley Stahl: “But that's denying it.”

President Donald Trump:  –of years. They say that we had hurricanes that were far worse than what we just had with Michael.”

Lesley Stahl: “Who says that? 'They say'?”

President Donald Trump: “People say. People say that in the–”

Lesley Stahl:” Yeah, but what about the scientists who say it's worse than ever?”

President Donald Trump: “You'd have to show me the scientists because they have a very big political agenda, Lesley.”

Lesley Stahl: “I can't bring them in.”

President Donald Trump: “Look, scientists also have a political agenda.”

December 28, 2017

President Trump went to Twitter to suggest the country could use some global warming during the cold snap: [245]

“In the East, it could be the COLDEST New Year’s Eve on record,” Trump tweeted. “Perhaps we could use a little bit of that good old Global Warming that our Country, but not other countries, was going to pay TRILLIONSOFDOLLARS to protect against. Bundle up!”

In the East, it could be the COLDEST New Year’s Eve on record. Perhaps we could use a little bit of that good old Global Warming that our Country, but not other countries, was going to pay TRILLIONSOFDOLLARS to protect against. Bundle up!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 29, 2017

Trump's tweet was ridiculed by climate experts, The Guardian reported. [246]

November 22, 2016

In an interview that The New York Times said demonstrated his “eagerness to please his audience and his tendency to speak in generalities,” Donald Trump did not repeat his promise to abandon the Paris climate accord. Trump said “I’m looking at it very closely.” But he said “I have an open mind to it.” [149]

When asked about the link between human activity and climate change, he said“I think there is some connectivity. Some, something. It depends on how much.” [150]

In an interview on Fox News Sunday, Trump's chief of staff Reince Priebus explained that Trump's “major flips on policy this week in an interview with the New York Times,” as host Chris Wallace put it. As ThinkProgress reports, Trump had not been entirely forthright with the Times. Priebus told Wallace: [160]

“As far as this issue on climate change — the only thing he [Trump] was saying after being asked a few questions about it 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.”

July 26, 2016

On Fox News, Bill O'Reilly asked Trump if it was “true” that he had “called climate change a hoax.” Trump replied that he “might have” done so following the release of the ClimateGate emails. “Yeah, I probably did,” he added. “I see what's going on.” Trump then said fossil fuels “could have a minor impact” on the climate but “nothing [compared] to what they're talking about.” [169], [179]

March 21, 2016

The following is from an interview between Donald Trump and the Washington Post's editorial board:

FREDHIATT: “Last one: You think climate change is a real thing? Is there human-caused climate change?”

TRUMP: “I think there’s a change in weather. I am not a great believer in man-made climate change. I’m not a great believer. There is certainly a change in weather that goes – if you look, they had global cooling in the 1920s and now they have global warming, although now they don’t know if they have global warming. They call it all sorts of different things; now they’re using “extreme weather” I guess more than any other phrase. I am not – I know it hurts me with this room, and I know it’s probably a killer with this room – but I am not a believer. Perhaps there’s a minor effect, but I’m not a big believer in man-made climate change.” [10]

December 30, 2015

Trump said that President Obama was worrying too much about “the carbon footprint” and climate change, which he then erroneously attributed to the ozone layer: [176]

“I want to use hair spray,” complained Trump. “They say, 'Don't use hair spray, it's bad for the ozone.' So I'm sitting in this concealed apartment, this concealed unit…It's sealed, it's beautiful. I don't think anything gets out. And I'm not supposed to be using hair spray?”

He continued, “So Obama's talking about all of this with the global warming and the—a lot of it's a hoax, it's a hoax. I mean, it's a money-making industry, okay? It's a hoax, a lot of it.”

December 1, 2015

Donald Trump criticized President Obama for pursuing the Paris climate agreement. He posted to Instagram: [175]

“While the world is in turmoil and falling apart in so many different ways—especially with ISIS—our president is worried about global warming,” he said. “What a ridiculous situation.” [175]

Mother Jones notes that “It remains unclear how those things are contradictory.” [175]

What is Obama thinking?

A video posted by Donald J. Trump (@realdonaldtrump) on Dec 1, 2015 at 8:12am PST

September 21, 2015

Donald Trump appeared on Hugh Hewitt's radio show: [174]

“I'm not a believer in man-made global warming. It could be warming, and it's going to start to cool at some point. And you know, in the early, in the 1920s, people talked about global cooling…They thought the Earth was cooling. Now, it's global warming…But the problem we have, and if you look at our energy costs, and all of the things that we're doing to solve a problem that I don't think in any major fashion exists.” [174]

September, 2015

“I don’t believe in climate change.” [11]

June 17, 2015

Mother Jones reports that The day after announcing his candidacy for the GOP presidential nomination, Trump appeared on Sean Hannity's Fox News show, where he said he was “not a believer in man-made” warming. He added, “When I hear Obama saying that climate change is the No. 1 problem, it is just madness.” [169]

2015

Donald Trump dismissed global warming on the premier of Celebrity Apprentice in early 2016. Video below: [171]

Despite this statement, Trump had also donated $5,000 of his foundation's money to Protect Our Winters, a group dedicated to combating climate change. According to the New York Daily News, Trump had made the donation at the request of Olympic snowboarding gold medalist Jamie Anderson, who was one of the contestants on Trump's Celebrity Apprentice reality show. [172], [173]

January 29, 2014

“Snowing in Texas and Louisiana, record setting freezing temperatures throughout the country and beyond. Global warming is an expensive hoax!” – Via Twitter. [2]

“Give me clean, beautiful and healthy air - not the same old climate change (global warming) bullshit! I am tired of hearing this nonsense.” — Later that day, via Twitter. [2]

Below are additional quotes Trump wrote on twitter, from January 1 to 28, calling global warming a “Hoax”: [169]

January 6, 2014

On an episode of Fox News's Fox & Friends, Donald Trump called global warming a “hoax,” and attributes it to scientists “having a lot of fun.” Trump also said restrictions on fossil fuel use were making America less competitive. Video below: [12]

November 6, 2012

“The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive.” — Via Twitter.[2]

Note that Trump later said this was a “joke.” When Hillary Clinton brought it up during the first presidential debate on September 26, 2016, Trump denied that he had said it: [13]

CLINTON: “Some country is going to be the clean- energy superpower of the 21st century. Donald thinks that climate change is a hoax perpetrated by the Chinese. I think it's real.”

TRUMP: “I did not. I did not. I do not say that.”

CLINTON: ” I think science is real.”

TRUMP:” I do not say that.”

February 16, 2010

Mother Jones notes that wiscussing the so-called “ClimateGate scandal,” in which climate scientists were wrongly accused by climate change deniers of forming a conspiracy to fabricate global warming, Trump said on Fox News that there was an email “sent a couple months ago by one of the leaders of global warming, the initiative…almost saying—I guess they're saying it's a con.” He added that “in Washington, where I'm building a big development, nobody can move because we have 48 inches of snow.” Video below.  [169], [170]

February 14, 2010

In one of Trump's first flip-flops on climate change, he mentioned that Al Gore should be stripped of the Nobel Prize because it was cold outside:

“With the coldest winter ever recorded, with snow setting record levels up and down the coast, the Nobel committee should take the Nobel Prize back from Al Gore…Gore wants us to clean up our factories and plants in order to protect us from global warming, when China and other countries couldn't care less. It would make us totally noncompetitive in the manufacturing world, and China, Japan and India are laughing at America's stupidity,” Trump told members of the Trump National Golf Club in Westchester. Mother Jones notes that Trump would later say he was joking about rescinding the Nobel Prize. [168], [169]

December, 2009

As reported at Grist, contrary to his more recent statements on global warming, Donald Trump was once a signatory to a full-page New York Times ad calling for climate action: [167]

“If we fail to act now, it is scientifically irrefutable that there will be catastrophic and irreversible consequences for humanity and our planet,” the letter declared. [167]

The letter, also signed by Trump's three children, called for passing U.S. climate legislation, and green energy investment: [167]

 “We support your effort to ensure meaningful and effective measures to control climate change, an immediate challenge facing the United States and the world today,” the letter reads. “Please allow us, the United States of America, to serve in modeling the change necessary to protect humanity and our planet.” [167]

Key Quotes

October 17, 2017

President Donald Trump spoke at the conservative Heritage Foundation's annual President Club's Meeting, where declared: [237]

“We have taken action to repeal the EPA's so-called 'Clean Power Plan' and we have ended, finally, the war on clean, beautiful coal.” [12:26]

June 1, 2017

Trump announced the U.S. would withdraw from the Paris climate agreement: [218]

“Thus, as of today, the United States will cease all implementation of the non-binding Paris Accord and the draconian financial and economic burdens the agreement imposes on our country.  This includes ending the implementation of the nationally determined contribution and, very importantly, the Green Climate Fund which is costing the United States a vast fortune,” Trump announced in his speech at the White House Rose Garden.

“Staying in the agreement could also pose serious obstacles for the United States as we begin the process of unlocking the restrictions on America’s abundant energy reserves, which we have started very strongly.” [218]

October, 2016

In a 2015 Fox News Sunday interview with Chris Wallace, Trump responds to the question of which departments or services he would cut: [5]

“Environmental protection, what they do is a disgrace. Every week they come out with new regulations. They're making it impossible…”

Wallace interjected, “Who's going to protect the environment?”

“They — we'll be fine with the environment,” Trump replied. “We can leave a little bit, but you can't destroy businesses.”

Trump also noted that “I may cut Department of Education. I believe Common Core is a very bad thing.” [14]

May, 2016

At a Charleston rally, Trump pointed to signs in the crowd: [177]

“I see over here: 'Trump digs coal,'” he said. “That's true. I do.” He went on to promise an increase in coal mining jobs by repealing Obama's “ridiculous rules and regulations.”

March 29, 2016

Donald Trump responded in an American Energy Alliance (AEA) Questionnaire: [15]

“Under my administration, all EPA rules will be reviewed. Any regulation that imposes undue costs on business enterprises will be eliminated.”

1997

As reported by Mother Jones, Trump believed in an anti-asbestos conspiracy as he wrote in his 1997 book, The Art of Comeback: [16]

“I believe that the movement against asbestos was led by the mob, because it was often mob-related companies that would do the asbestos removal. Great pressure was put on politicians, and as usual, the politicians relented. Millions of truckloads of this incredible fire-proofing material were taken to special 'dump sites' and asbestos was replaced by materials that were supposedly safe but couldn't hold a candle to asbestos in limiting the ravages of fire.” [16]

Trump also claimed that asbestos is ”100 percent safe, once applied,” and that it just “got a bad rap.” [16]

“A lot of people could say if the World Trade Center had asbestos, it wouldn't have burned down. It wouldn't have melted. Ok. A lot of people in my industry think asbestos is the greatest fireproofing material ever made.” [16]

Key Deeds

July 31, 2018

As Politico reported, Trump went to Twitter to criticize the Koch Brothers who he said “have become a total joke in real Republican circles” after they had criticized Trump and his trade policies. In a Colorado Springs meeting about a week prior, the Kochs presented a video warning of the dangers of Trump's anti-free-trade sentiments. [256], [257]

In the video, Charles Koch warns that the current “rise in protectionism” represents “a natural tendency, but it’s a destructive one.”

The globalist Koch Brothers, who have become a total joke in real Republican circles, are against Strong Borders and Powerful Trade. I never sought their support because I don’t need their money or bad ideas. They love my Tax & Regulation Cuts, Judicial picks & more. I made…..

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 31, 2018

March 22, 2018

Charlie Kirk interviewed President Donald Trump in the“Generation Next” White House Summit: [255]

Kirk Tweeted:

Today it was a great honor to interview @realDonaldTrump about student issues and the amazing success of this administration

The accomplishments are historic, fixed the trajectory of America, and are beginning the process of turning this country around! #MAGApic.twitter.com/Rhlf8bVim7

— Charlie Kirk (@charliekirk11) March 22, 2018

Partial transcript:

Charlie Kirk: “One of the things you've done so successfully during your campaign and presidency is crush political correctness, and what the college network that we represent—I represent a network on 1200 college campuses—is, it's harder than ever to espouse support of your presidency and the ideas that you're fighting for. 

So thank you for what you're doing to give us the courage of our convictions to fight against political correctness. But what advice do you have for young patriots and Conservatives on campus that support your agenda but are being ridiculed and silenced because of administrators that clamps own one see speech?”

Trump:“So that's a great question. I think the numbers are actually much different than people think. I think we have a lot of support. If they have one campus or two campuses and we know what they are it gets all the publicity. We have campuses where you have a vast majority of people that are perhaps like many of the people in this room: You could call it Conservative, you could call it whatever you want, but they're people that want free speech.

If you look at what's going on with free speech, with the super left, with ANTIFA, with all of these characters. I'll tell you what, they get a lot of publicity, but you go to the real campuses and you go all over the country, you go out to the real campus and you go all over the country… you go out to the Middle West you go out to even to the coast in many cases. We have tremendous support. I would say we have majority support. I think it's highly overblown. Highly overblown.”

Kirk:“I totally agree, and we see it on the ground. And so people say, hey I'm a Trump supporter, I'm just not allowed to say it because of the culture that's been created by the administrators and the professors. 

And kind of piggybacking off of that, what you see on college campuses and the speakers being disinvited and you know the assault on these ideas, I think it's so important what your administration is doing for the Department of Justice to support these lawsuits to help advance, you know, this free speech movement on campus.

So, kind of talking generationally in general, this is something I'm quite curious about and lot of people ask me: I consider you to be one of the most successful businesspeople in American history and your successful presidential run is something that all people, young people included, should look up to. What advice would you give to the 25-year-old Donald Trump knowing what you know today?

Trump:“Don't run for president.” Laughter and applause. 

Kirk:“But we're glad you did.”

Trump:“Well, I was talking to Mercedes and Sarah walking off for just a… you know the Oval Office is right across the street… and I said, all my life I've gotten really—you know look, every one in a while we all get a knock—but I got the greatest publicity. I was getting such great… until I ran for office. And it's been… but people get it. People really do get it. [12:07]

There is a lot of fake news out there. Nobody had any idea, and I'm actually proud of the fact I exposed it to a large extent because we exposed it. That's something… that's an achievement.” […] 

March 2018

The Executive Office released a report of “Science & Technology Highlights” in the first year of the Trump Administration. In a section on “Energy Dominance,” the report includes comments that Trump made at a June 30, 2017 “Unleashing American Energy” event: [254]

“The truth is that we have near limitless supplies of energy in our country. Powered by new innovation and technology, we are now on the cusp of a true energy revolution,” Trump had said at the event. [254]

According to the report, Trump had also called for a “complete review of U.S. nuclear energy policy” at the event, including what the report describes as “a focus on restoring U.S. nuclear R&D capabilities and enabling innovation in the development and deployment of new reactors.” [254]

The report also noted that domestic nuclear test facilities would resume operations: “For the first time in 23 years, the U.S. Department of Energy has resumed operations at the Transient Reactor Test Facility (TREAT).” [254]

January 28, 2018

Piers Morgan interviewed Donald Trump. While some headlines following the interview suggested that Trump had made a dramatic reversal on his position on the UN Paris Climate Agreement (“Would I go back in? Yeah, I’d go back in,” said Trump, after repeating claims that the pact was a “horrible deal” for the U.S.), DeSmog notes that this was not a U-turn of Trump's views and that Trump's views are the same as he held when announcing his withdrawal from the Agreement in June 2017. [252]

According to the interview transcript: [253]

PM: “Do you believe in climate change? Do you believe it exists?”

DT: “There is a cooling and there is a heating and I mean, look – it used to not be climate change. It used to be global warming. Right?”

PM: “Right.”

DT: “That wasn’t working too well, because it was getting too cold all over the place. The ice caps were going to melt, they were going to be gone by now, but now they’re setting records, so OK, they’re at a record level. There were so many thing happening, Piers. I’ll tell you what I believe in. I believe in clear air. I believe in crystal clear beautiful water. I believe in just having good cleanliness in all. Now, that being said, if somebody said go back into the Paris Accord, if we could go back into the Paris Accord, it would have to be a completely different deal because we had a horrible deal, As usual, they took advantage of the United States. We were in a terrible deal. Would I go back in? Yeah, I’d go back in. I like, as you know, I like Emmanuel… No, no, I like Emmanuel, I would love to, but it’s got to be a good deal for the United States.”

January 17, 2018

In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, Trump's EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt outlined his plans to remake the EPA in 2018. His goals include rewriting rules for power plant emissions made under the Obama administration, and speeding the permit review process under the EPA. [251]

Pruitt emphasized he wanted to move fast. “There’s tremendous opportunity to show really significant results to the American people in a really short time frame,” Pruitt said. [251]

WSJ author Timothy Puko notes that Pruitt had memorialized the moment that Trump announced the exit from the Paris climate agreement by hanging a framed photo of the two of them in the Rose Garden with an autograph of Pruitt's prepared remarks, along with the comment “Scott—Great Job!” [251]

In EPA chief Scott Pruitt’s office: a @realDonaldTrump autograph from the Paris climate accord withdrawal announcement:
“Scott - Great Job!”
“Be certain facts are correct”https://t.co/gGmIMYE49H
W/ @EliStokolspic.twitter.com/qO7jCtnxvL

— Tim Puko (@TimPuko) January 18, 2018

One of Pruitt's goals is to begin weekly performance assessments for ever EPA office, and to get the permitting process to under six months. Former EPA administrator Gina McCarthy commented on Pruitt's shift of focus for the EPA away from climate change. [251]

“Everything the agency does is to protect public health and the public from future risks,” said McCarthy.  “You don’t stop smoking because it kills you when you smoke the cigarette; it’s because it kills you later. It’s the same argument with climate change. You take action today to protect health today and in the future.” [251]

January 2018

Following the release of the book Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House by Michael Wolff, Trump released a statement excoriating former chief strategist Steve Bannon for statements that appeared in the book where Bannon reportedly said that Trump's his son-in-law Jared Kushner's meeting with a Russian lawyer was “treasonous” and “unpatriotic.” [247], [248]

“Steve Bannon has nothing to do with me or my Presidency. When he was fired, he not only lost his job, he lost his mind. Steve was a staffer who worked for me after I had already won the nomination by defeating 17 candidates, often described as the most talented field ever assembled in the Republican party,” Trump said in the statement. [248]

Following Fire and Fury's publishing, mega donor Rebekah Mercer publicly rebuked Bannon for his reported statements about the president, and Bannon announced that he would step down from Breitbart News. [249], [250]

October 17, 2017

President Donald Trump spoke at the conservative Heritage Foundation's annual President Club's Meeting, where he encouraged Heritage to push for antiregulation policy. Trump promoted his tax plan, which he described as a “once-in-a-generation opportunity to revitalize our economy.” [237], [238]

“Lower taxes mean bigger paychecks, more jobs, and stronger growth,” he said, describing existing corporate taxes as a “giant self-inflicted economic wound.” [17:47], [238]

 View the full 34-minute video of his speech below: Some notable quotes below (emphasis added): [237]

“We believe we should preserve our history, not tear it down. Now they're even trying to destroy statues of Christopher Columbus. What's next? It has to be stopped. It's heritage.” [7:19]

“We believe that strong nations must have strong borders and that our most important job is to serve the needs of America and the American people. That includes common-sense reforms like cracking down on sanctuary cities, ending catch-and-release, and very importantly ending chain migration.” [8:12]

“This is the message I delivered in my address to the United Nations. I told the leaders in that hall […] that just like I expect them to put the needs of their countries first, I will always put the needs of our country first. That is why we are withdrawing from one-sided international deals like the Trans-Pacific Partnership and the Paris Climate Accord.” [9:09]

Noting increases in defense spending, Trump said “As Ronald Reagan said, we believe in peace through strength.”[10:17]

“We have taken action to repeal the EPA's so-called 'Clean Power Plan' and we have ended, finally, the war on clean, beautiful coal. People going back two work. They're going back to work.” [12:26]

October 12, 2017

President Donald Trump appointed climate change denier Kathleen Hartnett-White as chair of the Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ), pending approval via a U.S. Senate confirmation hearing process, where she will likely face questions regarding her history of promoting fossil fuels and denying climate change. [222]

Hartnett-White has a history of representing fossil fuel interests. During her tenure as chair of the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ), appointed by then-governor Rick Perry, the TCEQ was found to “not consistently ensure violators are held accountable.” According to a 2003 Texas State Audit, polluters “often have economic benefits that exceed their penalties, which could reduce their incentive to comply.” [223]

As head of the CEQ, Hartnett-White would be in charge of coordinating interagency science, climate, and environmental policy and oversee things such as the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) review process and agency compliance with that law.  [222]

“Though CEQ oversees the NEPA process, it remains unclear how seriously Hartnett-White will take the NEPA review process, for decades seen as a bedrock of U.S. environmental regulation since NEPA became law in 1970,” DeSmog's Steve Horn reported.  [222]

The Environmental Working Group (EWG) released a press statement critical of Hartnett-White's appointment:

“At least Butch and Sundance had to put some effort into robbing banks and trains,” Ken Cook, EWG's president, said in a press statement. “If Hartnett-White joins Administrator Pruitt, polluters will stroll through the front doors of both the EPA and the White House, no questions asked, as the rampant looting of environmental and public health protection policies continues.” [224]

October 10, 2017

Trump's appointed EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt signed a proposed rule to begin withdrawal from the Clean Power Plan, Reuters reported: [239]

“Here’s the president’s message: The war on coal is over,” Pruitt announced earlier at a gathering with coal miners in Hazard, Kentucky. [239]

The official EPA press release announced the repeal of what it described as “the so-called 'Clean Power Plan (CPP)'”:

“After reviewing the CPP, EPA has proposed to determine that the Obama-era regulation exceeds the Agency’s statutory authority. Repealing the CPP will also facilitate the development of U.S. energy resources and reduce unnecessary regulatory burdens associated with the development of those resources, in keeping with the principles established in President Trump’s Executive Order on Energy Independence,” the press release read. [240]

As the New York Times reported, the decision is a “personal triumph for Mr. Pruitt, who as Oklahoma attorney general helped lead more than two dozen states in challenging the rule in the courts.” [241] 

August 2017

DeSmog reported that Robert Powelson, newly appointed commissioner to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), previously received gifts from the energy and utility sector while working as a state regulator. In his position at the FERC, Powelson would be regulating those sectors at a federal level. [235]

June 1, 2017

Donald Trump officially announced that the U.S. would withdraw from the Paris Accord, effective November, 2020, one day after the 2020 election. [210], [211]

“The United States will withdraw from the Paris climate accord,” Trump said, “but begin negotiations to re-enter either the Paris accord or an entirely new transaction on terms that are fair to the United States and its businesses, workers and taxpayers.”

“We'll see if we can make a deal that's fair,” he added. “If we can, that's great. If we can't, that's fine.”

View text of Trump's full statement on the Paris Climate Accord at the White House website. [218]

Shortly before the press conference began, CNN reported that the White House had told Congress of the decision.

“We will initiate the process, which, all told, takes four years in total,” White House energy policy adviser and former fossil fuel lobbyist Michael Catanzaro told Congressional staffers in a conference call just before Trump's speech. “But we’re going to make very clear to the world that we’re not going to be abiding by what the previous administration agreed to.”

Reuters reported that Trump had misunderstood research that he had cited as justification for withdrawing from the Paris Climate Agreement. Trump had said during the speech that even if fully implemented, the Paris agreement would not have a large impact:

“Even if the Paris Agreement were implemented in full, with total compliance from all nations, it is estimated it would only produce a two-tenths of one degree Celsius reduction in global temperature by the year 2100,” Trump said. 

“Tiny, tiny amount.”

According to White House documents reviewed by Reuters, Trump's statement was attributed to research by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in a April 2016 study titled “How much of a difference will the Paris Agreement make?” [212], [213]

Erwin Monier, one of the study's authors and a a lead researcher at the MIT Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change, said “We certainly do not support the withdrawal of the U.S. from the Paris agreement,” [212]

“If we don't do anything, we might shoot over 5 degrees or more and that would be catastrophic,” said John Reilly, the co-director of the program. He also noted that MIT's scientists were not offered a chance to explain their work, and were not contacted by the White House. [212]

DeSmog looked deeper into Trump's sources, and found that when Trump claimed “onerous energy restrictions” would be placed on the U.S., he was citing figures from the National Economic Research Associates (NERA). NERA is the same group that had carried out a study for the tobacco industry in the 1990s that concluded there wasn't a link between tobacco advertising and smoking levels. [214]

The NERA study claiming that the Paris agreement would “cost” America 2.7 million jobs was funded by the American Council for Capital Formation (ACCF) and the U.S Chamber of Commerce. The Chamber has been described as “Big Tobacco’s Staunch Friend in Washington,” while ACCF has received over $1 million from oil giant ExxonMobil. [215], [216]

An AP Fact Check noted that the study “makes worst-case assumptions that may inflate the cost of meeting U.S. targets under the Paris accord while largely ignoring the economic benefits to U.S. businesses from building and operating renewable energy projects.” [217]

March 24, 2017

President Trump announced that he had approved the Keystone XL pipeline, reversing the pervious decision by former President Barack Obama to reject it. While Trump said the project would create 28,000 U.S. jobs Reuters noted that a 2014 State Department study had predicted just 3,900 construction jobs and 35 permanent jobs would be created by the project. [243]

As DeSmog Canada reported, despite Trump granting the presidential permit required to build the pipeline, this does not guarantee it will be built. [242]

“It's going to be an incredible pipeline, greatest technology known to man or woman.  And frankly, we're very proud of it,” Trump said in the official announcement of the pipeline's approval.  “When completed, the Keystone XL pipeline will span 900 miles – wow – and have the capacity to deliver more than 800,000 barrels of oil per day to the Gulf Coast refineries.  That's some big pipeline.” [244]

February 24, 2017

Trump was a speaker at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC).View the complete video at The New York Times. [208] 

CPAC is sponsored by conservative and pro-industry groups, including The Heritage Foundation, Fueling U.S. Forward, American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), Leadership Institute, Capital Research Center, Charles Koch Institute, FreedomWorks, America Rising, American Petroleum Institute, American Enterprise Institute (AEI), Independent Women's Forum, and many others. [209]

February, 2017

As reported by GreenWire, Trump chose climate change denier Mike Catanzaro, who is also a lobbyist for oil and gas companies Noble Energy, Devon Energy, Encana Oil and Gas, American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers (AFPM), and Hess Corporation, as a top energy policy aide. [200], [201], [203], [204], [205], [206], [207]

As DeSmog reported, Catanzaro served as a top energy aide during Trump's presidential campaign. According to GreenWire, he is expected to serve as special assistant to Trump for energy and environmental issues under the umbrella of the White House National Economic Council. [202], [200]

January 25, 2017

Trump's team announced that the Atlantic Coast pipeline would be among the White House's top priorities for infrastructure projects. [195]

DeSmog reported that it was surprising that there was only one pipeline project to be in the list of 50. The Atlantic Coast pipeline was proposed by a partnership among Dominion Resources, Duke Energy, and Southern Gas Company. [196]

The full list, titled “Priority List: Energy and National Security Projects,” includes various highway and rail expansions, airport upgrades, hydro and wind power projects, new transmission lines, and the Atlantic Coast, which would carry natural gas obtained via hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”). [197]

January 20, 2017

DeSmog reported that, after President Donald Trump assumed power in the White House, the climate change section of the White House's website was removed. Journalist Brian Kahn of ClimateCentral.com was the first to point this out on Twitter. [198]

The new web section does mention environmental protection, but the word “climate” appears only once, and only in reference to the administration's plans to do away with President Obama's Climate Action Plan.  [198]

December 19, 2016

While Donald Trump claimed that he had no need for the Koch Brothers, DeSmog mapped out the extensive links between the Trump Administration and Koch affiliates and business associates: [199]

December 10, 2016

Trump picked ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson, who—as Desmog reported—has close personal and company ties to Russia and its President Vladimir Putin. [181]

“If the goal is to drain the swamp in D.C., Tillerson might not be your man; Exxon’s business plan continues to require raising the level of the ocean to the point where Foggy Bottom will be well underwater,” said 350.org founder Bill McKibben in a press release. “But this is certainly a good way to make clear exactly who’ll be running the government in a Trump administration — just cut out the middleman and hand it directly to the fossil fuel industry.”

Rex Tillerson was sworn in as Secretary of State on February 1, 2017 after being confirmed by the Senate earlier the same day. [184]

December 8, 2016

Bloomberg reports on a memo by President-Elect Trump's transition team requesting a list of employees and contractors who attended United Nations climate meetings. Information sought included agency loan programs, research activities, and the basis for statistics regarding the Obama administration's social cost of carbon metrics. [180]

Catherine Trywick at Bloomberg notes that “there is a fear that people who worked on climate policy under Obama could be targeted under the Trump administration, because some of the names who have been floated as cabinet members are very hostile towards climate change and environmental concerns.” [180]

Senator Ed Markey responded by sending a letter to Trump, warming that the punishment of agency workers carrying out policies his administration disagrees with “would be tantamount to an illegal modern-day political witch hunt, and would have a profoundly chilling impact on our dedicated federal workforce.”[180]

Energy Department employees said they had been unsettled by the information request by Trump's team.  [180]

“It’s certainly alarming that they would be targeting specific employees in this way,” said Michael Halpern, deputy director of the Center for Science and Democracy at the Union of Concerned Scientists. “Scientists are looking at this with some suspicion, because many of the people who have been chomping at the bit to dismantle federal climate change science programs are now deeply embedded in the transition.” [180]

December 7, 2016

Trump nominated former Oklahoma attorney general Scott Pruitt to run the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Pruitt was confirmed as administrator of the EPA on February 17, 2017. Pruitt's initial committee confirmation vote was to take place on February 1, 2017, but the vote was delayed when Democrats boycotted the planned vote. [185], [186], [187], [188]

At the time of Pruitt's nomination, DeSmog reported on Pruitt's history working with oil, gas, and utility companies could affect his confirmation. [189], [190]

DeSmog mapped Pruitt's extensive ties to the fossil fuel industry: [191]

December 1, 2016

The Intercept reports that Donald Trump's first pick for the NASA transition team is Christopher Shank, a climate change denier who previously worked with Rep. Lamar Smith. Shank has criticized NASA for the scientific data it releases, saying in a 2015 panel that “The rhetoric that’s coming out, the hottest year in history, actually is not backed up by the science — or that the droughts, the fires, the hurricanes, etc., are caused by climate change, but it’s just weather.” [183]

September 22, 2016

Donald Trump was a keynote speaker at the “Shale Insight 2016” conference, featuring major companies from the oil and gas industry. [17]

“It's great to be with so many of my friends,” Trump began. “Oh, you will like me so much.”

“Do you know all of my life, that business has never had problems, but in the last seven or eight years, it's been tough,” Trump said. “With the EPA, with all of the difficulties you're going through.” [17]

DeSmog's Sharon Kelly notes that, despite's Trump's statement, the Marcellus shale industry barely existed eight years ago.

“America is sitting on a treasure trove of untapped energy,” Trump told the crowd. “Some $50 trillion in shale energy, oil reserves and natural gas on federal lands, in addition to hundreds of years of coal energy reserves. It's all upside for this country.” [17]

View the full video of Trump's speech below:

The Washington Examiner reported that, at the conference, Trump backed off of his prior statement that he would eliminate the Environmental Protection Agency as part of his plan to eliminate the federal budget deficit. [194]

“I will refocus the EPA on its core mission of ensuring clean air, and clean, safe drinking water for all Americans,” Trump said at the conference. “I believe firmly in conserving our wonderful natural resources and beautiful natural habitats. My environmental agenda will be guided by true specialists in conservation, not those with radical political agendas.” [194]

Trump cited a study by the industry-funded Institute for Energy Research (IER), declaring that opening up federal land to oil and gas drilling could contribute to $20 trillion in economic activity over the next 40 years. Trump also promised to open up drilling on the coasts: [194]

“Our energy policy will make full use of our domestic energy sources, including traditional and renewable energy sources,” Trump said. [194]

Trump also said that he would further open up the Marcellus and Utica shale regions to hydraulic fracturing (fracking). [194]

“The development of the Marcellus and Utica shales will fundamentally change the economic landscape of this region and our country, bringing extraordinary new prosperity to millions,” Trump said. [194]

May 17, 2016

In an interview with Reuters, Donald Trump promised that he would renegotiate or pull America out entirely from the Paris Climate Agreement: [3]

“I will be looking at that very, very seriously, and at a minimum I will be renegotiating those agreements, at a minimum. And at a maximum I may do something else,” Trump told Reuters.

“But those agreements are one-sided agreements and they are bad for the United States.”

Trump said that he did not belive China would adhere to its pledge under Paris:

“Not a big fan because other countries don’t adhere to it, and China doesn’t adhere to it, and China’s spewing into the atmosphere,” he said.

The Obama administration pledged to cut emissions by 26 to 28 percent by 2025 over 2005, while China promised to halt emissions increases by 2030. 

“This is another example of Trump’s dangerous lack of judgment and the very real impacts it could have for all of us,” said Gene Karpinski, president of the U.S.-based environmental group League of Conservation Voters.

May 26, 2016

Trump spoke about his “America First Energy Plan,” promising that during his first 100 days in office he would “rescind all the job-destroying Obama executive actions including” his landmark climate regulations, “cancel the Paris Climate Agreement,” and “stop all payments of US tax dollars to UN global warming programs.” [178]

Trump detailed his “100 day action plan” as follows:

• “We’re going to rescind all the job-destroying Obama executive actions including the Climate Action Plan and the Waters of the U.S. rule.
• We’re going to save the coal industry and other industries threatened by Hillary Clinton’s extremist agenda.
• I’m going to ask Trans Canada to renew its permit application for the Keystone Pipeline.
• We’re going to lift moratoriums on energy production in federal areas
• We’re going to revoke policies that impose unwarranted restrictions on new drilling technologies. These technologies create millions of jobs with a smaller footprint than ever before.
• We’re going to cancel the Paris Climate Agreement and stop all payments of U.S. tax dollars to U.N. global warming programs.
• Any regulation that is outdated, unnecessary, bad for workers, or contrary to the national interest will be scrapped. We will also eliminate duplication, provide regulatory certainty, and trust local officials and local residents.
• Any future regulation will go through a simple test: is this regulation good for the American worker? If it doesn’t pass this test, the rule will not be approved.”

March 3, 2016

Trump attended the 11th GOP candidate's debate in Detroit where declared that, as part of proposed tax cuts, he would cut the “Department of Environmental Protection,” by which he presumably meant the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The full quote below, as noted by The Washington Post: [193]

CHRISWALLACE (MODERATOR): “Mr. Trump, your proposed tax cut would add $10 trillion to the nation's debt over 10 years, even if the economy grows the way that you say it will. You insist that you could make up for a good deal of that, you say, by cutting waste, fraud, and abuse.”

TRUMP: “Correct.”

WALLACE: “Like what? And please be specific.”

TRUMP: “Department of Education. We're cutting Common Core. We're getting rid of Common Core. We're bringing education locally. Department of Environmental Protection. We are going to get rid are of it in almost every form. We're going to have little tidbits left but we're going to take a tremendous amount out.”

We have various other things. If you look at the IRS, if you look at every single agency, we can cut it down, and I mean really cut it down and save. The waste, fraud, and abuse is massive.”[193]

Funding

Top Campaign Contributors

The Center for Responsive Politics' OpenSecrets.org lists Donald Trump's top campaign contributors in 2016: [18]

Outside Spending

Trump's 2016 campaign was made successful through a range of support from corporations, labor unions, and other groups. Below is a summary of Committees who supported Trump, based on data from Opensecrets.org: [19]

Supported Trump

Assets & Personal Finances

According to public date on file at OpenSecrets.org detailing Donald Trump's personal finances. The 92-page report (PDF) details Trump's affiliations with over five hundred companies. [20]

While Trump did not release his tax returns for public scrutiny, citing an ongoing audit, he said that his financial disclosures more than made up for the fact: [21], [22]

“I released the most extensive financial review of anybody in the history of politics,” Trump said. “It’s either 100 or maybe more pages of names of companies, locations of companies, etc., etc., and it's a very impressive list, and everybody says that. … You don't learn much in a tax return.”

The New York Times reports that while Trump has claimed his net worth is more than $10 billion, that figure cannot be verified with the disclosure form provided because the largest range for a single asset’s worth is “over $50 million.” [23]

Trump's Cabinet & Staff (2017)

The New York Times (NYT) reported on the status of Donald Trump's cabinet, as of March, 2017. As CNN reported, in addition to Cabinet-level positions, Trump has over 4,000 positions to fill with more than 1,200 requiring senate confirmation. Some notable names from the NYT list, combined with updates for more recent resignations or additions, below: [192], [229]

The Offical White House Cabinet page also lists Trump's current Cabinet positions, not all of which overlap with the March 2017 NYT list. [234]

Landing Teams (2016)

E&E News outlined Donald Trump's landing teams. They report that these so-called landing teams are responsible for “will be responsible for interviewing top government officials and helping to set the new administration's policy agenda.” Here is a snapshot of what the team looked like on December 16, 2016: [182]

Transition Team (2016)

The Washington Post notes that “Although Trump has portrayed himself as the ultimate outsider, in putting together a transition team the New York real estate mogul has chosen veteran Washington insiders, many of them lobbyists for fossil fuel companies and skeptics about climate science.” [24]

Earlier in November, 2016, Politico PRO released an organizational chart for Trump's initial transition team structure:

ClimateDenierRoundup notes that, “looking at all the lobbyists and beltway insiders, one would be forgiven for assuming his last campaign catchphrase was #StaffTheSwamp.” The chart notes a Homeland Security transition led by Cindy Hayden of tobacco giant Altria. Leading labor is Steve Hart, chairman of Williams & Jensen, who represents businesses like Coca-Cola, General Electric, HSBC, and VISA. The agricultural sector is being managed by Michael Torrey, who represents the American Beverage Association. [25]

Politico notes that “Lobbyists are all over Donald Trump's transition team,” singling out Cindy Hayden of Altira, Steve Hart of Williams & Jensen, Michael McKenna of MWR Strategies, David Bernhardt, Michael Torrey, and others. Myron Ebell leads the EPA transition. Ebell works forCEI, funded by ExxonMobil and the Kochs, and also heads the Cooler Heads Coalition. [26]

Energy and environment is manned by Michael McKenna, who works for MWR Strategies, which represents the chemical giant Dow, the Kochs, and coal giant Southern Company. Fracking magnate Harold Hamm is in the lead for Secretary of Energy. For Interior, if Trump doesn’t give the position to Trump Jr., then it may go to Forrest Lucas, co-founder of Lucas Oil.

Note that the transition is a fluid process, and many names on this list will be replaced by others. For example, Mike Rogers withdrew from the national security lead. The New York Times reported that lobbyist Matthew Freedom, also on the national security team, as also fired. While the New York Times reported that Trump's ”transition was in disarray,” Trump maintained on Twitter that it was going “so smoothly.” [27], [28]

Executive Committee

Trump released a statement on Friday, November 11, 2016 that outlined who would join his transition team's executive committee. Politico reports that Trump replaced New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie with Vice President-elect Mike Pence to chair the effort. They report that Christie's “viability as part of the team was thrown into question when two of his closest allies were convicted on charges of fraud and conspiracy related to the Bridgegate scandal.” Trump's new executive committee was structured as follows: [138], [151]

• Vice President-Elect Mike Pence - Presidential Transition Team Chair

Media Transparency notes that Pence is a climate science denier. When asked whether he believed climate change was man-made, Pence responded: “I don't know that that is a resolved issue in science today.” Pence added: “Just a few years ago, we were talking about global warming. We haven't seen a lot of warming lately. I remember back in the ‘70s we were talking about the coming ice age.” [39]

• Trump Campaign CEO Stephen K. Bannon

Stephen K. Bannon, emerging as Donald Trump's chief strategist, is the executive chairman of Breitbart News, which Bloomberg describes as the lineal descendant of the Drudge Report, and a “haven for people who think Fox News is too polite and restrained.” Breitbart faced controversy earlier during 2016 election season, nicknamed “Trumpbart” by detractors. The Daily Beast writes “it is widely seen as a credulous purveyor of [Donald] Trump's angry populist, anti-immigration, anti-Muslim message, and as an enthusiastic booster of the reality show billionaire's candidacy.” [152], [153]

Right Wing Watch notes that Glenn Beck accused Breitbart News of “having turned itself into an arm of the Trump campaign and likening its executive chairman, Steve Bannon, to Hitler's propagandist Joseph Goebbels.” [154]

ClimateWire suggests that Bannon will be influential in shaping Trump's views on climate change, coming from a news network that describes environmentalists as “greentards” and “totally fu**ing wrong on climate change.” Climate change denier and journalist James Delingpole wrote that the Breitbart network has already created a clear outline of how Bannon plans to advice Trump on climate change. [155], [156]

“One of his pet peeves is the great climate-change con,” Delingpole wrote of Bannon. “It's partly why he recruited a notorious skeptic like myself.”

“Basically,” Delingpole wrote, “we won.”

• Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus

Trump picked Reinhold Richard (Reince) Priebus, chairman of the Republican National Committee (RNC), as his White House chief of staff. The New York Times reported that Priebus's appointment, alongside that of Bannon, created “rival centers of power in the Trump White House.” While the Koch Brothers have refused to back Trump in the election, they are notably a considerable funder of the RNC. [157], [158]

• Rebekah Mercer
• Peter Thiel
• Rep. Lou Barletta
• Rep. Marsha Blackburn
• Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi
• Rep. Chris Collins
• Jared Kushner
• Rep. Tom Marino
• Steven Mnuchin
• Rep. Devin Nunes
• Anthony Scaramucci
• Donald Trump Jr.
• Eric Trump
• Ivanka Trump

Staff Leadership

• Kellyanne Conway— Senior Adviser
• David Bossie— Deputy Executive Director
• Stephen Miller — National Policy Director
• Jason Miller— Communications Director
• Hope Hicks — National Press Secretary
• Dan Scavino — Director of Social Media
• Don McGahn — General Counsel
• Katie Walsh— Senior Adviser

Agency Action

Ron Nicol - Director, Agency Action

Ron Nichol, former US naval officer, has worked as senior advisor to The Boston Consulting Group (BCG) since January of 2016. Prior to his work at BCG, he worked for Babcock and Wilcox. He will oversee the following six groups, each of which also has its own team lead. [29]

Affiliations

• Boston Consulting Group - Senior Advisor, previous senior partner and managing director.
• Babcock & Wilcox — Prior position.

Defense

Keith Kellogg - Defense

Keith Kellogg is a retired Army lieutenant general who previously endorsed Trump. Since retiring from the military in 2003, Kellogg has worked for a number of defense and homeland security contractors including GTSI, Oracle Corp., Coalition of Provisional Authority, and others. [28]

Affiliations

• GTSI— Member, Board of Directors. [30]
• CACI International Inc. — Executive Vice President (January 2005 - July 2009). [31]
• Cubic Corp.— Senior Vice President for Ground Combat Programs (2009). [31], [32]
• Abraxis— Former President (2014). Abraxis is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Cubic Corp. [31]
• Coalition Provisional Authority in Baghdad— Chief Operations Officer (Nov. 2003 - March 2004) [31]
• Oracle Corp. — Senior Vice President of Homeland Security Solutions  (January 2005 - ). [33]
• U.S. Army —  Lieutenant General. Served 1971 to July 2003. [31]

Mira Ricardel - Defense

Mira Ricardel is the former acting assistant defense secretary during the George W. Bush administration. Until recently she served as the vice president of business development for Boeing Strategic Missile & Defense Systems. Ricardel is also a consultant for Federal Budget IQ, a government research firm.  [34], [26]

Affiliations

• Boeing Strategic Missile & Defense Systems — Former vice president of Business Development. [35]
• Freedom House — Former vice president of Programs. [35]
• U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency — Former deputy director of Congressional Affairs. [35]
• Council on Foreign Relations — Former Member. [35]
• Federal Budget IQ— Consultant. [26]

Michael Meese - Veterans Affairs

Michael Meese, working under Kellogg on Veterans Affairs, is a retired US Army brigadier general who currently teaches at Georgetown University. He also serves as chief operating officer of the American Armed Forces Mutual Aid Association. Meese is son of former Attorney General Edwin MEese, another Transition team member. [28]

Affiliations

• American Armed Forces Mutual Aid Association (AAFMAA) — Chief Operating Officer (2013 - ) [36]

National Security

Mike Pence - Replaced Mike Rogers to lead National Security

Mike Pence, Vice President-elect, was a Republican member of the US House of Representatives from  Indiana's 2nd District and 6th District between 2001 and 2013. Pence is a devout Evangelical Christian, an early supporter of the Tea Party, and a social conservative. The Washington Post reported that Pence became a household name after signing a religous freedom bill into law in 2016 which Pence said would protect Indiana business owners who did not want to participate in same-sex marriages, citing their religious beliefs. Several of Pence's top aids have ties with the Koch network. [37]

Pence signed what some described as “the most extreme abortion bill yet”—Bill HB 1347—which would ban women from abortions of fetuses diagnosed with physical or mental disability, including Down syndrome. [38]

Media Transparency notes that Pence is a climate science denier. When asked whether he believed climate change was man-made, Pence responded: “I don't know that that is a resolved issue in science today.” Pence added: “Just a few years ago, we were talking about global warming. We haven't seen a lot of warming lately. I remember back in the ‘70s we were talking about the coming ice age.” [39]

Affiliations

• American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) — Member. Pence is a regular speaker at ALEC conferences, including their 2016 ALEC conference in Indianapolis. He has appointed a former ALEC director to Cabinet, and has urged state legislators to join ALEC.  [40], [41],[42], [43]

Mike Rogers - National Security (Withdrawn)

Former Rep. Mike Rogers was originally slated to lead the National Security transition team. However, in a statement released Tuesday, he said he was “pleased to hand off our work” to a new team led by Mike Pence. [44]

Jim Carafano - State

James Carafano is Vice President for the Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis Institute for National Security and Foreign Policy, and the E. W. Richardson Fellow at The Heritage Foundation, a conservative group that has received over $500,000 from ExxonMobil and is a former member of the Cooler Heads Coalition which fervently denies man-made climate change. [45], [46]

Carafano has said that the next president should abolish the White House Office of Science and Technology in order “to show that science is truly important to policy-making and good governance”: [47]

“The Obama White House has used the Office of Science and Technology principally to support its pet political causes — like advocacy for global climate change research that matches the president’s views on the topic and can be puffed to justify expanding federal regulations in virtually every aspect of American life,” Carafano wrote at the Heritage Foundation.

Affiliations

• The Heritage Foundation — Vice President for the Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis Institute for National Security and Foreign Policy, and the E. W. Richardson Fellow [45]
• Esprit de Corps — President. [45]
•  Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments— Former Senior Fellow . [45]
• Georgetown University — Adjunct Professor. [45]

Cindy Hayden - Homeland Security

Cindy Hayden is director of Altria Client Services, the lobbying arm of tobacco giant Altria (formerly Philip Morris). 

Affiliations

• Altria Client Services — Director. [48]

Ron Burgess - Intelligence

Ron Burgess is a former Army Lt. General and former director of the Defense Intelligence Agency. President Obama appointed Burgess as head of the DIA in 2009, and he served in that position until 2012. Rogers is also former chair of the House Intelligence oversight committee. The Independent reports that pressure mounted on Trump to create his national security team after James Clapper's resignation. [49]

Affiliations

• Defense Intelligence Agency — Former Director of Intelligence Staff. [50]
• House Intelligence oversight committee — Former Chairman.  [49]

Matthew Freedman - NSC (Fired, replaced by Pence)

Matthew Freedman is the chief executive at Global Impact. He was removed from his post overseeing the National Security Counsil after questions emerged about his lobbying times, reports The New York Times. Matthew Freedom briefly worked for the National Security Council and the Agency for International Development, later working as a security consultant. [51]

Affiliations

• Global Impact — CEO. [52], [53]

Kevin O'Connor - Justice (Since Dismissed)

Kevin O'Connor is a former U.S. attorney and top Justice Departemnt officer. He was one of a number on Trump's transition team who were dismissed with little explanation, although news sources conjecture that it is part of a “apparent purge of anyone tied to New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie.” [54]

Economic Issues

Bill Walton / David Malpass - Economic Issues

Bill Walton is chairman of Rappahannock Ventures, a private equity firm, and the film production company Rush River Entertainment. He is a senior fellow for the Discovery Institute's Center on Wealth, Poverty and Morality and is the chairman of the board and CEO of Allied Capital Corp. [55]

Affiliations

• Discovery Institute—  Senior Fellow, Senior Fellow, Center on Wealth, Poverty and Morality [56]
• Media Research Center (MRC) — Member, Board of Directors. [55]
• American Enterprise Institute —  Former Board Member. [55]
• Financial Services Roundtable— Former Board Member. [55]
• U.S. Chamber of Commerce — Former Board Member. [55]
• DC Federal City Council — Former Board Member. [55]
• Natural Venture Capital Association — Former Board Member[55]
• DCNational Foundation for Teaching Entrepreneurship— Former Board Member. [55]
• Rappahannock Ventures, LLC— Chairman.  [55]
• Rush River Entertainment [55]
• Allied Capital Corporation — Former Chairman of the Board (1997 - 2009) [55]
• Butler Capital Corporation — Former Managing Director. [55]

David Malpass - Treasury

David Malpass is founder and president of the consulting and economics research firm Encima Global. He previously worked at Bear Stearns as chief economist, as controller at Consolidated Supply Co. and maintained a number of appointments in the Reagan and Bush administrations. Malpass ran in the 2010 Republican primary for U.S. Senate in New York. [57]

In an interview with Marketplace, responding to the question of if he thought Trump was capable of changing government, Malpass said: [58]

“Yes, of course, and that's why I'm working on the campaign…. I worked in both the Reagan and Bush administrations. They were effective, they tried to be effective. But overwhelms you when you're there is the number of decisions the federal government is making. [It's] this giant entity that's constantly affecting people's lives. And I think they haven't been making good decisions in the current administration and we need a better one. “

Affiliations

• Enicma Global — Founder and President.  [57]
• Bear Stearns— Former Chief Economist.  [57]
• Manhattan Institute— Board Member. [57]
• Economic Club of New York — Past Director.  [57]
• National Committee on U.S.-China Relations — Past Director.  [57]

Ray Washburn - Commerce

Ray Washburn is a Dallas-based investor, and one of the key people helping to raise money for Trump's campaign. He is the former chairman of Republican National Committee, stepping down to lead New Jersey Governor Chris Christie's finance team. [59], [60], [61]

Affiliations

• Charter Holdings— President and Chief Executive Officer (1990 - ) [62]
• Republican National Committee Inc. — Former National Finance Chairman   [62]
• HP Village Partners Ltd. — Managing Director [62]
• Baylor Health Care System Foundation — Director [62]
• Entrust Inc. — Director since June 5, 2006 [62]
• Veritex Holdings, Inc. — Independent Director since 2009 [62]
• Veritex Community Bank — Director [62]
• Colonial Bank — Director [62]
• Southern Methodist University— Adjunct Professor, Director at Southern Methodist University-21st Century Council [62]

Dan DiMicco - USTR

Dan DiMicco is a board member of Duke Energy and the former President and CEO of Nucor. He continues to represent Nucor on the US Council on Competitiveness and the Coalition for a Prosperous America(CPA). He has also served on the board of the National Association of Manufacturers and on the Executive Committee of the World Steel Association. He has been described as “a leading voice for U.S. manufacturing and the nation's steel industry.” [63]

In 2012, DiMicco sent a letter to a concerned shareholder defending Nucor's support of the Heartland Institute, including many common talking points used in the Heartland Institute's continued denial of climate change. The Heartland Institute also historically defended Tobacco, claiming that smoking risks were “junk science.” 

ThinkProgress reported that DiMicco described $502,000 in contributions by Nucor Corporation as “entirely appropriate,” according to the letter: [64]

The letter was released just two days before the Heartland Institute's disastrous billboard campaign that equated anyone who believes in climate change with the Unabomber and Osama bin Laden. [65]

Affiliations

• Duke Energy — Board Member. [63]
• Nucor — Chairman Emeritus. Former President and CEO.  [63]
• National Association of Manufacturers (NAS) — Former Board Member. [63]
• World Steel Association — Former Board Member. [63]

Paul Atkins - Indepent Financial Agencies

_{Image by Toppersmith (Own work) [CC0], via Wikimedia Commons}

Paul Atkins is the CEO of the financial advisory firm Patomak Global Partners, a Washington-based financial consulting firm. Atkins was an SEC Commissioner from 2002 to 2008. [66]

Affiliations

• Patomak Global Partners — CEO. [66]
• US Securities & Exchange Commission — Commissioner (July 2002 - May 2008). [66]

Christine Toretti - SBA

Christine Toretti is the former Chairman and CEO of the now-defunct S. W. Jack Drilling Co. She serves as Vice Chairman of S&T Bancorp and is a former director of the Pittsburgh Federal Reserve Bank. In September 2016, Toretti announced the “Pennsylvania Women for Trump Statewide Leadership Team.” [67], [68]

Affiliations

• Republican Party of Pennsylvania — National Committeewoman.
• S.W. Jack Drilling Company (Now Defunct) — Former Chairwoman.
• Palladio, LLC— Chairwoman and CEO.
• S&T Bancorp— Director.
• Pittsburgh Federal Bank Reserve — Former Director.
• EQT Corporation — Member, Corporate Governance Committee.
• Women Lead PAC— Founder.

Jeff Eisenach - FCC

Jeffrey Eisenach is the former leader of the now-defunct Progress and Freedom Foundation, and has argued for the FCC to take a hands-off aproach to digital issues. Eisenach is a Visiting Scholar and Director, Center for Internet, Communications, and Technology Policy at the conservative American Enterprise Institute (AEI), a group that has received over $3 million from ExxonMobil and a range of other high-profile conservative funding groups. Eisenach is senior president at NERA Economic Consulting, and an adjunct professor at the George Mason University School of law. [69]

In 2012, Reuters revealed that NERA Economic Consulting was the third party contractor behind an economic impact study on LNG (liquified natural gas) exports on behalf of the Department of Energy. NERA had also published a June 2011 report on behalf of the coal industry group American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity (ACCCE). The ACCCE report concluded that  “clean-air rules proposed by the Obama administration would cost utilities $17.8 billion annually and raise electricity rates 11.5 percent on average in 2016.” [70]

Affiliations

• American Enterprise Institute (AEI) — Visiting Scholar and Director, Center for Internet, Communications, and Technology Policy. Research Associate (1979-1981). [69]
• NERA Economic Consulting — Senior Vice President (January 2013 – Present). [69]
• Navigant Economics LLC— Managing Director and Principal (January 2010 – January 2014). [69]
• George Mason University School of Law— Adjunct Professor (2000-Present). [69]
• Economic Club of Washington— Vice President (2011-Present). [69]
• Pew Project on the Internet and American Life— Board of Advisers (2002-Present). [69]
• Empiris LLC— Chairman (2008-2010). [69]
• Criterion Economics LLC— Chairman (2006-2008). [69]
• The CapAnalysis Group LLC— Chairman (2005-2006). [69]
• The Progress & Freedom Foundation— President (1993-2003). [69]
• Harvard University, John F. Kennedy School of Government — Adjunct Lecturer (1995-1999). [69]
• GOPAC— Executive Director (1991-1993). [69]
• George Mason University — Adjunct Professor (1989). [69]
• Washington Policy Group Inc. — President (1988-1991). [69]
• Pete du Pont for President Inc. — Director of Research (1986-1988). [69]
• Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University— Adjunct Professor (1985, 1988). [69]
• Office of Management and Budget — Executive Assistant to the Director (1985-1986). [69]
• Office of the Chairman, Federal Trade Commission— Special Adviser for Economic Policy and Operations (1984-1985). [69]
• Bureau of Economics, Federal Trade Commission— Economist (1983-1984). [69]
• University of Virginia — Instructor (1983-1984). [69]
• Office of Management and Budget/Presidential Task Force on Regulatory Relief — Special Assistant to James C. Miller III (1981). [69]

Michael Korbey - Social Security Administration

Michael Korbey was a senior advisor to the Social Security Administration under President George W. Bush. Prior to that, he worked for the lobbyist group United Seniors Association. Korbey has spent much of his career advocating for cutting and privatizing Social Security. “It's a failed system, broken and bankrupt,” Korbey said when he was a lobbyist in the mid-1990s. [71]

Affiliations

• The Conservative Caucus— Director of Legislative Affairs. [72]
• The Center for Long-Term Care Reform, Inc. — Director. [73]
• United Seniors Association — Former Lobbyist. [73]

Domestic Issues

Ken Blackwell - Domestic Issues

Ken Blackwell is a senior fellow for human rights and constitutional governance at the Family Research Council, a pro-life group engaged in lobbying and historically opposed to health care reform. Blackwell is a former mayor of Cincinnati, and former Ohio secretary of state and treasurer. [28], [74], [75]

Blackwell had previously spoken against Trump:

 “Donald Trump is an existential threat to conservatism. He is arguably one of the most divisive figures in modern political history and his candidacy represents not only a threat to the Republican Party, Donald Trump is dragging the nation into the political gutter. It's time for conservative voters to open their eyes and understand the nation deserves better than this political huckster.” [76]

Affiliations

• Family Research Council — Senior Fellow. [28]

Mike McKenna - DOE/NRC (Left Post)

Michael McKenna is the president of MWR Strategies. DeSmog reports that McKenna's lobbying career started with an ethics scandal. Before resigning from the administration of Virginia's then-Governor George Allen in 1997, McKenna was implicated in the authorship and distribution of what the Associated Press called a“dirty tricks” memo written in response to a report published by the Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission (JLARC), which had critiqued the Department of Environmental Quality for which McKenna had then served as policy director and spokesman. [77], [78]

McKenna left his post on Trump's Energy Department transition team in November, 2016. “Although I have reluctantly decided that I cannot continue on the transition in an official capacity, I am excited about continuing to work to make America great again,” McKenna said in a November 18 statement. [161]

McKenna currently lobbies for Southern Company, Koch Industries, GDF Suez and Dow Chemical. His past clients have included Past clients have included corporations like American Electric Power, pipeline company El Paso and the National Petrochemical Refiners Association. [77]

Affiliations

• MWR Strategies — President. [79]
• Andres-McKenna Research Group — Former Lobbyist. [80]
• Duke Group — Former Lobbyist. [80]
• Teco Energy — Former Lobbyist. [80]
• Lazarus Group — Former Lobbyist. [80]

Thomas Pyle - DOE

In December, 2016 Thomas Pyle was chosen to head Donald Trump's energy transition team after Mike McKenna stepped down. Pyle's history of lobbying for the oil and gas industry seems to run counter to the “drain the swamp” strategy declared by Trump. Pyle also has a history of opposing renewable energy, describing subsidies for renewables as “perpetuating a cycle of dependency where politicians feed money to industries that then instruct their lobbyists to support those same politicians.” [165]

Pyle revealed more details of the “The Trump Administration's Energy Plan,” including 14 policy proposals, in a December 2016 memo (see PDF), also obtained and published by the Center for Media and Democracy. His proposal included withdrawing from the 2015 Paris Climate agreement, increasing federal oil and natural gas leasing, eliminating the Clean Power Plan, and moving forward with the Keystone XL and Dakota Access pipelines. [162], [163], [164]

OpenSecrets.org describes the “revolving door” of Thomas Pyle's employment history: [166]

• American Energy Alliance (AEA) — President (2008 - present)
• Institute for Energy Research (IER) — President (2008 - Present)
• Pyle Consulting — Founder & President
• Rhoads Group — Vice President
• Perceptum Consulting
• Koch Industries — Director, Federal Affairs
• House Majority Whip (Tom DeLay) — Policy Analysis (1999 - 2001)
• House Western Caucus — Staff Director

Myron Ebell - EPA

Donald Trump chose key climate change denier Myron Ebell of the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) to oversee his “EPA Transition Team.” [81], [82]

Myron Ebell is the chair of the Cooler Heads Coalition, a group of organizations “that question global warming alarmism and oppose energy rationing policies.” Ebell has celebrated his poor track record with environmental groups, as evidenced in a biography (PDF) submitted before his testimony in Congress that noted he and three of his CEI colleagues were featured in “A Field Guide to Climate Criminals” distributed at the UN climate meeting in Montreal in December 2005. Ebell was also listed as one of the six top “Misleaders” by Rolling Stone magazine. [83]

Affiliations

• Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) — “Director of energy and global warming policy.” [84]
• Cooler Heads Coalition (CHC) — Chair.  [84]
• Freedom Action — Executive Director. [85]
• Heartland Institute — “Expert” and regular ICCC speaker. [86]

Steve Hart - Labor

Steve Hart is the the chairman of Williams & Jensen, a Washington, D.C.-based “government affairs firm” that lobbies for big businesses with a client list including Visa, the American Council of Life Insurers, Anthem, Cheniere Energy, Coca-Cola, General Electric, HSBC, Pfixer, PhRMA and United Airlines. Hart previously worked at the Labor Department in the Pension Welfare Benefits Program and on the Office of Management and Budget's ERISA Reorganization Task Force under Ronald Reagan. [87]

Affiliations

• Williams & Jensen — Chairman. [87]

Andrew Bremberg - HHS

Andrew Bremberg previously served as policy director for Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker's presidential campaign. Prior to that, he worked at the federal healthcare agency under President George W. Bush administration. Bremberg is currently Policy Advisor and Counsel on Nominations for U.S. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell.  [88]

Shirley Yharra - DOT

Shirley Yharra is a former Virginia secretary of transportation, and worked in federal transportion during the Reagan Administration. She is a former senior transportation policy analyst  at the conservative Reason Foundation. Ybarra also served as senior policy advisor and special assistant for policy for U.S. Secretary of Transportation Elizabeth Dole from 1983 to 1987. [89], [90]

Affiliations

• Reason Foundation— Former senior transportation policy analyst. [89]

B. Evers/ J. Manning - Education

Williamson (Bill) Evers (Education Lead) is a Research Fellow at the Hoover Institution and a member of their K-12 Education Task Force. He was the US assistant secretary of education for policy from 2007 to 2009. Evers served in Iraq as a senior adviser for education to Administrator L. Paul Bremer of the Coalition Provisional Authority. [91], [92]

James F. Manning (Education Deputy) was chief of staff to Deputy Education Bill Hansen during the George W. Bush administration. Manning was also an official at the Office of Federal Student Aid during the first several years of the Obama administration. [93]

David Bernhardt - Interior

David Bernhardt represents large energy companies at the nation's second-largest lobbying firm, Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck. He was the Interior Department's solicitor, deputy solicitor, deputy chief of staff, counselor to the secretary of the Interior and director of the Office of Congressional and Legislative Affairs under George W. Bush. [94], [95]

Affiliations

• Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck —  Co-chair of the firm’s Natural Resources Department. [95]

Michael Torrey - Agriculture

Michael Torrey runs his own lobbying firm, specializing in “food, agriculture, risk management and financial services.” He is a former advisor to Senate Majority Leader Bobe Dole, and to Senators Nancy Landon Kassebaum and Sheila Frahm, deputy chief of staff at USDA. Torrey has lobbied for a number of big businesses including  the American Beverage Association, Dean Foods, and the Crop Insurance and Reinsurance Bureau. [96], [97]

Affiliations

• Michael Torrey Associates — Principal and Founder. [96]
• USDA— Former Deputy Chief of Staff. [96]
• Commodity Future Trading Commission — Former Special Assistant. [96]

Management/Budget

Ed Meese & Kay Coles James — Management/Budget

Ed Meese, former Attorney General, was a long-time aide to Ronald Reagan. Meese was a critic of Donald Trump's candidacy for presidency, Politico reports. In January, Meese had written that Trump's “broadsides” against fellow GOP candidates had served “to divide and discourage potential Republican-party supporters.” Meese is associated with a range of public policy councils and think tanks including the Heritage Foundation, Hoover Institution, and the Federalist Soceity. [98], [99]

Affilations

• The Heritage Foundation— Chairman of Heritage’s Center for Legal and Judicial Studies from its founding in 2001 until what he calls his “semi-retirement” on Feb. 1, 2013. The Heritage Foundation's legal center now bears Meese's name. [100]
• Hoover Institution — Distinguished visiting fellow. [101]
• The Federalist Society — Member, Board of Directors. [102]

P. Winfree / L. Springer - OMB

Paul Winfreewas formerly listed as  director of the Thomas A. Roe Institute for Economic Policy Studies at The Heritage Foundation, and the conservative think tank's Richard F. Aster fellow. He was previously a senior policy analyst in Heritage’s Center for Data Analysis. [103]

Affiliations

• The Heritage Foundation —  Thomas A. Roe Institute for Economic Policy Studies.

Linda Springeris the eighth Director of the United States Office of Personnel Management. Prior to her career in public service, Springer was Senior Vice President and Controller at Provident Mutual and Vice President and Product Manager at Penn Mutual Life Insurance Company. [104]

Kay Coles James - OPM

Kay Coles James is a former director of the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM). She was President Bush's principal advisor in matters of personnel administration. Prior to her appointment under George W. Bush, she served under Virginia Secretary of Health and Human Resources under then-Governor George Allen. She is the President and Founder of the Gloucester Institute. [105], [106]

She is the former senior vice president of the Family Research Council,  a Christian pro-life group and lobbying organization. Fellow transition team member Ken Blackwell also has ties to the Family Research Council. [107]

Agency Transform & Innovation

Beth Kaufman/Jonathan Beck

Other Team Members

Ado Machida — Executive Actions, Regulations, and Immigration Transition Team. 

Ado Machida joined the Executive Actions, Regulations, and Immigration Transition Team. Machida previously served as deputy assistant to the vice president and Director of the Office of Domestic Policy under Vice President Dick Cheney from 2002-2003. Prior to working under Bush, Machida was a lobbyist for Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld; Kaizen Strategy Group; and BAE Systems, where he lobbied for major companies such as American Airlines, Time Warner, Walgreens, AT&T, Honeywell, Lucent Technologies, and several Native American tribes, reports Politico.  [108]

Affiliations

• International Stability Operations Association ISOA— President (2013 - present). [109]
• The Kaizen Strategy Group, LLC— Former President (2012 - 2013). [109]
• BAE Systems— Vice President, Government Relations (2009 - 2011). [109]
• The Kaizen Strategy Group, LLC— President and Managing Principal (2007 - 2009). [109]
• Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP— Partner (2004 - 2006). [109]
• The White House— Deputy Assistant to the Vice President, Director, Office of Domestic Policy, OVP. [109]
• The Larson Company — General Manager, Corporate Strategy. [109]
• Goldman Sachs —  Financial Analyst (1986 - 1989). [109]

David Schnare - EPA

David Schnare is also on Trump's EPA transition team, reports The Guardian. Schnare is general counsel to the Energy and Environment Legal Institute (formerly the American Tradition Institute), a group which regularly opposes efforts to combat climate change. Schnare recently launched a number of Freedom of Information Act Requests with state attorneys general who had been investigating ExxonMobil's knowledge of climate change. [139], [140]

The Energy and Environment Legal Institute has noted fossil fuel industry ties. It was listed in Arch Coal's 2015 bankruptcy documents as a creditor, and the group's other lawyers, Chris Horner, was directly funded by the coal company Alpha Natural Resources. [141], [142]

Affiliations

• Energy and Environment Legal Institute (Formerly American Tradition Institute)— General Counsel. [143]
• Thomas Jefferson Institute for Public Policy— Senior Fellow for Energy and the Environment. [144]
• The Heartland Institute — “Expert.” [145]

Steven Groves — Department of State 'Landing Team'

On November 21, 2016, news broke that Steven Groves would lead Trump's Department of State “landing team.” Groves is the Bernard and Barbara Lomas Senior Research Fellow at the Heritage foundation's Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom. Groves previously worked as senior counsel to the U.S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations and as an associate at Boies, Schiller & Flexner LLP, specializing in commercial litigation. [146], [147]

In an article Groves co-wrote at The Daily Signal just days before the announcement he was joining the Trump team, he outlined steps that the new administration should take to “unwind” the Paris climate agreement including “ Withdraw from the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change,” “Dismantle domestic regulations that are all economic pain, no climate benefit,” and “Prohibit taxpayer funding” to green projects. [148]

Affiliations

• The Heritage Foundation— Bernard and Barbara Lomas Senior Research Fellow. [147]
• U.S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations — Former Senior Counsel. [147]
•  Boies, Schiller & Flexner LLP— Former Associate. [147]

“Shadow Transition Team”

Politico reports that the Heritage Foundation has emerged as one of the most influential forces behind Donald Trump's transition team. [159]

“Part gatekeeper, part brain trust and part boots on the ground, Heritage is both a major presence on the transition team itself and a crucial conduit between Trump’s orbit and the once-skeptical conservative leaders who ultimately helped get him elected,” Politco's Katie Glueck writes.  [159]

Three sources with conservative groups said that Heritage employees were tracking resumes, looking to staff Trump's administration with conservative appointees. One source described the effort as a “shadow transition team” and “an effort to have the right kind of people in there.”  [159]

The transition team is being assisted from Heritage officials including:  [159]

• Becky Norton Dunlop, distinguished fellow at Heritage 
• Ed Meese, distinguished fellow emeritus
• James Carafano, Heritage national security expert
• Ed Feulner, founding trustee
• Rebekah Mercer, Heritage board member

A source reported that Rebekah Mercer had also been working with Heritage to recruit appointees for positions at the undersecretary level and below.  [159]

Economic Advisory Council

Time  reported on an initial list of Trump's Economic Advisors on August 5, 2016: According to an August 11 Press release, Trump had expanded his Economic Advisory Team to include a number of new members. The combined lists are below: [110], [111]

Kathleen Hartnett-White

Kathleen Hartnett-White is the director of the Armstrong Center for Energy & the Environment at the Texas Public Policy Foundation (TPPF), a group funded by ExxonMobil, Koch network, and RJ Reynolds. Hartnett-White directors the TPPF's “Fueling Freedom” project which seeks to “Explain the forgotten moral case for fossil fuels” while “building a multi-state coalition to push back against the EPA’s unconstitutional efforts to take over the electric power sector by regulating CO2 via the Clean Power Plan” as well as “End the regulation of CO2 as a pollutant.”  [112], [113], [114]

Prior to her work at the TPPF, Hartnett-White worked as Chairman and Commissioner of the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ). Prior to 2001, she served as then-Governor George W. Bush's appointee to the Texas Water Development Board. She is also member of the Advisory Committee for the CO2 Coalition, formerly known as the George C. Marshall Institute. The CO2 Coalition's tag line is “Carbon dioxide, a nutrient vital for life,” and seeks to highlight “well-established uncertainties, the limitations of climate models, and the consequences of mandated reductions in CO2 emissions.” [115]

Affiliations

• Texas Public Policy Foundation — Senior fellow-in-residence. Director, Armstrong Center for Energy & the Environment. [116]
• CO2 Coalition — Membor, Advisory Committee. [115]
• The Fueling Freedom Project — Director. [114]

Other Economic Advisory Council Members include:

• Diane Hendricks
• Darlene Jordan
• Betsy McCaughey
• Brooke Rollins
• Anthony Scaramucci 
• Carla Sands
• Judy Shelton
• Liz Uihlein

Stephen Moore

Stephen Moore is the founder and former President of the Club for Growth and currently a visiting fellow at the “arch-conservative“ Heritage Foundation. Moore has held a wide range of positions at conservative think tanks including the Cato Institute (former senior fellow), the Media Research Center (former advisor), and Donors Capital Fund (former director). Stephen Moore, who has called climate change “climate improvement,” has repeatedly cited the debunked Oregon Petition as well as Bjorn Lomborg's “Copenhagen Consensus” to suggest there is still a debate on climate science. More has also called anyone who believes in man-made climate change “Stalinistic.” [117], [118], [119]

Affiliations

• Club for Growth — Founder, Former President & CEO (1999 - January 2005). [120]
• Heritage Foundation — Distinguished Visiting Fellow, Project for Economic Growth (2014 -). Former Grover M. Hermann Fellow in Budgetary Affairs (1984 - 1987). [121]
• Cato Institute — Former Director of Fiscal Policy Studies and Former Senior Fellow. [122]
• Media Research Center (MRC) — Former Member of the Board of Advisers, Free Market Project. Note that the Free Market Project is now the Business & Media Institute (BMI). [123], [124]
• Institute for Policy Innovation (IPI) — Former Senior Research Fellow for the IPI Center for Economic Growth [125]
• National Review — Former Contributing Editor. [126]
• Virginia Institute for Public Policy (VIPP) — Former Member, Board of Governors. [127]
• Donors Capital Fund — Former Director (as of 2010). [128]
• American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) — Former member, Board of Scholars. [129]
• Searle Freedom Trust — Grant Advisor. [130]
• Alexis de Tocqueville Institution — Former adjunct scholar. [131]
• Dick Armey (R-TX) — Former Advisor and Senior Economist on the Joint Economic Committee of the U.S. Congress. [132]
• Hoover Institution — Former Visiting Scholar. [133]
• National Economic Commission — Former Consultant (1987). [134]
• President Ronald Reagan's Commission on Privatization — Former Research Director. [134]
• Wall Street Journal — Former member, Editorial Board. [135]
• Time magazine — Former Member, Economic Board of Directors. [125]

Other Economic Advisory Team Members Include:

Tom Barrack
Andy Beal
Stephen M. Calk
Dan DiMicco
Steve Feinberg
Dan Kowalski
Howard M. Lorber
David Malpass
Steven Mnuchin
Peter Navarro
John Paulson
Steven Roth

Affiliations

Donald Trump's Financial Disclosure Report (PDF) lists Trump's connections to over five hundred companies. [20]

Ethics lawyers who had worked for President George W. Bush, presidential candidates Bob Dole, John Kerry, John McCain and Mitt Romney, and New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg toldCNNMoneythat Trump would have more potential conflicts of interest due to his businesses than any other former president. [136]

“This is certainly going to present an unprecedented ethical dilemma if Trump wins,” said Kenneth Gross, a partner at Skadden Arps Slate Meagher & Flom, who provided legal assistance to several presidential candidates during their campaigns. “He can't just get amnesia. He's stuck with the knowledge of what he owns.”

In November 2016, Congresswoman Katherine Clark introduced legislation (H.R. 6340) that would require U.S. Presidents to resolve any conflicts of interest with regard to financial interests. While current law prohibits federal office holders from engaging in government business when they could gain a profit, the President and Vice President are excempt from that statute. [137]

Publications

Books written by Donald Trump include:

• The Art of the Deal (1987), co-written with Tony Schwartz, ISBN 978-0-345-47917-4
• Surviving at the Top (1990), ISBN 978-0-394-57597-1
• The Art of Survival (1991), ISBN 978-0-446-36209-2
• The Art of the Comeback (1997), co-written with Kate Bohner, ISBN 978-0-8129-2964-5
• The America We Deserve (2000), with Dave Shiflett, ISBN 1-58063-131-2
• How to Get Rich (2004), ISBN 978-0-345-48103-0
• The Way to the Top: The Best Business Advice I Ever Received (2004), ISBN 978-1-4000-5016-1
• Think Like a Billionaire: Everything You Need to Know About Success, Real Estate, and Life (2004), ISBN 978-0-345-48140-5
• The Best Golf Advice I Ever Received (2005), ISBN 978-0-307-20999-3
• Why We Want You to be Rich: Two Men – One Message (2006), co-written with Robert Kiyosaki, ISBN 978-1-933914-02-2
• Think Big and Kick Ass in Business and Life (2007), co-written with Bill Zanker, ISBN 978-0-06-154783-6
• The Best Real Estate Advice I Ever Received: 100 Top Experts Share Their Strategies (2007), ISBN 978-1-4016-0255-0
• Trump 101: The Way to Success (2007), ISBN 978-0-470-04710-1
• Never Give Up: How I Turned My Biggest Challenges into Success (2008), ISBN 978-0-470-19084-5
• Think Like a Champion: An Informal Education in Business and Life (2009), ISBN 978-0-7624-3856-3
• Midas Touch: Why Some Entrepreneurs Get Rich – and Why Most Don't (2011), co-written with Robert T. Kiyosaki, ISBN 978-1-61268-095-8
• Time to Get Tough: Making America No. 1 Again (2011), ISBN 978-1-59698-773-9
• Crippled America: How to Make America Great Again (2015), ISBN 978-1-5011-3796-9
• Great Again: How to Fix Our Crippled America (2016), ISBN 978-1-5011-3800-3

DeSmog Reporting on Trump

• “Kochs Control Trump-Puppet Through Appointees,” DeSmog (Guest Post), November 22, 2016.
• Carol Linnitt. “Earth to America: Trump’s Not the Centre of the Universe (Or the Climate),“ DeSmog, November 17, 2016.
• Steve Horn. “Drain the Swamp? Mike McKenna, Head of Trump Energy Team, Began Lobbying Career with Ethics Scandal,” DeSmog, November 16, 2016.
• Mat Hope. “Climate Science Deniers With Organization of Donald Trump’s EPA Pick Booted From UN Marrakech COP22 Talks,” DeSmog, November 16, 2016. 
• “What President Trump Means for the Future of Energy and Climate,” DeSmog (Guest Post), November 15, 2016.
• “#StaffTheSwamp: Anti-Establishment Trump Choosing Establishment Staff,” DeSmog (Guest Post), November 11, 2016.
• Kai Nagata. “Trump's Win Contains Lessons for Canada's Environmental Battles,“ DeSmog, November 11, 2016.
• Graham Readfearn. “Donald Trump’s Victory A Major Win For Fossil Fuel Interests and Climate Science Deniers As Countries Gather for UN Talks,” DeSmog, November 9, 2016.
• Farron Cousins. “Planet Earth Is The Real Loser Of The US Elections,” DeSmog, November 9, 2016.
• Steve Horn. “Koch Industries and Fracking Lobbyist Mike Catanzaro To Lead Trump Energy Team,” DeSmog, October 4, 2016.
• Steve Horn. “Trump Economic Adviser 'Pushing' for Climate Denier and Fossil Fuel Apologist to Head EPA,” DeSmog, September 29, 2016.
• Graham Readfearn. “Climate Science Denialist Myron Ebell Named As Trump Adviser As Debate Skirts Climate,” DeSmog, September 27, 2016.
• Sharon Kelly. “Trump Touts Drilling's Potential, Botches Facts, at Shale Industry Conference,” DeSmog, September 23, 2016.
• Steve Horn. “Company Led by Donald Trump's Energy Aide Says Its Oil Will Flow Through Dakota Access Pipeline,” DeSmog, September 6, 2016.
• Farron Cousins. “Donald Trump Lays Out Disastrous Energy Plan, Denies Climate Science Again,” DeSmog, May 26, 2016.
• “Brexiters, Climate Deniers and Trump: A Small World,” DeSmog (Guest Post), June 27, 2016.
• Steve Horn. “Donald Trump's Top Energy Aide Could Profit From GOP-Promised Keystone XL Permit,” DeSmog, July 26, 2016.
• Farron Cousins. “Climate Activists And Labor Unions Unite To Stop Donald Trump,” DeSmog, July 19, 2016.
• Farron Cousins. “Environmental Groups United To Fight Donald Trump,” DeSmog, June 14, 2016.
• “'Other People’s Money'– Trump University and Coal Exports,” DeSmog (Guest Post), June 6, 2016.
• “Trump Building Wall in Ireland to Keep Climate Change Out,“ DeSmog (Guest Post), May 26, 2016.
• Steve Horn. “Holy Gas: Donald Trump's Foreign Policy Team Member Pushed Offshore Drilling in Israel,” DeSmog, March 29, 2016.

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