Liberals worry over Trump's EPA pick


President-elect Donald Trump filled four top White House positions on Wednesday, provoking particular outcry on the left over his appointment of Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt, a climate change skeptic, to head the Environmental Protection Agency. "The EPA is gonna be run by the man who maybe hates the EPA the most in America," The Atlantic's Vann R. Newkirk II wrote. The Sierra Club said putting Pruitt in charge of the EPA was like "putting an arsonist in charge of fighting fires."
Outgoing Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid also criticized Trump's Cabinet: "We can go through the list of people he's already chosen and it's, quite frankly, scary," Reid told David Axelrod on The Axe Files podcast.
On Wednesday, Trump also picked co-founder and former CEO of World Wrestling Entertainment Linda McMahon to head the Small Business Administration, Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad (R) to be the U.S. ambassador to China, and retired Marine Gen. John Kelly to be secretary of homeland security.
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Jeva Lange was the executive editor at TheWeek.com. She formerly served as The Week's deputy editor and culture critic. She is also a contributor to Screen Slate, and her writing has appeared in The New York Daily News, The Awl, Vice, and Gothamist, among other publications. Jeva lives in New York City. Follow her on Twitter.
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