Vocal climate change denier to replace Tillerson as secretary of state

Mark Taylor/Flickr

In the White House’s continued game of musical chairs, another top-level official has been ousted and replaced with an egregious climate change denier. When the president fired Secretary of State Rex Tillerson (via Twitter) and nominated current CIA director Mike Pompeo to take over, he tapped a staunch Trump supporter, former Tea Party congressman, and someone who once said “There are scientists who think lots of different things about climate change. There’s some who think we’re warming. There’s some who think we’re cooling. There’s some who think that the last 16 years have shown a pretty stable climate environment.” Oof. Former oil-exec Tillerson, who scrubbed the State Department website of references to climate change but supported the Paris Agreement, at least had a mixed record on the environment. Pompeo, who called the Paris accord a “costly burden,” is the all-time largest recipient of campaign money from Koch Industries. Just when you thought it couldn’t get worse.

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