President-elect Donald Trump's latest picks alarm environmental lobby
The President-elect's choice for head of the Environmental Protection Agency has been labelled a "fossil fuel industry puppet".
Thursday 8 December 2016 01:33, UK
If environmentalists were hoping that Donald Trump might change his tune on global warming, they have just been severely disappointed.
The President-elect has picked Oklahoma attorney-general Scott Pruitt to lead the Environmental Protection Agency.
That is the same Oklahoma attorney-general Scott Pruitt who has repeatedly sued the Environmental Protection Agency.
Mr Pruitt has been an outspoken critic of President Barack Obama's environmental policies, in particular the Clean Power Plan to cut industrial emissions.
He will now be working for a man who caused plenty of alarm on the campaign trail, threatening to ditch regulations protecting the environment and tackling climate change. Famously, he was quoted as saying climate change was a hoax invented by the Chinese.
Mr Trump has, of course, rowed back on a few of his campaign threats since Election Day.
And environmentalists might have been buoyed by Monday's meeting between Trump and former vice-president Al Gore.
"An extremely interesting conversation and to be continued," said Mr Gore.
Mr Trump has also hinted in interviews that he might actually support global climate deals.
So Mr Pruitt's appointment has been a jolt for the environmental lobby.
"You couldn't pick a better fossil fuel industry puppet," said May Boeve, executive director of the group 350.org.
"Pruitt's appointment reveals Trump's climate flip-flopping and meetings with Gore as nothing more than a smokescreen."
The group labelled Mr Pruitt as a climate change denier.
One of the largest US environmental groups, the Sierra Club, says it has enrolled more new members since November's election than in the previous full year. It says people are worried about Trump's plans.
Just as worrying then is that Rex Tillerson, chief executive of oil and gas giant ExxonMobil, is one of the candidates for the job of Secretary of State.
It all raises the prospect of a monumental battle between the environmental lobby and the Trump administration when it takes office.
Before that can happen, of course, this most extraordinary presidential transition in American history must be completed, and another of Mr Trump's picks has prompted widespread surprise.
Terry Branstad, currently the governor of Iowa, has been chosen to serve as the US ambassador to China, the country with which Mr Trump has all but promised a trade war.
Mr Branstad is an old friend of Chinese president Xi Jinping, from the days decades ago when Xi toured Iowa's agricultural businesses.
Analysts say no-one should mistake this as a softening of Mr Trump's posture towards China.
Rather he will have a reliable and friendly messenger for what is expected to be an uncompromising approach to Beijing.