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| South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem is Trumps not so good pick for head of Homeland Security and FEMA |
Earlier on, Trump picked a climate denier, Chris Wright, to be energy secretary. Later on, we got a couple more not so great for the environment picks.
Predictable but not good.
KRISTI NOEM
Trump has picked South Dakota Go. Kristi Noem to run the Department of Homeland Security, which also oversees FEMA.
That agency distributes billions annually for disaster recovery. With more and more people benign the way when disaster strikes, and climate change intensifying storms, this is an increasingly critical federal role, and one that will take someone willing to live in a world of reality when it comes to climate change.
Judging from press reports, Noem is not up to the job.
Back on December 4, the Washington Post has a damning piece comparing Kristi Noem's performance with that of Iowa during and just after a catastrophic flood event that straddled the two states on June 23
To summarize the article, Noem appeared to drag her feet in both activating responders, and then seeking FEMA help from Washington. She was more into posturing for Trump and MAGA apparently.
"After spending million of taxpayers dollars to send South Dakota National Guard soldiers to the Mexico border, Noem did not deploy them to help prepare for the flood or cope with the aftermath. And she waited more than a month to ask President Joe Biden for a disaster declaration, leaving victims without access to federal assistance during crucial period of recovery and rebuilding."
Meanwhile, In Iowa, Gov. Kim Reynolds, also a very conservative governor and another fan girl of Trump, was right top of the disaster
Reynolds "oversaw a dramatically different response to the same flood just a few miles away. Reynolds immediately deployed the Iowa National Guard and requested a presidential disaster declaration before the floods had ended - a request that Biden approved the next day," reports WaPo.
Meanwhile, Noem busied herself with performance art, sending members of the South Dakota National Guard to the Mexican border as props to "prove" President Biden's supposed failed border policies and to prop up Trump's claim that he was somehow our savior from "invasions" of illegal aliens. Or something like that.
Noem spent more than $1.3 million in South Dakota state funds through February to conduct this show.
Even some Republicans in South Dakota were pretty aghast at Noem. Lee Schoenbeck, Republican president pro temper of the South Dakota State Senate, wrote on X, formerly Twitter:
"Gov. Kristi Noem sent troops to Texas and billed us, South Dakota taxpayer, BUT Noem said it's too expensive to use our guard to help our taxpayers fight a flood......Explain this hypocrisy???"
Noem is also known to be skeptical at best regarding climate change and declined to take federal climate money for South Dakota. This also doesn't bode well in an age in which climate change is accelerated destructive storms and more and more people live in areas prone to storm surges, hurricanes, wildfires and other disasters.
As Politico reports, Noem is one of only five governors who wouldn't accept EPA planning grants that the Biden administration offered every state to help deal with climate pollution.
And she was the only governor to opt out a new $4 billion Energy Department program that sends money to states. That one is in turn distributed to residents for rebates on energy efficient home improvements and appliances.
South Dakota's $69 million share would have been one of the largest amounts per capita in the United States, says Politico.
Politico also lists other troubling climate policies and moves by Noem. She was among 15 Republican governors who protested a move by the Securities and Exchange Commission to disclose their risks from climate change. She was also part of a lawsuit seeking to stop the Biden administration from putting a price on the social cost of carbon emissions, though that lawsuit was dismissed.
LEE ZELDIN
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| Lee Zeldin has been picked by Trump to be EPA administrator. Bad, but maybe not as bad as the ones from his first administration> |
As the Washington Post describes it, Zeldin was once a moderate Republican who backed protections of wildlife habitat from development.
Now, like so many Republicans who drank the Kool Aid, he's full MAGA.
Zeldin has said, "We will restore US energy dominance, revitalize our auto industry to bring back American jobs ,and the make the US. the global leader of AI. We will do so while protecting access to clean air and water."
While keeping the United States' economy strong is a good thing, the outline he gave us there is the some of the most energy sucking, and potentially the most fossil fuel-using agenda you can come up with.
More evidence hat Zeldin's environmentalism, such as it is, does not include combating climate change.
Trump has vowed to eliminate environmental rules that the make the fossil fuel industry faint dramatically onto the couch because those regulations are supposedly far too burdensome to bear.
Zeldin never used to be this way, but like so many Republicans, he's suddenly clinging to Trump for dear life. His past isn't horrible, but we'll see how he does if the Senate confirms his nomination.
When he was in the House from 2015-2023, Zeldin joined the House Climate Solutions Caucus, a group of Republicans who actually thought the GOP should play a greater role in climate policy debates. So yay!
Zeldin also in those days opposed Trump's idea to open up the East Coast to offshore oil drilling. Zeldin, from Long Island, reasonably worried an oil spill would wreck the important tourism industry there.
Or not. That seems to have gone by the wayside.
Zeldin has since pledged to embrace Trump's drill, baby, drill approach to fossil fuels.
Still, he might be better than the two EPA administrators during Trump's first administration. Scott Pruitt, as Oklahoma Attorney General before his stint, sued the EPA fourteen times. He resigned from his EPA position in 2018 amid a series of ethics scandals.
Andrew Wheeler, who had been a coal industry lobbyist before Trump picked him, took over for Pruitt.
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