Fossil energy evangelist Alex Epstein hit the high notes for petroleum in a half-hour meeting with EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin, according to documents viewed by POLITICO’s E&E News.
Among Epstein’s proposals: Consider “potential public health harms” of environmental regulations. Stop using a scientific model to project climate impacts. Revisit EPA’s landmark finding that climate change threatens human health.
The founder of the for-profit think tank Center for Industrial Progress, Epstein is known for downplaying the dangers of climate change and maintaining that using more fossil fuels will benefit humanity. His March meeting with Zeldin, first reported by E&E News, covered ideas such as eliminating references to climate change as a “crisis” and proposed changing how EPA calculates regulatory costs and benefits.
The suggestions are “very detailed, prescribing all these actions that both EPA and other agencies could take,” said Rachel Santarsiero, director of the Climate Change Transparency Project at George Washington University’s National Security Archive.
