Capito Questions EPA Nominee on "Resist Capitalism" Tweet

Press Release

U.S. Senator Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.), Ranking Member of the Environment and Public Works (EPW) Committee, today participated in a hearing on three Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) nominees: Amanda Howe to be Assistant Administrator for Mission Support; David Uhlmann to be EPA's Assistant Administrator for Enforcement and Compliance Assurance; and Carlton Waterhouse to be Assistant Administrator of Land and Emergency Management.

HIGHLIGHTS:

ACTIVIST NOMINEES: "I'm from an energy-producing state, and you have a wide variety of experience in a lot of different areas. As you would imagine, my staff and others have looked through your Twitter feed and I have a couple questions. One is a tweet you tweeted in 2015 when you said, "The ugly truth about energy. The ends don't justify the means." And then you hashtagged a bunch of things, one of which was #ResistCapitalism…You are going to be dealing in your position with a lot of private entities…What does "Resist Capitalism' mean to you and how would that interplay with what you would be doing? What does it mean when you say energy ends don't justify the means?"

PUSHING CLEAN ENERGY STANDARD? "You had written a paper about an environmental agenda for the Obama administration that advocated for a federal Clean Energy Standard--this is very topical right now--and a carbon tax. It also excluded any kind of carbon capture, nuclear, or other kinds of energies that would count towards a clean energy standard. How do you think those opinions would play into this position as an enforcement and compliance officer, chief of that area?"

SHIFT FROM CAMPAIGNS TO BUREAUCRACY: "I mentioned in my opening statement that you had high-level roles in electoral politics…If we could just get a little bit more on making that shift from a political position into a federal agency in a managerial sense of environmental policies. What attracts you to that?"

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