A brief word to liberal activists: you won’t have much luck using White House petitions to protest President-elect Donald Trump.
The “We the People” petitions website operated by the White House removed a petition Tuesday afternoon for Trump to oust climate-change skeptic Myron Ebell from his transition team. The petition had nearly received 100,000 signatures, the threshold for receiving a response from the White House.
“Petition has been closed,” the link stated Wednesday. “The petition you are trying to access has been removed from the site per our Moderation Policy, because it was in violation of our Terms of Participation.”
So what gives? The White House said Wednesday the “We the People” platform is intended to address federal policy decisions, not personnel decisions made by an incoming administration. Bottom line: Trump’s team is off-limits for the site.
As a reminder, Ebell is a director with Washington, D.C.’s Competitive Enterprise Institute who is known for his denial of climate change and his disdain for the Environmental Protection Agency, whose future he’s now planning as part of Trump’s transition.
As The Post reported Friday:
“Ebell has argued for opening up more federal lands for logging, oil and gas exploration and coal mining, and for turning over more permitting authority to the states. And he has urged the Senate to vote to reject an international climate accord signed last year in Paris . . .”
Ebell, who is not a scientist, has long questioned the overwhelming scientific consensus that human activity is fueling unprecedented global warming. He also has staunchly opposed what he calls energy rationing, instead arguing that the United States should unleash the full power of coal, oil and gas to fuel economic growth and job creation.
All that makes him an ideal ambassador for Trump, who has repeatedly called the notion of man-made climate change a “hoax.”
(c) 2016, The Washington Post ยท Elise Viebeck, Brady Dennis
