Milloy has been manufacturing fear, uncertainty, and doubt for dirty industries since he helped the tobacco industries continue addicting and killing customers in the 1990s.

Steven J. Milloy (image credit: Fox News)

Not only did Donald tap Myron Ebell, a denier of the reality of industrial climate disruption^{Note 1} who is associated with the libertarian Competitive Enterprise Institute, to lead his EPA transition team, but Steve Milloy was one of the members of the team as well.

Milloy is not be a household name, but he’s long been known as a liar-for-hire who is willing to sell his dishonesty to any dirty industry facing regulations that might curtail their profits, especially the tobacco industry, the agriculture industry, and the energy industry. I personally have been aware of Milloy since 2007, when I first stumbled across a “survey” that he had created in order to manufacture fear, uncertainty, and doubt (FUD) about the reality of industrial climate disruption.

Milloy got his start lying about the dangers of second-hand smoke, an act that has indirectly abetted the deaths of tens if not hundreds of thousands of people from lung cancer. This fact alone should have made him radioactive to any organization, never mind a Presidency. Yet he’s been employed by Fox News and Massey Energy, among others. Milloy called for the National Science Foundation to independently investigate allegations of scientific misconduct against Penn State climate scientist Michael Mann, yet when the NSF investigation found no evidence of misconduct, Milloy hypocritically called the NSF investigation a “whitewash.” And I’ve conclusively demonstrated, using Milloy’s own words, that he’s either incompetent or a liar.

Given how successful he’s been at manufacturing FUD on behalf of Syngenta, Phillip-Morris, and others over the years, I think it’s probably fair to say that Milloy is actually quite competent.

Supposed insiders are claiming that the EPA’s budget will be cut by about a quarter in order to help fund Donald’s $54 billion increase in “national security” spending. Scott Pruitt, Donald’s new EPA Administrator, is planning on rolling back as many EPA regulations as he can, regulations that have cleaned up America’s air and water since the EPA was founded in 1970. As he does so, he’ll be implementing a plan created in part by a proven liar and hypocrite who has no moral qualms working on behalf of industries that poison our air and water and that kill people both slowly and quickly.

That Milloy had anything to do with drafting the plan for the EPA’s future under Donald is one of the most disturbing things I’ve yet heard out of the Administration.

For a detailed review of everything S&R has written about Milloy’s background, hypocrisy, and dishonesty, read all of these links. Some are linked in the text above as well.

Notes

1. Industrial climate disruption, also known as global warming or anthropogenic climate change, is the scientific theory that the global climate is changing, that the emission of greenhouse gases (especially carbon dioxide) by human industry is the dominant driver of those changes, and that the changes will be disruptive to both human society and global ecology.