President-elect Donald Trump’s pick to lead the Environmental Protection Agency will slash draconian regulations hindering coal, according to one of the biggest coal providers in the country.
Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt, who is pegged to become the new head of the EPA, will send regulations back to the “radical environmentalists” who wrote them, Robert Murray, the lead executive at Murray Energy Corporation, told reporters Friday.
Murray also said he can’t wait for un-elected EPA officials to get the pink slip.
The Oklahoma attorney general will “do what needs to be done at the EPA — to cut the numbers of bureaucrats there who have done nothing but write regulations daily, and send them back to the radical environmentalists who wrote them,” Murray said.
Murray, a long time Trump supporter, believes reducing regulations will help the coal industry once renewable energy subsidies promulgated by the Obama administration start to phase out.
“We’re paying taxes to manufacture windmills. You give me billions of dollars, and I’ll create jobs,” he said about the possibility of having his tax burden reduced.
The U.S. government currently pays out $2.2 billion in tax incentives to the renewable energy industry, and more than $1 billion to the solar industry. Their incentives are set to phase out by 2022.
The Republican donor and outspoken critic of President Barack Obama’s coal regulations, told reporters in May that Trump would be “good for coal.” Trump made coal a major part of his campaign, building on past statements he’s made about getting rid of the EPA.
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