Below is what happened on Trump's twentieth day in office. You can find out what damage was done every other day so far on the Saddest Calendar on the Internet.It's as if the Trump administration was simply whetting its palate yesterday when our horrible president signed a bill that quashes the Office of Surface Mining's Stream Protection Rule, which the Obama administration had put in place in December to protect waterways from coal mining waste. Trump has vocally opposed the Environmental Protection Agency, the upkeep and preservation of public lands, clean energy, and the existence of climate change since his campaign, and today we watched the Senate approve Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt, Trump's EPA pick who does not care about environmental protection, to be the one to dismantle the agency and all environmental regulations alongside our president.The final vote was 52 to 46, and as with all of Trump's other picks, his approval is unsurprising—the Los Angeles Times reported this morning that Pruitt would likely get the vote, despite the fact that many people in the agency he's set to lead do not want him."The Pruitt nomination has been one of the most bitterly fought since Trump took office last month, pitting a crusader for fossil fuel interests who has sued the agency he will take over 14 times against an environmental movement that is scrambling to preserve what it can of actions President Obama took to curb climate change and protect natural resources," the article reads. "Pruitt will be inheriting an agency of 15,000 employees where much of the workforce will likely be openly hostile to his agenda."There was a glimmer of hope last night when Oklahoma County District Judge Aletia Haynes Timmons told Pruitt's office that it would have to hand over the thousands of emails between his office and fossil fuel companies to either the Center for Media and Democracy or the court by next Tuesday; therefore, Democrats saw an opportunity to delay the vote. Obviously, that did not happen.In the spirit of transparency, many senators and government representatives went to Twitter to inform their constituents and the American people that they are opposed to everything Pruitt stands for. Bernie Sanders, a leading dissenter of Pruitt, stated the boldest stance to come from a US senator: "Yesterday, Trump picked the worst group of cabinet nominees in the modern history of America," he tweeted. "But EPA nominee Scott Pruitt is the worst of the worst."
That's bleak. Who's fighting against it?Upon Pruitt's nomination, Michael Brune, executive director of the Sierra Club, released the following statement: "Having Scott Pruitt in charge of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is like putting an arsonist in charge of fighting fires. He is a climate science denier who, as Attorney General for the state of Oklahoma, regularly conspired with the fossil fuel industry to attack EPA protections… Scott Pruitt, whose own bio describes him as 'a leading advocate against the EPA's activist agenda' cannot be trusted to head the EPA, an agency charged with protecting all Americans from threats to their water, air, and health."
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That's bleak. Who's fighting against it?Upon Pruitt's nomination, Michael Brune, executive director of the Sierra Club, released the following statement: "Having Scott Pruitt in charge of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is like putting an arsonist in charge of fighting fires. He is a climate science denier who, as Attorney General for the state of Oklahoma, regularly conspired with the fossil fuel industry to attack EPA protections… Scott Pruitt, whose own bio describes him as 'a leading advocate against the EPA's activist agenda' cannot be trusted to head the EPA, an agency charged with protecting all Americans from threats to their water, air, and health."