Two former heads of the Environmental Protection Agency who served under Republican presidents endorsed Democrat Hillary Clinton on Tuesday, saying GOP supporters should be outraged by Donald Trump's threats to rescind major environmental policies,
The Washington Post reports.
In a joint statement, William Ruckelshaus and William Reilly said that Trump has showed "a profound ignorance of science and of the public health issues embodied in our environmental laws."
They said that Trump's policies fly in the face of the GOP's long history in protecting the environment, noting that it was Richard Nixon who created the EPA.
Ruckelshaus was the first head of the EPA under him and then later held the same position during the administration of Ronald Reagan. Reilly headed the EPA under President George H.W. Bush.
The two join a growing list of former Republican government officials who have publicly backed Clinton over Trump.
In their statement, Ruckelshaus and Reilly were particularly upset with Trump's position on climate change, saying his characterization of it as a hoax "flies in the face of overwhelming international science and the public conviction and commitment of almost 200 national governments that adopted the Paris Agreement on climate change in December 2015. Our leadership was essential to that agreement. To back away now, as Trump wants to do, would set the world back decades — years we could never recover."
In contrast, the two said that Clinton has a solid environmental policy, recognizes the threats at hand, and "is committed to reasonable, science-based policy to meet those challenges."
The Hill pointed out that the endorsement by Ruckelshaus and Reilly came a day after Trump gave an economic speech in which he detailed his plan to get rid of President Barack Obama's climate change agenda, boost fossil fuels and put a moratorium on new regulations, moves the two former EPA heads said would be disastrous for the country.
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