Thread by @jakeclevine

In honor of Trump's enviro speech, a lil THREAD for the people. EPA Admin Wheeler and CEQ Chair Neumayr did a preview press call. The questions from reporters are *pure gold.*

I have reproduced them here. You're welcome. (Since all the answers are bullshit, those are omitted.)

Q: Hi, this is Patsy Widakuswara (@pwidakuswara) with Voice of America. Can you hear me?

WH: Yes, ma’am. Go ahead.

Q: Can you comment on criticisms from various environmental organizations, including the Sierra Club, who said that, “Trump is resorting to greenhouse gaslighting the public to try and cover up the fact that he is the worst president in [the] history for the environment…”? TY

Q: Hi, this is Andrew Feinberg (@AndrewFeinberg )with Breakfast Media. Can you guys hear me okay?

WH: Yes.

Q: Good. Thanks for doing this call. I have two questions.

Q: First, does the President still believe that the concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing noncompetitive?

Q: And second question: Does the administration, or the United States government at large, have any evidence that windmills and wind power cause cancer?

Q: Hi. Okay, yeah, this is Shirish Date (@svdate) at HuffPost. I've got two questions.

Q: Number one, are you guys seriously taking credit for the work done by Presidents Nixon, Ford, Carter, George H. Bush, and Obama for the improvements in the environmental quality over the last decade? I mean, seriously? I mean, you're making metrics starting in the 1970s?

Q: What's happened in the last year and a half? If you could speak to that.

Q: And second, the President has said numerous times now that the United States has the best air quality and the best water quality in the world. Neither of those is true. And do you know why he said it? Is he being misinformed? Or is he just straight-up lying? Thank you.

Q: Hi, this is Scott Waldman (@scottpwaldman) from E&E News. Administrator Wheeler, can you tell me why the EPA has deleted climate-related pages from its website?

Q: One of those includes a page that highlighted the risk of extreme precipitation and flooding from storms such as the one that just soaked D.C. a few hours ago. Why is your administration either downplaying or actively eliminating information related to climate change?

Q: Hello. This is Karen Rubin (@KarenBRubin) from News & Photo Features. Following up on the previous question about comparing 1970 data to today, it’s not really a meaningful test. I’d like to add to that.

Q: To what extent have you changed the criteria in order to show improvements? And so, for example, you say the air quality is better. But surely, the record California wildfires emitted substantial pollution and CO2 into the environment. How is that calculated?

Q: Yeah, this is Tejinder Singh from IAT.

Q: This briefing is defined as a “Background Briefing on America’s Environmental Leadership.” Can you elaborate on how you are going to provide the leadership? Because that has to be a global effort, where you are reaching out to the other nations, other leaders.

Q: And also, what is it that you are -- what is it that made you leave the Paris Agreement? And how you are going to replace it or make a better one? Thank you.

/FIN