Crosstalk: December 9, 2016

Craig Rucker is the executive director and co-founder of CFACT (Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow). In excess of 20 years, Craig has provided expertise on a wide range of government, academic, media and industry forums and has written extensively on numerous environmental policy issues. He has attended major U.N. conferences and is the co-host of their daily national radio commentary called, 'Just the Facts'.

Some liberals are upset that President-elect Donald Trump has selected Scott Pruitt to head the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Some are claiming that Pruitt will doom the planet. Nancy Pelosi said that his nomination must be blocked, '...for the sake of the air we breathe, the water we drink and the planet we will leave our children.'

Pruitt is the attorney general of the State of Oklahoma. Craig sees him as an outstanding choice and this pick is in line with what Trump communicated during the campaign that he would overhaul some of the onerous regulations of the EPA. One example from Pruitt's resume that makes the point includes his leading of over 28 states in opposition to President Obama's Clean Power Plan.

Craig admitted to being a bit nervous over Trump's meeting with Al Gore. He indicated that it'd been rumored that Trump's daughter Ivanka is someone who believes in climate change. She allegedly arranged meetings with individuals such as Al Gore to meet her father and has supposedly expressed interest in wanting to be a climate czar in the new administration. Given her penchant for wanting to hang around Hollywood individuals, she supposedly felt this is the kind of issue that maybe her father would 'throw a bone to'. However, the selection of Pruitt has alleviated Craig's concerns.

Also on the climate change front, NOAA has indicated that we've seen an 11th record hurricane season ending without a major strike on the U.S. mainland. Craig went on to explain how this hits at the heart of claims from Al Gore's 2005 movie, 'An Inconvenient Truth' regarding expected hurricane frequency.

Regarding the 1,100 mile Dakota Access Pipeline, Craig noted that the Army Corps of Engineers recently announced that they will be halting pipeline construction in order to re-route it to avoid potential harm to water that is being received from Lake Oahe. Environmentalists and Native Americans are thrilled to have stopped progress on the pipeline, but Craig believes construction will continue after Trump takes office.