President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee for attorney general, Sen. Jeff Sessions, is “one of the most outspoken critics of environmental sciences” and “a proven opponent of environmental protection,” say environmental groups, who fear Sessions will go slow on enforcement of clean air and clean water laws. The Alabama Republican also is an unwavering foe of a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants.
Sessions has criticized the EPA as over-reaching its authority, a frequent complaint among Republican lawmakers and a view endorsed by farm groups who want the incoming Trump administration to kill the so-called Waters of the United States rule. While the EPA is the front-line agency for environmental enforcement, the Justice Department’s Environment and Natural Division handles lawsuits by the government over natural resources and the environment.
“We smell trouble,” said the Environmental Working Group, faulting Sessions for “climate change ignorance and hostility toward science.” EWG described Sessions as “one of the most outspoken critics of environmental sciences.” The Sierra Club said Sessions was “a proven opponent of environmental protection.”
“His atrocious voting record on environmental issues shows that he absolutely cannot be entrusted to defend and enforce the laws that protect our air, our water, and our communities,” said the Sierra Club. Elected to the Senate in 1996 after two years as Alabama attorney general, Sessions has compiled a strongly conservative voting record. The League of Conservation Voters gives Sessions a lifetime score of 7, compared to the average Senate score of 45 in 2015 on issues tracked by the environmental group.
At a 2015 Senate hearing, Sessions said, “Carbon pollution is CO2, and that’s really not a pollutant; that’s a plant food, and it doesn’t harm anybody except that it might include temperature increases.”
“Sessions has opposed nearly every immigration bill that has come before the Senate the past two decades that has included a path to citizenship for immigrants in the country illegally,” said the Washington Post. “He’s also fought legal immigration, including guest worker programs for immigrants in the country illegally and visa programs for foreign workers in science, math and high-tech.”
Farm groups generally support immigration reform as a way to ensure a legal workforce. By some estimates, half or more of U.S. farmworkers are undocumented. Besides their traditional need of harvest workers, some producers need a sizable number of employees year-round for livestock, poultry and dairy production.