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Activists Call on Maine's Senators to Reject Climate Change Skeptics for Cabinet Jobs

Climate activists are urging Maine’s senators to reject president-elect Donald Trump’s cabinet nominees for the EPA, Energy, and State departments because of their ties to the oil and gas industries.

At a press conference in Portland on Monday, UNE physical oceanographer Charles Tilburg says further research is crucial to mitigate climate change that is already happening.

“We are making progress in understanding the climate. If all of a sudden we have these different nominees come in and they shut down some of the funding for this, then we’re not going to understand it, and we’re going to stop where we are,” he says.

The local chapter of the Sierra Club and 350 Maine staged protests Monday afternoon outside of U.S. Sens. Susan Collins’ and Angus King’s offices as part of a nationwide Day Against Denial of climate change.

A spokeswoman for Collins says the senator “is carefully examining the qualifications, character and professional experience of all of the President-elect’s nominations, as she always does.”

A spokesman for King says the senator believes cabinet officials should believe in and represent the mission of the agency or department they are selected to lead, and that King is evaluating the nominees on a wide range of issues including climate change, which he believes is a serious threat to Maine, the nation and the world.