U.S. President-elect Donald Trump will pick U.S. Representative Cathy McMorris Rodgers, a climate-change skeptic and an advocate for expanded oil and gas development, to run the Interior Department, a Trump aide said on Friday. The appointment could mean easier access for industry to more than a quarter of America’s territory, ranging from national parks to tribal lands stretching from the Arctic to the Gulf of Mexico, where energy companies have been eager to drill and mine. The pick, criticized by environmental groups, dovetails neatly with the Republican president-elect’s promises to bolster the U.S. energy industry by shrinking the powers of the federal government. It follows Trump’s nomination this week of an another climate change skeptic and critic of federal regulations, Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt, to run the […]

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