ANALYSIS/OPINION:

Scott Pruitt, administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, has apparently generated so much controversy that radical green peeps are threatening him with near-regularity, to the point he’s now getting extra armed protection.

Seriously, folks, some perspective, please. Are trees that important?

Just goes to show the madness of the environmentalists. They say they want clean air, clear water and sustainable environments for all — and by God, they’ll kill for it if they have to. That’s not exactly a rally call based in rationalism.

Surely, there are better public relations messages that could be sent.

Anyhow, this from The Hill: “The [EPA] is pulling EPA law enforcement officers away from other duties to protect Administrator Scott Pruitt. … Unlike his predecessors, Pruitt has around-the-clock security that requires a team of up to 18 officers.”

Why?

Pruitt gets more than his average share of death threats, it seems.

“We have a number of cases directed against the administrator that we’ve already closed and we also have a number of pending cases,” said Patrick Sullivan, the EPA assistant inspector general for investigations, The Washington Post reported. “A lot of correspondence we have reflects that people are unhappy with his perceived unenforcement of environmental laws.”

But the intimidation flows both ways.

The former administrator under Barack Obama — Gina McCarthy — also received similarly uncalled-for threats, but for perceived over-enforcement of EPA regulations.

This is nuts, people.

Pruitt’s been feeling the green fire for months now. Back in April, Gizmodo ran a headline, “EPA Head Scott Pruitt Requests a 24/7 Security Detail as he Prepares to Gut the Agency.”

And with opening sentences like the ones from Gizmodo — one can very nearly understand why. The media’s not exactly tamping down fires on this topic.

“Pruitt, who wants to ensure the U.S. doesn’t invest a single dollar in protecting humanity from climate change, nonetheless wants to use the agency’s limited funds to protect himself from other humans,” the news outlet wrote.

That’s not just inflammatory spin. It’s unhelpful to the whole environmental debate. Here’s a thought: Don’t insult the people you’re trying to convince to your side.

But truly, Pruitt’s EPA — President Donald Trump’s EPA — only comes as a natural result of the many, very many, overly burdensome, anti-business and costly radical environmental provisions pushed by the previous administration. After eight years of nonstop land use crackdowns, the change is welcome.

And it’s not as if Pruitt’s even swinging the pendulum wide to the other direction. He’s simply shifting it a step at a time, from supporting the White House’s pull from the Paris accord to taking a second look at the boundaries of massive national monuments. So what? To the victor of the elections go the spoils of the party’s agendas.

But radical environmentalists aren’t happy with even that shift. So they’re taking a page book from the antifa-type thugs and going right after Pruitt himself with the physical threats.

This is unbridled craziness. No matter how crucial trees, rivers and viewsheds are to the environmental health and aesthetics of a nation, they’re not more important than people — and that goes people of all political parties and beliefs.

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