The future of America’s basic environmental protection has been thrown into doubt, with a host of fossil fuel executives and climate change skeptics set to get key roles in Donald Trump’s new administration, including a potential return to political life for Sarah Palin.



Palin, the former Alaska governor and vice-presidential nominee, is thought to be in the running to become interior secretary in a Trump presidency. The move would put Palin, a vocal proponent of oil and gas drilling, in charge of America’s public lands, including prized national parks such as Yosemite, Yellowstone and the Everglades.

Forrest Lucas, co-founder of oil products firm Lucas Oil, is also reported to be in the running for the interior secretary job. Palin has previously voiced her interest in heading the Department of Energy, if only to dismantle it, and said last year that gas and oil are “things that God has dumped on this part of the Earth for mankind’s use instead of us relying on unkind foreign nations for us to import their resources”.

The future of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) also appears uncertain, with Trump appointing Myron Ebell to head the transition team for the regulator. Ebell is a director at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a conservative thinktank, and has expressed doubts over the reality of what he calls “global warming alarmism”.

In April, Trump said he wanted to completely abolish the EPA, which he erroneously called “the department of environmental”, and told Fox News that it was “killing us environmentally, it’s just killing our businesses”. The EPA was created in 1970 under Richard Nixon’s administration and is responsible for the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act, which have both come under attack from Republican lawmakers in recent years.

Trump has since modified his stance on the EPA, stressing that he supports clean air and “crystal clear, crystal clean” water but not programs that combat climate change.

“I will refocus the EPA on its core mission of ensuring clean air and clean, safe drinking water for all Americans,” Trump said in September. “I believe firmly in conserving our wonderful natural resources and beautiful natural habitats. My environmental agenda will be guided by true specialists in conservation, not those with radical political agendas.”

The Sierra Club, America’s largest environmental group, was quick to criticize the makeup of Trump’s transition team and warned that any attempt to unwind the EPA or environmental laws will be fiercely resisted.

“Myron Ebell is the sort of insider fighting progress that Trump supposedly campaigned against. He’s not qualified to run the transition team,” said John Coequyt, director of federal climate campaigning at the Sierra Club. “It’s not clear what Trump wants to do but it’s likely they’ll drop the Clean Power Plan, defund the EPA and take potshots at the Clean Water Act and Clean Air Act.

“I don’t think the Senate and House Republicans understood how to govern until now. The dog has caught the car. If they start repealing environmental protections, which was part of their pandering message, that will be incredibly unpopular and they will lose politically.”

Athan Manuel, director of Sierra Club’s land protection program, added: “Sarah Palin would be nothing short of a disaster for our national parks and public lands if she were appointed as secretary of the interior.

Sarah Palin: ‘Nothing short of a disaster for our national parks and public lands if she were appointed.’ Photograph: Joseph Connoly/Getty Images

“She’d want to drill in so many places that she would not be able to see Russia from Alaska any more because of all the oil rigs.”

Republicans have pushed in Congress for public lands to be opened up for fossil fuel extraction and other developments and are already lining up the elimination of various regulations. Restrictions around drilling and fracking, as well as the moratorium on coal mining, may be lifted.

“You’re going to find that we are going to repeal a half-dozen or more regulations in the first week of Congress,” Republican senator Rand Paul told MSNBC.

“And I’m excited about it because I think the regulations have been killing our jobs and making us less competitive with the world.”

Some environmentalists are hopeful that the new administration will stop short of wholesale repeal and can instead focus Trump’s attention upon crumbling infrastructure he has promised to fix.

“There’s a huge opportunity to address infrastructure and put nature in the picture for that, given the state of our national parks,” said Lynn Scarlett, managing director of public policy at the Nature Conservancy and a former deputy secretary of the interior under George W Bush.

“We will be vigilant about efforts to advance energy development anywhere and everywhere. Those regulations are there for very good reasons and there is very strong bipartisan support for clean air and clean water.

“I don’t know who will end up being secretary of the interior. It’s typically a former elected official and someone from the west. I would hope it’s someone who has a broad understanding of public lands and isn’t just energy, energy, energy. That’s not really a profile that looks like Sarah Palin.”