Christie Whitman Concerned About Trump's Pick To Lead EPA

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) - Christie Whitman, former New Jersey Governor and former Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, reacted with skepticism to Donald Trump's appointment of Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt as the next head of the EPA, telling Dom Giordano on Talk Radio 1210 WPHT that she worries the agency will be gutted.

"I'm concerned about it because he has...sued it on numerable occasions. He has said he wants to roll back the clean power plan...and he's not convinced on science on climate change. While I appreciate the fact that we certainly can revisit and should revisit regulations, some have outlasted their usefulness, we should also remember that regulations are protections and there not just things that were randomly put in place because someone had nothing better to do. You want to look at them cautiously. You want to review them all. You want to make changes where they're appropriate, but it seems he has more of a blanket approach."

Whitman believes many EPA rules are essential and need to be kept in place.

"What I don't want to see is the idea that all regulations are bad, that any regulation is too much and we need to get rid of them all. Carbon, for instance, having nothing to do with climate change, Carbon is, to my mind, because it has gone before the Supreme Court, is a settled issue as far as being a hazard to public health. Now, how the agency chose to go about implementing their clean power plan is certainly something that is being contested in the courts and that's understandable, but to say that Carbon is something we don't need to worry about is a big mistake in my mind."

She also said she is still trying to get her head around Donald Trump's governing philosophy and what to expect once he takes office.

"I'm trying to figure out the signals, frankly. He will say one thing and then he'll appoint someone who appears to be in exactly the opposite place. So, it's somewhat confusing, trying to figure out exactly what does he mean. He has said, look, he will think about climate change. He's willing to talk about it and yet, the people that he has appointed have been very clear that they don't believe in it, they don't think it's real and they have no interest in pursuing anything along those lines. I'm still trying to figure it out."