a federal world news. the top story. a federal appeals court in the united states has refused to reinstate president trump's ban on travellers from several mainly muslim countries from entering the us. it was stopped last week by a judge in seattle after two us states argued it was unconstitutional. the president has responded on twitter saying see you in court. the japanese prime minister has arrived in the us to meet with donald trump hoping to cement closer ties with the united states. he hopes to have more investment in america. archaeologists have found a cave that once housed the dead sea scrolls, the first discovery of its kind in more than 60 years. that is trending on line. that is it for now on bbc news. now it is time for

$33: the trump administration is intent on a radical reset of america's energy and environment policies. the implications will be profound on everything from fossil fuel production to climate change policy. my production to climate change policy. my guest today is a man who led the trunk donald trump transition team and has been keen on reform of energy. in america's new politics, will the interest of big business consistently trump environmental concern? welcome to hardtalk, i'm stephen sackur.

let's ask a simple question to start with, in your opinion does the trump presidency represent a fundamental reset of environmental and energy policy in the united states? everything that he has said in the campaign, it seems to me suggests that it is a fundamental reset and that we will be turning a corner and moving to a much brighterfuture. yes, i mean, you obviously have the inside track on this, because you were part of the transition team very much involved with drawing up a roadmap forfuture policy on environmental matters. so, just give me a sense of the way in which your input and his insights to you worked together. were you both on the same page, were you both talking about really moving in a very different direction

from the 0bama administration? first, i have no role in the trump administration. my work in the transition is over, so i don't represent or speak for the trump administration, orfor the president. i was asked to lead the transition team on epa because in fact my views largely respond to the views that the president campaigned on and that he promised the american people he would do if he was elected. so, yes, i think that we share most views on energy and the environment. let's talk big picture sort of mindset before we dig down into the detail of environmental policy making. in terms of your approach and the president's, and i take the point that the transition is over and you are not part of the team today, but in terms of both of your mindsets, do you believe that when a scientists, when politicians in the western world, when environmental campaigners all talk about the urgent need to de—carbonise the global economy,

do you think they are wrong? yes, i do, and i think that the campaign that we have just witnessed in the united states is interesting, because it is the first presidential campaign that we have had where both candidates, secretary clinton and mr trump, campaigned on climate policy and on energy policy and put forward very different views. one side won and the other side lost, so i think the american people basically agree with president trump, that climate change is not one of their top concerns and that there are a lot more pressing issues to take up by the government. do you think the american people agree with president trump when he tweets, as he has,

in the last few years, in fact, because it is a consistent thought of his, that global warming is a hoax? "i am not a believer" he has said. "we have the weather, it goes up and down, but we have much bigger problems than that." do you think with those sorts of messages that he tweets out, he is speaking for the american people? i think he is speaking for a majority of the american people and i think, you know, he tends to exaggerate for a fact and then he walks back, so he said climate change is a hoax and later when asked about it he said, "i was making a joke, but i don't think it is a big problem," is the gist of his position, i think. i mean, i was about to say i am assuming you don't think climate change, given all of the consensus, you don't think man—made climate change, the warming of the planet, you don't think it is a hoax, do you, or do you? no, but i think a great deal

of exaggeration has entered the debate by the campaigners for very rigourous climate policies, and i think if you actually look at the science, it doesn't support what i would call the alarmist position. and, you know, we can discuss that, but i think the fact is that there are large interests, both in the scientific community but also in the business community, that it is in their interest to exaggerate the impact of climate change. well, let's try to keep it out of politics and the realms of exaggeration, let'sjust, and i don't want to spend long on it, let's be specific, two of the us federal agencies that have voiced most concerned about climate change, are nasa, and goodness knows they rely on science, and the us department of defence, which have stated in 2015 that climate change is an urgent

and growing threat to our national security, so, leave aside politics, leave aside exaggeration, you would accept the words of nasa and the pentagon, would you? no, i think that the department of defence was under very strict political supervision from the 0bama white house and that they were told to make sure that climate change is involved in all of your thinking about defence, so, no, i do not accept that and i think that opinion at nasa is divided between the modelling community and what i would call the empirical community, people who rely on temperature datasets. right. i mean, it is probably inportant to remind everyone you come from a background, the competitive enterprise institute centre

for energy and environment, which we know the past has been funded by exxon mobil, by the koch brothers, by people who clearly have an interest in pouring scorn on the climate change agenda, so it is indeed interesting that donald trump picked you to handle his epa and environmental policy transition, isn't it? yes, i was surprised. usually an insider is chosen for each transition team. someone who has had experience working inside the agency or the department. i do not have that, i have always been an outsider. but i don't think the funding sources of my organisation have much to do with the policies that we pursue. the fact is that we adopt policies based on what we think are the facts and our political beliefs, which are for free markets and limited government, and then we go out and try to attract funding from sources that agree with us. sure, but in the end

you're not a scientist. i mean, i was talking about nasa's science and all of the data they collected and their conclusion that carbon dioxide particles in the air are at their highest in 650,000 years, that global temperatures have risen much more than one celsius since 1880, you know, this is scientific data, you are not a scientist, and the group that you have come from and that you have very ably represented, very influential in represented, has an agenda which is driven by people who have an interest in denying climate change. i think that the facts are that the warming we have seen since the end of the little ice age in the middle of the 19th century is modest. it may be that there is an increasing component of that

change caused by human activity, primarily burning coal, oil and natural gas, but, for example, we have produced — humanity as a whole has produced about 31% of the total greenhouse gas emissions since the beginning of the industrial age, have been emitted in the last 20 years, and yet there has been a pause, ora hiatus, or a plateau of warming in the last 20 years. if the climate is as sensitive to c02 as is claimed by the alarmists, we should have seen significant warming in the last 20 years. now, there was an attempt to rewrite the temperature record and that has just this week been exposed as a hoax. well, i do want to get into the detail of what you think is going to happen to environment policy under the trump administration but one last point on the politics of this,

and again i think it's instructive to look at where conservative parties and politicians sit around the world on this issue, and i have looked from, you know, western europe, australasia, everywhere else, and, frankly, right of centre politicians on the whole are now very accepting of the scientific consensus around climate change. and it's instructive to me that two of the grandees of the republican party, jim baker and georgia schultz, on this very day have published an article arguing for a carbon tax, saying that there is mounting scientific evidence of the problems with the atmosphere, they are too compelling now to ignore. are you swayed by the fact that, you know, so many conservative political fears are now saying this? no, in fact, the house of representatives held a test vote on a carbon tax last year and every single republican,

including those who agree with your statement that climate change is a growing problem, voted against a carbon tax. every single republican. so i think that the republican party is united, and we have some people who have perhaps served their country well many decades ago but they really... they are out of the debate, they are not a significant part of the conservative movement today. right, well, let's look at what donald trump as president, surrounded by people from the conservative movement, may do in terms of environmental policy—making. let me be blunt about it, was your recommendation to him that he should emasculate the environmental protection agency? i have seen leaked documents which suggest that you think the cuts should go perhaps from a current workforce of 15,000 to 5000, that a huge amount of their grant giving activity should be frozen and then stopped, what kind of epa do you imagine donald trump will supervise and look after? the document i prepared, an action plan for the administration,

was advisory and was meant to translate the campaign and the candidate's promises and commitments into governance. so, let me tell you what president trump said during the campaign. he promised to withdraw from the paris climate treaty, he promised to defund united nations‘ climate programmes, and he promised to get rid of or withdraw or rescind a number of greenhouse gas rules and other environmental rules that he said, and i think quite correctly, had very little to do with environmental protection, but have a huge negative effect on the economy, and they are blocking investment in the economy and creating jobs. so, that's what he promised, and so that's what i imagine he's

determined to deliver. but the fact is that he also promised, or said he wanted to abolish, the epa, so when i have been quoted recently as saying, "i think we ought to aim for some radical downsizing at the epa," i'm actually taking a more moderate position than he did when he said he wanted to abolish it, or at one point he said, "we'll leave a little bit." so, let me get this clear in my head, you believe that donald trump is going to revoke the clean air act, that he is going to revoke the standards that he imposed on coal and natural gas power plants, he's going to revoke some of the clean water regulations, the waters of the us rule, the standards imposed on the chesapeake bay, these are all gone as far as you're concerned, if donald trump gets his way? not the clean air act but the greenhouse gas rules that have been propagated under the clean air act. sure, which are very important to the future operations of power stations across the us? yes. so i think, yes, it will take some time to withdraw and rescind some

of these rules but i think that that is...those are his commitment and i think largely you can make a very strong case that the reason he won the election is because these policies and similar policies forjob creation resonated across america in places where we still have manufacturing, we still have energy—intensity industries and we still have resource production. and americas breathing dirtier air and some of them living with dirty water — that is a prize worth paying? no, in fact, president trump said during the campaign that he wanted to return the epa to its core functions of protecting the air and the water. the fact is the greenhouse gas

emissions have nothing to do with clean air. carbon dioxide is a naturally occurring trace gas necessary for life on earth, it is not a pollutant and the waters of the us rule has nothing to do with safe drinking water it has to do with expanding federal jurisdiction over wetlands — another term for wetlands is swamps and you will recall president trump said he wanted to drain one particular swamp here in washington and so it is no surprise that he wants to withdraw a rule which would expand federal jurisdiction dramatically over swamps. yes, interesting you pick on that phrase — "wanting to drain the swamp in washington." do you think putting a former chief of exxonmobil in the state department and putting him in charge of the epa — if he gets is way, it's not confirmed yet, of course — but scott pruitt, who as attorney general in oklahoma has run a 6—year campaign of lawsuits and action against the environmental protection agency, does that to you represent draining the swamp?

yes, scott pruitt really has shown his dedication to try to rein in the epa which is really out of control. it's regulatory onslaught against people across america who dig up stuff, grow stuff and make stuff for a living, is quite astonishing and i am proud to say that my organisation, cei, has been a co plaintiff with attorney general pruitt in oklahoma on several of these major suits, including the case trying to overturn or block the greenhouse gas rules for power plants. your delight at the appointment of scott pruitt has not been matched by the feelings of epa employees from the very recent past — 400 signed a petition saying that he has shown consistently no interest in enforcing environmental laws. you've got the union of concerns scientists saying that there is no reason to believe that he hold polluters accountable. but perhaps most significantly of all, you have a former republican appointed chief of the epa, christine todd whitman — appointed by george w bush — saying, "i can't remember ever

having see an appointment of someone so disdainful of both the agency and the science behind what the agency does." i disagree with that characterisation. i would say these are the kinds of people i have been opposing on policy grounds for a long time and i'm pleased the new administrator of the epa is someone who agrees with me that fundamental reform needs to be made at the epa. with respect, the only people who are ardently backing him are big business leaders, the fossil fuel industry and people like you whom, as we have established in this conversation, have a background in think tanks which are to a certain extent sponsored by those sorts of groups. well, it is just a fact that

elections can change directions and this election i think surprised people and there are a lot of people that are having a hard time coming to terms with the fact that we have a candidate who ran on these issues and the american people elected him and he won in states that are still based in manufacturing and energy intensive industries, that disagree with the bi—coastal urban elite and every person that you have quoted or referred to i would say is a part of the bi—coastal urban elite, people who think that they know better than the people who actually have to deal with environmental issues and who also think that they don't really need energy, that their careers sitting in front of computer screens manipulating financial information somehow everybody can live like that and it doesn't require very much energy... you are, you know, obviously a man who has a senior position in a washington think tank, i'm not sure that you are a million miles away from the elite yourself. but let's not get stuck on that and let's keep to specifics because we don't have that time. there are some very important decisions.

when we talked earlier about the philosophy of decarbonization and you said on no account is that part of our plan and we want to push ahead with energy exploitation on all fronts. let's think about some of the key decisions. can we take it as read now that this dakota pipeline which so many people, environmentalists but more particularly the sioux native americans on whose land it will cross, can we take it as read that north dakota pipeline will go ahead and that you will push for the keystone pipeline to be built as well? i think president trump has made it very clear in his executive order that he expects both the dakota pipeline and the keystone pipeline to be completed after the regulatory obstacles have been removed and they're fully permitted. the dakota pipeline will move ahead very rapidly and the keystone pipeline in the next year or so. the standing rock sioux have said they will be a massive backlash

and massive amount of protest if the dakota pipeline goes ahead. do you think the trump administration is ready for that sort of very public stand—off? we will have to see. i have lots of experience with pipelines. we have hundreds of thousands of miles of pipelines in this country, they never became politically... they never became a political matter until the environmental community said that we have to stop producing fossilfuels. the pipelines in themselves do not present a safety threat, in fact, they reduce the risks of oil spills because right now the oil in north dakota and in alberta, a lot of it, is being moved by rail cars and we have seen the kinds of disasters that can happen when you try to move liquid petroleum in a rail car and you have an accident. let's just end if we may with thoughts about the global stage

upon which this drama is playing out. the paris climate agreement was a milestone recognized as such notjust in the united states by the 0bama administration but by governments all over the world and there was a great deal of talk of the united states and china, together, leading the move towards a decarbonisation of the global economy. are you happy to think while the rest of the world continues in that direction, the us is performing at handbreak turn and going entirely the opposite direction? yes, i think the us will lead the world to a much brighter future. i think the paris

agreement is a dead end. i think that the commitment made to there are largely on paper and not real. i think every country that wants to have a growing and prosperous economy finds out that these kinds of commitments are a huge obstacle to maintaining economic growth. i think you see china has made a promise that its emissions will peak sometime in the 2030s and that gives them a long time to grow and then in the 2030s then can also say, "oh, we have made a mistake, we don't actually believe that now." but that is not what is happening in china. look at what the chinese are actually doing — they are investing so many billions, it is mind—boggling, in renewable energy. they reckon by 2020 half of all new electricity generation in china will be wind, hydro, solar and that 13 million jobs will be have been created in the renewable sector. they are not bleeding heart liberals in china but they believe that is their future. i disagree with that.

if you look at the facts, . .. but those are facts. we have talked about science and facts throughout this interview... hang on, if you look at other things they are investing in, they are making huge investment in fossil fuels and in fossilfuels plants. they have a variety of policies that they are pursuing but the fact is, that their energy consumption is going up and most of it, the new consumption is coming from fossil fuels. windmills are great when they are blowing. solar panels are great when the sun is shining but, in fact, their economy, like the us economy and the european economy, runs on fossils fuels. 80% of the world's energy comes from fossilfuels. the international energy agenvy predicts that in 25 years, 30 years it will still be about 80% but it will be a much larger amount of energy being produced. we could go on but unfortunately we have run out of time. myron ebell, thank you very much

forjoining me from washington. thank you. hello, there. there is a bit of wintry weather in our forecast over the next few days but i think it will look quite unimpressive compared to what they have had across the other side of the atlantic. this was new york on thursday. ss sssf ehlse 752 ml“?

and through the day, again they'll be a lot of cloud and again there'll be some wintry showers and again the best of the brightness will be out west. so through west devon into the cornwall, we could see some sunshine, butjust 5 degrees in plymouth, it's a similar story for west wales. some sunshine — 4 degrees in aberystwyth.