KING KONKUS

ADMINISTRATOR PRUITT'S  RIGHT HAND  MAN

Environmental Protection Agency  Deputy Associate Administrator for Public Affairs John Konkus is in cahoots with The Heartland Institute in rallying erstwhile 'climate 'skeptics' for public hearings on science and global warming, to counter negative news coverage and promote EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt's views.  

CBS reports Konkus reached out to senior  Heartland staffers  according to the emails: 

"If you send a list, we will make sure an invitation is sent," Konkus wrote to then-Heartland president Joseph Bast in May 2017, seeking suggestions on scientists and economists the EPA could invite to an annual EPA public hearing on the agency's science standards.

Follow-up emails show Konkus and the Heartland Institute mustering scores of potential invitees known for rejecting scientific warnings of man-made climate-change, including from groups like Plants Need CO2, The Right Climate Stuff, and Junk Science.

"Of course The Heartland Institute has been working with EPA on policy and personnel decisions," Tim Huelskamp, a former Republican congressman from Kansas who now leads the group, said in a statement to the AP.

"They recognized us as the pre-eminent organization opposing the radical climate alarmism agenda and instead promoting sound science and policy," Huelskamp wrote.

He said Heartland would continue to help Pruitt and his staff.

Konkus was a Republican political consultant when Pruitt named him to the agency.  The Washington Post earlier reported  that Konkus had been scrutinizing grant applications for mentions of climate change, which he reportedly calls "the double C-word." 

The EPA Deputy also asked Heartland and related groups to "echo" and amplify word of  Pruitt's regulation-cutting efforts.