On Sunday evening, CNN Newsroom ran a full report in which correspondent Drew Griffin bemoaned EPA acting head Andrew Wheeler's efforts to cut regulations, as well his past ties to the coal industry and his work for Republican Senator James Inhofe, whom Griffin derided as a "climate change denier."
After CNN weekend anchor Ana Cabrera recalled that the EPA is cutting an Obama administration restriction on emissions which was "designed to help regulate climate change," she continued:
The acting head of the EPA made his name in Washington lobbying in favor of the coal industry. Let me say that again -- Andrew Wheeler, former coal lobbyist, is now in charge of the government agency whose job it is to protect the environment.
Then came a six-minute report by Griffin which began with the CNN correspondent unsuccessfully trying to get Wheeler to answer his questions as he got into a vehicle, with security guards keeping the CNN reporter at a distance.
After Griffin informed viewers that Wheeler used to lobby for the coal industry, there came a soundbite of Elizabeth Gore of the Environmental Defense Fund complaining that Wheeler was "in bed with the coal companies."
A bit later, Griffin lamented that Wheeler is a "worst case scenario" for environmental activists like Michael Gerard of the Columbia Law School Climate Deregulation Tracker, giving him a couple of soundbites to complain as global warming skeptics were not heard from during the report.
Soon came a soundbite of Gore complaining that Wheeler has a history of calling those who hold liberal views on the issue of global warming "alarmists," but, a bit later, Griffin himself described Senator Inhofe as a "climate change denier," adopting the term of derision favored by liberals against conservatives. Griffin: "Wheeler, before lobbying for big coal, spent 14 years as a top aide to the top climate change denier on Capitol Hill, Oklahoma Senator James Inhofe"
He soon described Wheeler as "a driving force behind his boss's climate change-denying agenda."
