The Cornwall Alliance for the Stewardship of Creation released an open letter to President-elect Donald J. Trump supporting the nomination of Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt to head the federal Environmental Protection Agency.

Signed by over 100 evangelical, mainline Protestant, Roman Catholic and Jewish scientists, economists, legal scholars, policy experts, and religious leaders, the open letter calls for President-Elect Trump to stand by this outstanding nominee.

As Oklahoma Attorney General, Mr. Pruitt has demonstrated his legal expertise in successful litigation to require corporations — including the energy corporations so prominent in his state’s economy — to abide by environmental laws and regulations. He has publicly expressed his conviction that the EPA’s role is not to create law through regulations that exceed the scope of enabling legislation but to implement the intent of that legislation and nothing more.

The signers of the open letter recognize that some radical environmentalists and religious activists oppose Mr. Pruitt because he does not embrace their exaggerated fears of human-induced global warming — fears that go well beyond the empirical evidence crucial to genuine science — or their antipathy to the development of the abundant, reliable, affordable energy indispensable to lifting and keeping whole societies out of poverty and the disease and premature death that invariably accompany it.

Signers therefore urge President-elect Trump to stand firmly behind his nominee as they commit themselves to supporting him in the confirmation process that lies ahead. Signers include:

• Neil L. Frank, Ph.D. (Meteorology), former Director, National Hurricane Center (1974–1987), Chief Meteorologist, KHOU-TV Houston (1987–2008);
  
• David Legates, Ph.D. (Climatology), Professor of Climatology and Geography, University of Delaware;
  
• Richard S. Lindzen, Ph.D. (Applied Mathematics), Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Atmospheric Sciences Emeritus, MIT;
  
• Willie Soon, Ph.D. (Aerospace Engineering), independent scientist, Cambridge, MA;
  
• Roy W. Spencer, Ph.D. (Meteorology), Principal Research Scientist, Earth System Science Center, University of Alabama, Huntsville, AL, and Lead Scientist, NASA Aqua AMSR-3 Satellite Remote Sensing Program;
  
• James A. Wanliss, Ph.D. (Physics), Professor of Physics, Presbyterian College, Clinton, SC;
  
• Anthony Watts, American Meteorological Society-certified television and radio meteorologist (retired), owner of WattsUpwithThat.com, Chico, CA

“Senate Democrats, at the beck and call of environmental activists, are determined to prevent Mr. Pruitt’s confirmation, painting him as a ‘science denier’ or a ‘climate-change denier,’” said Cornwall Alliance Founder and National Spokesman Dr. E. Calvin Beisner. “He is neither. He’s a solid, common-sense attorney general who will bring much-needed reform to the EPA.”