The EPA's mission is more crucial than ever. Scott Pruitt must respect it | Daniel J Fiorino

Many are saying that Donald Trump's Environmental Protection Agency pick is disastrous. If Pruitt is confirmed, he must accept his mandate

The Environmental Protection Agency has been perhaps the most visible and influential organization of its kind in the world since Richard Nixon created it in 1970. Since then, it has managed a portfolio of pollution control laws and programs and provided science-based, economically reasonable environmental protection for nearly half a century.

The fear shared by many of us who have been part of the agency and its mission is that Donald Trump and his nominee to run the agency, Oklahoma attorney general Scott Pruitt, are set on taking the EPA to a place where it may no longer be able to carry out these vital responsibilities.