How Calling Trump an ‘Environment Hero’ Got This Guy Top White House Job

William Vaillancourt

11 January 2025 at 12:03 am·1-min read

'Donald J. Trump: an Environmental Hero' by Edward Russo and Donald Trump — Amazon/Getty Images

Donald Trump has selected Ed Russo, a former environmental consultant to the Trump Organization, to head up the White House’s forthcoming Environmental Advisory Task Force. Russo has previously called the president-elect an “environmental hero.”

In a statement on Truth Social, Trump said Russo will advise him on “initiatives to create great jobs and protect our natural resources, by following my policy of CLEAN AIR and CLEAN WATER.”

Russo wrote the 2016 book Donald J. Trump: An Environmental Hero, and, according to Politico, turned down a job in the first Trump administration as White House environmental adviser.

Russo insisted then that Trump, in the 17 years he worked for him, “was a staunch supporter of clean air and clean water.”

Yet Trump has refused to accept the realities of climate change, instead calling it a “hoax.” While president, he pulled the U.S. out of the Paris climate agreement, and rolled back more than 100 environmental rules designed to slow the warming of the planet.

Trump’s pick to lead the EPA, former New York congressman Lee Zeldin, only has a 14 percent lifetime environmental voting record with the League of Conservation Voters.

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