Environmental Protection Agency officials are “leaving in droves”, reports the New York Times. What marvellous news to ease us all into the festive Christmas spirit, eh readers?

One of the most expensive, intrusive, and far-reaching pieces of legislation in recent U.S. history is a bad smell from the Obama era, motivated by a leftist, anti-capitalist agenda and based on the purest nonsense.

Andrew Restuccia and Alex Guillen report in Politico on the heat President Trump’s EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt is taking from conservatives over reports that he successfully urged Trump not to revoke the EPA’s 2009 “endangerment finding,” a far-reaching ruling introduced by the Obama administration that labeled carbon dioxide a dangerous substance in need of broad regulation. Politico notes that among Pruitt’s high profile critics is Breitbart News’s James Delingpole.

True, his credentials as a climate sceptic are not much in doubt. Yes, he might even agree with President Trump that there’s a swamp out there that sorely needs draining. The problem is, insiders explain, is that the future of the EPA is of far less interest to Pruitt than his prospects of becoming either one of Oklahoma’s next senators or its next governor.