"The Steel Magnate Helping Trump Vilify Pollution Regulations"

"Former Nucor chief executive Dan DiMicco spent years railing against environmental regulations and trade, even as his business thrived despite them."

"Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has been trying to appeal to voters in the Rust Belt by claiming that environmental regulations and one-sided trade deals are the primary culprits in the decline of U.S. manufacturing jobs. And he has chosen an economic adviser who's been preaching that narrative for years, even as his business was booming.

As the chief executive of America's biggest steel maker for 13 years, Dan DiMicco repeatedly went to battle against the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. His company, Nucor, fought the EPA in court over its moves to curb greenhouse gases, and it was assessed one of the EPA's largest penalties ever against a steel company for clean air violations. Nucor also funded climate change denial efforts. DiMicco argued that the global trade game was rigged, and U.S. efforts to control carbon emissions would further strengthen China's unfair hand in winning business—and jobs.

In naming DiMicco to the team of 14 economic policy advisers he unveiled last week, Trump brings into his fold someone who could help him appeal to the voters he needs to reach in the economically distressed manufacturing regions in must-win swing states of Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Indiana."

Marianne Lavelle reports for InsideClimate News August 17, 2016.