Kathleen Hartnett White

Kathleen Hartnett White (October 19, 1949 – August 6, 2024) was a Republican American former government official and environmental policy advisor. White served as a senior fellow at the free-market think tank Texas Public Policy Foundation. She was nominated by President Donald Trump to lead the Council on Environmental Quality; the nomination was later withdrawn.

Education White graduated from Salina High School in Kansas in 1967. She received a bachelor's and master's degree in humanities and religion from Stanford University. She attended Princeton University's comparative religion doctoral program and completed one year of law school at Texas Tech University School of Law.

Career White was special assistant to Nancy Reagan in the 1980s, then worked for the National Cattlemen's Beef Association in Washington, D.C., being involved in private lands and the environment. Back in Texas, White became director of the Ranching Heritage Association, then served on the Texas Economic Development Commission in Austin. She was named by Governor Rick Perry to the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, where she served for six years, including a period of service as chairman.

In 2008, she began working for the Texas Public Policy Foundation, a right-wing conservative think-tank, where she was named Distinguished Senior Fellow-in-Residence and Director of the Armstrong Center for Energy & the Environment. She co-authored the book Fueling Freedom: Exposing the Mad War on Energy with Stephen Moore in 2016.

Nomination to Council on Environmental Quality In October 2017, President Donald Trump nominated White for the position of White House senior advisor on environmental policy. Had she been confirmed by the United States Senate, she would have led the Council on Environmental Quality.

Her nomination drew controversy due to her history of advocacy for fringe theories and pseudoscience. Hartnett rejects the scientific opinion on climate change and has mocked the findings of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. She said carbon dioxide was not a pollutant but "a necessary nutrient for plant life" and that there were "really beneficial impacts of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere". During her November 2017 Senate confirmation hearing, she defended past statements that particulate pollution released by burning fuels is not harmful unless one were to suck on a car's tailpipe. During her hearing she said, "I am not a scientist, but in my personal capacity, I have many questions that remain unanswered by current climate policy. We need to have a more precise explanation of the human role and the natural role."

In February 2018, the White House confirmed their intention to withdraw the nomination of Hartnett White as a senior advisor on environmental policy.