This story seems to have slipped under the wire.
NPR reports that “David Legates, a University of Delaware professor of climatology who has spent much of his career questioning basic tenets of climate science, has been hired for a top position at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. … Neither Legates nor NOAA representatives responded to questions about Legates’ specific responsibilities or why he was hired. The White House also declined to comment. Legates has a long history of using his position as an academic scientist to publicly cast doubt on climate science.”
Legates, a professor in the Department of Geography and Spatial Sciences at the University of Delaware, has been at least partially supported by the Kochs, the American Petroleum Institute, and ExxonMobil. He’s also says that the sun is the cause of global warming. His bio is in the “Who we are” section of The Heartland Institute’s website (Heartland is “an advocacy group prominent for promoting misinformation about climate change and the health effects of tobacco smoking”).
Although he was at one point the Delaware “state climatologist,” in 2007 then-Governor Ruth Ann Minner asked him to stop using that title; he eventually stepped down from that post in 2011 (see www.desmogblog.com/...).
As the article points out, Legates doesn’t seem to have endeared himself to other climate scientists:
"He's not just in left field — he's not even near the ballpark," says Jane Lubchenco, a professor of marine biology at Oregon State University and head of NOAA under President Barack Obama.
Just another of “all the best people” in Trump world.