Scandals lead Scott Pruitt to resign as EPA administrator
Past energy lobbyist will be interim chief
WASHINGTON — Scott Pruitt, the former Oklahoma attorney general who relentlessly pursued President Donald Trump’s promises of deregulation at the Environmental Protection Agency, resigned Thursday after a cascade of controversies over his lavish spending, ethical lapses and controversial management decisions finally eroded the president’s confidence in one of his most ardent Cabinet members.
Pruitt’s reputation as a dogged deregulator and outspoken booster of the president allowed him to weather a litany of ethics scandals in recent months, including questions about taxpayer-funded first-class travel, a discounted condo rental from a District of Columbia lobbyist and the installation of a $43,000 soundproof phone booth in his office.
But revelations about his behavior continued to mount, including reports that he repeatedly enlisted subordinates to help him search for housing, book personal travel and even help search for a six-figure job for his wife. That quest included setting up a call with Chick-fil-A executives.
In recent weeks, an exodus of trusted staffers left Pruitt increasingly isolated, and some once-loyal Republican lawmakers wearied of defending him.
On Thursday, President Trump called Pruitt’s top deputy, Andrew Wheeler, to inform him that he would be taking the helm of the agency, according to an individual who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter.
Soon after, Trump announced in a two-part tweet that he had accepted Pruitt’s resignation. “Within the Agency Scott has done an outstanding job, and I will always be thankful to him for this,” Trump wrote.
Wheeler, a former Senate staffer and EPA employee who spent the past decade representing coal, mining and other energy companies, will become acting administrator on Monday, Trump tweeted.
The departure marked a precipitous fall for Pruitt, who during his roughly 16 months in office took steps to reverse more than a dozen major Obama-era regulations and overhauled key elements of the agency’s approach to scientific research.
In the early months of the Trump administration, when other Cabinet members were struggling to recruit deputies and navigate their departments, Pruitt was already unraveling federal restrictions on greenhouse-gas emissions and toxic waste discharge from coal-fired power plants. He declined to ban a commonly used pesticide linked to potential neurological brain damage in fetuses, as the agency had previously proposed.
Most prominently, he pushed Trump to announce a U.S. withdrawal from the landmark Paris climate accord. He not only questioned the science of climate change but also the overwhelming scientific consensus that human activity is the primary contributor to global warming.
The moves, coupled with Pruitt’s penchant for secrecy, made him a lightning rod for controversy. He refused to release his schedule in advance or transcripts of his speeches to industry groups. He installed biometric locks on doors and constructed the soundproof phone booth steps from his office.
From his third-floor, woodpaneled suite, Pruitt largely insulated himself from career staff, many of whom had worked to craft the policies he sought to dismantle. Meanwhile, through buyouts and a hiring freeze, he proudly shrank the EPA’s workforce to levels not seen since the 1980s.
Pruitt unrelentingly steered the agency in the direction long sought by those being regulated, a shift he defended as providing regulatory certainty, handing greater power to states and saving companies money in compliance costs.
Critics described his approach as nothing short of an assault on the agency’s mission, its employees and on science. Supporters applauded his willingness to wrangle an agency many conservatives view as prone to overreach and, as Pruitt recently said, “a bastion of liberalism.”