ETHICS PROBE SNAGS TRUMP APPOINTEE

A top Environmental Protection Agency official who helped lead the Trump administration’s rollback of Obama-era restrictions of carbon emissions is resigning amid a congressional probe into whether he improperly aided former industry clients.

EPA Assistant Administrator Bill Wehrum is expected to depart at the end of June.

EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler announced Wehrum’s resignation on Wednesday. Ethics questions have dogged Wehrum since his 2017 nomination by President Donald Trump. He long represented the fossil fuel and chemical industries as a Washington lawyer. Narrowly confirmed by the Senate, Wehrum has helped lead the EPA’s rollbacks of clean air and carbon emissions regulations that were opposed by his former private-sector clients.

The Democratic-controlled House Energy and Commerce Committee opened an investigation in April following media reports questioning Wehrum’s compliance with ethics rules barring political appointees from acting on issues involving their former employers for at least two years.

Documents obtained through a public records request by the Sierra Club showed Wehrum met with former clients and industry lawyers from his former firm without disclosing the contacts on his official calendar. He also gave a closed-door presentation last year to the Cooler Heads Coalition, a conservative pro-business group that seeks to raise doubts about mainstream climate science.