He’s gone; now what?

Republicans who secretly wished for an opening at the top of the Environmental Protection Agency got it last week, when ethically challenged EPA Administrator Scott “Security Detail” Pruitt tendered his resignation. But this one may fall into the category of “be careful what you wish for.”

Pruitt became the subject of multiple internal investigations and external scandals. This kind of personal misconduct cast a pall over his far-right agenda at the EPA, which reversed Obama administration initiatives on air and water pollution, climate change and other threats. Had Pruitt stuck to cozying up to executives for polluters regulated by his agency, he’d probably still be running the EPA. That’s not the sort of sketchy behavior that gets you in trouble with many deregulatory Republicans in Washington. But no, he went much, much further—for example, by accepting an implausibly sweet deal on a Capitol Hill condo from the wife of an energy industry lobbyist.

Now, President Donald Trump has the chance to nominate someone ethically upstanding to run the EPA into irrelevance. No more taint of venality—just a hopelessly cramped reading of federal environmental statutes and a whole lot of faith in the free market to keep industry from externalizing the costs of its toxic operations.

Look forward to lots of 30-second ads featuring smokestacks belching out black clouds and pipes dumping sludge into rivers.