EPA nominee grilled on lobbyist past

Dems question Wheeler on protection rollbacks

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump’s nominee to lead the Environmental Protection Agency on Wednesday called climate change “a huge issue” but not the “greatest crisis” and drew fire from Democrats at his confirmation hearing over the regulatory rollbacks he’s made in six months as the agency’s acting administrator.

Republicans on the Gop-majority Senate Environment and Public Works Committee mostly had praise for Andrew Wheeler, who has served as the agency’s acting head since Scott Pruitt’s resignation in July. The committee chairman, Sen. John Barrasso, R-wyo., called Wheeler “very well-qualified” to take the job.

But Democrats pressed Wheeler about his work as a lobbyist helping an influential coal magnate meet with Trump administration officials before his nomination to the EPA and his moves on deregulation and on what they said was his inattention to the growing dangers of climate change.

Sen. Ed Markey, D-mass., asked Wheeler why he was pulling back on regulations that proponents say protect human health and the environment.

“I believe we are moving forward” on protections, Wheeler responded.

Wheeler cited changes he had initiated to roll back future mileage standards for cars and autos and to ease Obama-era clampdowns on dirtier-burning coal-fired power plants.

He said EPA staff had concluded that those rollbacks would ultimately lead to health gains.

Sen. Joni Ernst of Iowa and other Republican lawmakers praised Wheeler for a move to remove federal protections for millions of miles of wetlands and waterways and other proposals. Republican lawmakers said the protections had burdened farmers and others.

The grandson of a coal miner, Wheeler worked for the EPA in the 1990s and later as a longtime Republican Senate staffer.

A watchdog group, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, filed an ethics complaint Tuesday with the EPA’S Office of the Inspector General alleging that Wheeler’s oversight of rollback proposals at EPA may have violated his government ethics pledge to abstain from regulatory decisions affecting his former lobbying clients for at least two years.

EPA spokesman John Konkus called the accusation “baseless” and “wrong” and said Wheeler works with EPA ethics officials and follows their guidance.

Andrew Harnik The Associated Press Andrew Wheeler arrives Wednesday to testify at a Senate Environment and Public Works Committee hearing on Capitol Hill to be the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency.