Beleaguered EPA chief resigns amid scandals
WASHINGTON — Environmental Protection Agency chief Scott Pruitt, one of the most scandal-plagued Cabinet officials in U.S. history, is leaving the agency.
“I have accepted the resignation of Scott Pruitt as the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency,” Trump said in a tweet Thursday. “Within the agency Scott has done an outstanding job, and I will always be thankful to him for this.”
He said Pruitt’s deputy at EPA, Andrew Wheeler, will assume control on Monday as acting administrator. The naming of Wheeler, a former coal lobbyist and longtime Washington insider, assures that even in Pruitt’s absence, the EPA will continue to pursue an agenda driven by the fossil fuel industry.
“I have no doubt that Andy will continue on with our great and lasting EPA agenda,” Trump wrote. “We have made tremendous progress and the future of the EPA is very bright!”
The departure of the anti-regulatory crusader Pruitt ends a bizarre and tumultuous chapter of the Trump administration that puzzled even some of the president’s staunchest supporters.
The spendthrift EPA chief has been a political liability for the White House for months, drawing the attention of federal investigators with scandal after scandal, many of which were linked to his lavish spending of taxpayer money and the use of his position to enrich his family. Pruitt leaves the post the target of more than a dozen official probes.
The transgressions include Pruitt’s deal with the wife of a top energy lobbyist for deeply discounted housing, huge raises he gave friends against the instructions of the White House and his penchant for flying first class.
Pruitt used his office to try to secure his wife a Chick-fil-A franchise and also enlisted aides to try to help her land lucrative work elsewhere. He had a $43,000 phone booth installed in his office.
“Scott Pruitt’s corruption and coziness with industry lobbyists finally caught up with him,” said Erich Pica, president of Friends of the Earth, an environmental advocacy group. “We’re happy that Pruitt can no longer deceive Americans or destroy our environment.”
The executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington issued a one-word statement: “Good.”
Pruitt’s unyielding loyalty to Trump was reflected in a resignation letter Thursday laden with genuflection and references to divine intervention. The departing agency head wrote that he believed “God’s providence” brought Trump to Washington, and Pruitt to work for him there.
“Truly, your confidence in me has blessed me personally and enabled me to advance your agenda beyond what anyone anticipated at the beginning of your administration,” Pruitt wrote. “However, the unrelenting attacks on me personally, (and) my family, are unprecedented and have taken a sizable toll on all of us.”
During a trip to Montana Thursday evening, Trump said, “I think Scott felt that he was a distraction.” The president said Pruitt’s resignation was “very much up to him.”
Although Trump initially backed Pruitt and prominent conservatives had lobbied to keep him in place, the scandals eventually became too much for the administration.
Pruitt has been seen by conservatives as among Trump’s most effective Cabinet members, aggressively dismantling clean water and air rules, working from the inside to weaken the agency’s authority and rolling back the Obama-era climate action loathed by fossil fuel companies.
The latest Cabinet shuffle reflects a remarkable turnabout for Pruitt, once a rising GOP star. The EPA position was seen by Pruitt’s allies as a launchpad for bigger ambitions, such as a run for the Senate or Oklahoma governorship, and possibly even the presidency.
But that political future has been thrown into doubt amid investigations into behavior the White House was unwilling to defend, such as the unauthorized purchase of the soundproof phone booth meant to deter eavesdroppers.
The departure is a blow to anti-regulatory activists eager to see the rules of the Obama era scrapped. Several of the battles Pruitt launched against regulations, such as the aggressive fuel economy standards championed by California and the federal Clean Power Plan aimed at reducing electricity plant emissions, are likely to endure for years. The Trump administration already was sprinting to get the rules rewritten and through court challenges before the next presidential election.
The shake-up could slow that work and give environmental groups and the coalition of states fighting Pruitt’s agenda an advantage.
Yet in Wheeler, they will find themselves up against an even tougher — albeit less visible — foe than Pruitt. Wheeler has spent more than two decades in Washington, often working skillfully behind the scenes to ease regulations on oil and gas companies. He spent 14 years advising Sen. Jim Inhofe, R-Okla., one of the most prominent and vocal climate-change deniers in Washington. He has a mastery of the regulatory process that likely exceeds Pruitt’s, whose political ambitions often seemed to distract from the complicated process of rewriting regulations.
Many of Pruitt’s rollbacks are in legal jeopardy because he pushed them out in haste. Wheeler is known to move slower, and more competently. Environmental groups are alarmed by the prospect of him at the helm. “I have no doubt and complete confidence (Wheeler) will continue the important deregulatory work that Scott Pruitt started while being a good steward of the environment,” said Inhofe.