President says he’ll nominate Wheeler to lead EPA
Acting chief is ex-lobbyist with roots in coal country
WASHINGTON — Andrew Wheeler, a former congressional aide and coal lobbyist who has led the Environmental Protection Agency since his scandalplagued predecessor resigned earlier this year, got President Donald Trump’s nod Friday for the permanent job.
Wheeler’s promotion would keep him as an agent in Trump’s mission of rolling back environmental regulations that the administration regards as burdensome to business. Environmental groups quickly voiced their opposition.
Trump announced his plans for Wheeler almost in passing Friday at a White House ceremony for Presidential Medal of Freedom honorees.
Singling out Cabinet members in the audience, Trump got to Wheeler and said, “acting administrator, who I will tell you is going to be made permanent.”
The White House said Trump was signaling his intent to nominate Wheeler. The nomination would require Senate confirmation. Senators approved Wheeler as the agency’s deputy administrator in a 53-45 vote last April.
A veteran on Capitol Hill, Wheeler worked from 1995 to 2009 as a staffer for Republican Sen. Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma, a fervent denier of man-made climate change, and then for the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee.
Wheeler later worked as a lobbyist, including for coal giant Murray Energy Corp., which has pushed hard for coalfriendly policies.
The grandson of a coal miner, Wheeler told staffers in his first days as the agency’s acting head this summer that he was proud of his roots in coal country. In the acting role, Wheeler has a reputation as a more open and cordial boss for employees than Pruitt was, and for producing regulatory rewrites more likely to stand up to court challenges.
Since becoming acting EPA head, Wheeler has advanced proposals that would ease emissions limits for power plants, for cars, and for oil and gas facilities, rejecting earlier EPA findings that some of the moves would lead to increased deaths from pollutants.
Wheeler, however, has slowed another Pruitt-era rollback that would have allowed trucks with outdated, dirtierburning engines to stay on the road.
“Compared to Administrator Pruitt, Mr. Wheeler is better,” said Sen. Tom Carper, a Delaware Democrat and a consistent critic of Trump’s EPA.
“Compared to Administrators Ruckelshaus or Whitman, he’s not doing nearly as well,” Carper added. He was referring to William Ruckelshaus, who was appointed by Richard Nixon to head the EPA in 1970 and Christine Todd Whitman, who was appointed to the post in 2001 by George W. Bush.
The EPA did not immediately respond to a request for comment Friday.
Environmental groups condemned the announcement.
“In normal times, a zealous fossil fuel apologist and the top official in charge of protecting children’s health from pollution would be two separate people with conflicting agendas,” said Ken Cook, president of the Environmental Working Group. “But this is the Trump administration, where a former top coal lobbyist could become administrator of the EPA.”