Worry, relief after Pruitt
Statements show new chief skeptical of climate change
WASHINGTON — Taking over from an ambitious predecessor known for seeking out the rich, powerful and conservative, the Environmental Protection Agency’s newly named acting chief has promised to reach out to anxious staffers throughout the demoralized agency and to lawmakers of both political parties.
By late afternoon Friday, there had been no public comment from either Scott Pruitt, whose resignation President Donald Trump announced Thursday after months of Pruitt’s ethics scandals, or Andrew Wheeler, the Washington veteran and former coal lobbyist who Trump announced as the agency’s acting head.
In an email sent out to EPA staffers Thursday night and obtained by The Associated Press, Wheeler said hewas honored to take temporary leadership of the agency where he started his Washington career in the early 1990s, as an EPAemployee dealing with toxic substances and other matters.
“I look forward to working hard alongside all of you,” Wheeler wrote agency employees.
Pruitt, Oklahoma’s attorney general at the time of his EPA appointment, had embraced the perks of office in Washington. He instituted unusual and costly round-the-clock protection for himself, flew premium class to Europe and North Africa, and directed agency staffers to help seek housing for his family, high-dollar employment for his wife, and pleasures such as luxury lotion and tickets to top sporting events.
Trump had praised Pruitt for his regulationtrimming ways at EPA. On Thursday, however, Trump said even Pruitt had concluded the EPA chief’s ethics scandalswere too much of a distraction and was stepping down.
But according to two people familiar with the situation, Pruitt resigned after White House chief of staff John Kelly delivered a message fromthepresident that it was time for the scandal-plagued administrator to leave, Bloomberg News reported Friday.
Pruitt didn’t want to leave his post and was described as being devastated that he had to resign, said the people, who asked not to be named discussing a personnel matter.
Trump wanted Pruitt to leave, after revelations that the administrator’s public schedule had been altered to shield some meetings from public view, they said. Doctored schedules — which could be a criminal violation of the Federal Records Act — were the final straw.
SomeEPAstaffers linked to Pruitt’s tumultuous 17month tenure feared for their jobs Friday, former top staffers under Pruitt said. That included the 20 members of a security detail Pruitt’s EPA had created to guard him around the clock. The guards were originally trained for investigating environmental crimes.
“There’s definitely that fear” of a shake-up among Pruitt’s remaining political appointees, said Kevin Chmielewski, the former deputy chief of staff who fell out of favor with Pruitt after questioning spending. “This is the follow-up stories, the people’s lives he’s affected, going down to the agents and everyone else.”
Some scientists and other career staffers, who learned of Pruitt’s departure through news and social media Thursday, quietly expressed relief, Elizabeth Southerland, who quit last year as the science director at the agency’s Office of Water, said after hearing Thursday and Friday from many still at the agency.
Wheeler’s public statements show him to be a skeptic, like Pruitt, about the extent to which coal, oil and gas emissions drive climate change, something that mainstream science says is indisputable fact.
At the EPA, staffers expect Wheeler to stick to the agenda set by Pruitt and Trump: Cutting environmental regulations that the Trump administration and industries see as unnecessarily burdensome to business, said Southerland, the formerwater official.
“There’s not a single person who doesn’t think that will happen,” Southerland said of theEPAstaffers she has talked to.