Pruitt and successor bad for environment

The long-awaited resignation of Scott Pruitt as head of the Environmental Protection Agency has arrived, triggered by multiple charges of personal abuses of power, violation of public trust and financial recklessness, all commonly earning the label “scandal-plagued.” It is somewhat paradoxical that his downfall should stem from these personal failings rather than from the more catastrophic impact of his devastation of the agency he had sued over a dozen times while attorney general of Oklahoma.

Rather than protecting the environment, Pruitt’s withdrawing of delaying regulations designed to provide Americans with air safe to breathe and water safe to drink is the real scandal. He was a force behind President Trump’s decision to withdraw from the Paris Climate Accord, being a denier of scientifically proven global warming.

As we bid Scott Pruitt a fond farewell we must look anxiously to his incoming replacement, Andrew Wheeler, former coal industry lobbyist, who while lacking the personal baggage of Pruitt, is equally anti-environment. Frederick R. McKeehan Quaker Hill