Democratic senators grill Wheeler
WASHINGTON >> Andrew Wheeler, President Donald Trump’s nominee to lead the Environmental Protection Agency, faced sharp questions Wednesday from Democrats who painted him as a danger to clean air and water laws as he steers Trump’s agenda of rolling back environmental regulations.
Taking the stand before the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, Wheeler vigorously defended his work over the past several months rolling back Obama-era regulations, including the replacement of a broad plan to reduce emissions from coalfired power plants, known as the Clean Power Plan, with weaker rules.
His opening remarks were nearly drowned out by demonstrators shouting “Shut down Wheeler, not the EPA.” The protesters were escorted out of the hearing room by Capitol Police officers as Wheeler began speaking.
Wheeler has been the agency’s acting administrator since his predecessor, Scott Pruitt, resigned in July amid ethics scandals. Trump nominated Wheeler last week to formally take over as head of the EPA.
“Mr. Wheeler is certainly not the ethically bereft embarrassment that Scott Pruitt proved to be,” Sen. Tom Carper of Delaware,
the top Democrat on the committee, said in his opening remarks. At the same time, he and other lawmakers pressed Wheeler on the string of regulatory rollbacks as well as his and Trump’s positions on climate change.
“The scientific community has said the threat of climate change is one of the great crises facing our planet,” Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., said. “Do you agree?”
Wheeler said he believed that climate change is occurring, and that humans have an effect. But he told the committee: “I would not call it the greatest crisis, no sir. I would call it a huge issue that has to be addressed globally.”
Wheeler repeated the Trump administration’s finding that its plan to revise
the Clean Power Plan would still reduce planetwarming emissions by 34 percent below 2005 levels by 2030.
However, a Harvard University study published this week disputed that, finding that the Trump administration’s plan would be worse for the planet than doing nothing at all. The study found that greenhouse gas emissions would “rebound” under the new policy by delaying the retirement of coal-fired power plants. Carbon emissions could rise in 18 states by as much as 8.7 percent by 2030, compared to having no carbon policy, the study found.
Wheeler pushed back on those numbers, telling lawmakers, “That is not what the career people at the agency are telling me.”
Later in the hearing, he said: “I believe we are moving forward on a proactive basis.”
He also addressed recent findings that carbon dioxide emissions have spiked in the United States over the past year. According to the findings by research firm Rhodium Group, emissions rose 3.4 percent in 2018. That’s the largest uptick in U.S. emissions in eight years. Wheeler has frequently pointed to the fact that greenhouse gas emissions decreased by 2.7 percent between 2016 and 2017 as proof that the Trump administration is protecting the environment while deregulating. Yet that dip occurred before Trump officially took office and was largely driven by market forces.