Trump accepts resignation of EPA chief
Deputy administrator will be interim leader
WASHINGTON — United States President Donald Trump accepted the resignation of Scott Pruitt, the Environmental Protection Agency administrator, he said in a tweet Thursday.
Pruitt had been hailed as a hero among conservatives for his zealous deregulation, but he could not overcome the stain of numerous ethics questions about his alleged spending abuses, first-class travel and cosy relationships with lobbyists.
Pruitt, a former Oklahoma attorney general who built his career on lawsuits against the agency he would eventually lead, remained a favourite of Trump’s for the majority of his tenure at the EPA. He began the largest regulatory rollback in the agency’s history, undoing, delaying or blocking several Obama-era environmental rules. Among them was a suite of historic regulations aimed at mitigating global-warming pollution from the United States’ vehicles and power plants.
Pruitt also played a lead role in urging Trump to follow through on his campaign pledge to withdraw the United States from the 2015 Paris climate agreement.
It is expected that the EPA’s deputy administrator, Andrew Wheeler, a former coal lobbyist who shares Pruitt’s zeal to dismantle climate change regulations, will act as the agency’s leader until a new administrator is nominated by Trump.
In 2017,
Pruitt made headlines for questioning the established science of human-caused climate change. Although Pruitt was harshly criticized for the remarks, they did not affect his good standing with a president who has also mocked climate science.
But White House advisers for months have implored Trump to get rid of Pruitt. Ultimately, the president grew disillusioned with Pruitt after a cascade of accusations of impropriety and ethical missteps overshadowed Pruitt’s policy achievements.
Pruitt is the subject of at least 13 federal investigations, and a government watchdog agency concluded he had broken the law with his purchase of a $43,000 secure telephone booth.