Scott Pruitt’s resignation as Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency was a long time coming. His tenure at the EPA was characterized by a seemingly endless series of ethics scandals and a relentless effort to dismantle lifesaving public health and environmental safeguards.
His acting replacement, Andrew Wheeler, may be no better.
Wheeler, along with President Trump, seems to champion an environmental philosophy that can only be described as pro-pollution. He went so far as to praise Pruitt’s reign at the EPA, stating, “We have made tremendous progress over the past year and a half,” and is expected to stay the course on this toxic, pro-polluter agenda.
Wheeler was, until recently, a big-time coal lobbyist with a client list including corporations such as Murray Energy, a company known for unlawful toxic pollution and support of attempts to overturn EPA environmental safeguards. He was a large part of the industry’s efforts to maintain profits at the expense of hard working Americans’ health and safety.
This poses a serious conflict of interest, which gives strong reason to worry that his connections to polluters and their allies will influence his actions as head of the EPA.
In fact, his first major action as administrator suggested how his tenure might proceed: On July 18, he signed his first major regulatory amendment, making it easier for large polluting corporations to discard toxic coal ash however they see fit. Coal ash, the byproduct of burning coal, contains life threatening contaminants like mercury, cadmium, and arsenic. The deregulation of coal ash disposal poses a serious danger to American’s health and blatantly disregards the consequences of water contamination.
In their next attempt to undermine landmark environmental policy, Wheeler and Trump put forth another detrimental proposal to freeze, through 2026, widely supported fuel efficiency safeguards that cut harmful climate pollution and improve fuel economy performance. The clean car standards were predicted to save consumers $1.7 trillion at the pump and 12 billion barrels of oil over the life of the program, but the proposed rollback would result in even higher levels of pollution, increased gas prices, and less efficient vehicles. Rolling back these standards has been the aim of the administration since Trump took office, demonstrating that this proposal was preemptive and not based on a substantive analysis of the safeguard’s effect.
Wheeler’s hearing before the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee – his first in his new position – indicated that he does not plan to deviate from Pruitt and Trump’s toxic agenda. When pressed on the importance of clean car standards and regulating harmful and carcinogenic chemicals under the Toxic Substances Control Act, Wheeler was non-committal and did not identify any actions the EPA would take to address either of these urgent issues. This means we must hold him accountable as he moves forward with plans to undo safeguards that protect hardworking Americans and the environment.
Monye is a Defend Our Future Summer Intern and a rising senior at Washington University in St. Louis.
