Andrew Wheeler is the acting administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, but he may stay on for longer to complete the deregulatory agenda that the exiting Administrator Scott Pruitt started.
Wheeler, formerly the No. 2 official of the EPA before Pruitt resigned Thursday, recently finished up his third month in office after a difficult confirmation process.
Some of his supporters, and other observers close to the agency, say that Wheeler, a career conservative Senate staffer and lawyer with EPA experience, could serve as a more disciplined, understated, permanent replacement to Pruitt without the ethics baggage.
[Opinion: Why the Left will hate Andrew Wheeler at EPA even more than Scott Pruitt]
“We have full confidence in Andrew both from his past experience and the job he has done at EPA,” Myron Ebell, director of the Center for Energy and Environment at the free-market Competitive Enterprise Institute, told the Washington Examiner. “We think he will carry on the Trump reform agenda in a really competent way. He is on board with all the major reform efforts.”
Ebell, who led the EPA’s transition team for Trump, has been a big Pruitt booster, but he said various ethics and spending investigations were distracting from the agency’s agenda.
“For the top people at the EPA, the various Pruitt accusations have been a real challenge and a distraction,” Ebell said. “It could have slowed some things down. Once Pruitt is gone, and Andrew is in charge, people will get back to doing their jobs everyday rather than accusations. That strikes me as the good side of this.”
True to his humble reputation, Wheeler told the Washington Examiner in an interview last month that he was not gunning for his boss’s job and focused on helping Pruitt implement a deregulatory agenda that they share a passion for.
“While that’s flattering, I am not thinking about it, no,” Wheeler said.
Wheeler, laughing about news reports he has read about his aptitude for the top EPA job, said he was content with being second-in-command.
“I am the deputy administrator,” Wheeler said. “That’s the job I wanted and that’s the job I have. I could have tried to be the administrator. I could have put my hat in the ring for the administrator. I wasn’t interested in that. I am still not interested in that.”
Wheeler said he was focusing on repairing relationships with EPA career staff who bristled at Pruitt’s tendency to personalize his leadership of the agency and disregard people who worked for him.
He said he planned to travel to each of the EPA’s regional offices to mend relationships with staff.
He has already “enjoyed” visiting three regional offices and has met all of the agency’s assistant and regional administrators.
“I am sure there are some people with the agency that aren’t completely on board with Administrator Pruitt or President Trump’s agenda, probably on climate,” Wheeler said. “But as far as the core mission of the agency, and refocusing our efforts on that core mission, people working on those programs like the attention those programs are getting.”
Critics say Pruitt has little to show for his campaign to rewrite rules combating climate change and has failed to back his efforts with data to show why regulations he targets are unnecessary.
Supporters of the current EPA’s deregulatory agenda hope Wheeler, a former energy lobbyist and staffer for Sen. Jim Inhofe, R-Okla., on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, could bring more rigor and professionalism to that process.
“With Andy Wheeler stepping in to replace Pruitt, I think we’ll see a change in style but not in substance,” Jeff Holmstead, a former deputy administrator of the EPA in the George W. Bush administration, told the Washington Examiner. “I really don’t think we’ll see a change in direction on any of the big regulatory reforms. Andy probably is the ideal person to lead EPA at this point. Pruitt got a lot of regulatory reforms started, but he’s never worked a regulatory agency and didn’t fully understand the administrative process and what it would take to get them finalized. Andy certainly does. He’s worked on these issues for years and may actually be more effective than Pruitt when it comes to carrying out the reforms that Pruitt started.”
Wheeler has much more experience in environmental policy than Pruitt, who formerly served as the Republican attorney general of Oklahoma.
He worked at the EPA from 1991 to 1995 on toxic chemical issues.
He has also worked as an attorney and lobbyist on environmental issues for nine years.
“It’s going to be a grind to unravel the climate change regulations, WOTUS [Waters of the U.S.], fuel efficiency mandates, and a number of other policy objectives,” Nick Loris, an energy and environment expert at the conservative Heritage Foundation, told the Washington Examiner. “I see no reason why Wheeler can’t be the one to carry that out. He has some institutional knowledge now and there’s a small army of former Inhofe folks over there. That core group shares a lot of the same policy perspective that the agency set out to accomplish from the get-go.”
Wheeler would have to be confirmed again by the Senate if Trump made him the permanent successor.
If Trump were to choose someone else, Republicans have questioned whether the nominee could win confirmation with a slim 51-49 majority as the midterm elections loom.
Democrats who opposed Wheeler during confirmation for his deputy position in April note his past lobbying work for Murray Energy, the largest privately-owned coal company in the U.S. Murray has asked Trump to bail out failing coal and nuclear plants, which the president is planning to do. Wheeler critics label him a “coal lobbyist,” a term he does not like.
But Wheeler did earn the support of three Senate Democrats who voted for him.
Those who have worked with Wheeler say criticisms about his lobbying work are unfair and note he has experience on Capitol Hill working on a bipartisan basis.
“Andrew would make a very strong administrator,” said Dave Conover, vice president of public affairs at Kinder Morgan, who worked with Wheeler on the Environment and Public Works Committee.
“He has devoted most of his career to public service,” Conover told the Washington Examiner. “He knows well and cares about the people and the mission of the agency. As a colleague on the Senate Environment Committee staff I knew him to be committed to smart and cost-effective environmental protection, which is what the administration’s agenda is all about.”
