Administrator Scott Pruitt's resignation from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) marked the end of a productive but tumultuous time at the agency, but when it comes to policy, the new acting administrator, Andrew Wheeler, is likely to stay the course.
However history judges Pruitt’s tenure at EPA, critics and
supporters of Pruitt can agree EPA under Pruitt began a fundamental
transformation of its operations.
Ending sue-and-settle agreements; reshaping EPA’s science advisory committees to better reflect diversity of geography, experience, and points of view; reducing the chance of graft by halting those who make EPA research funding decisions from also receiving funding for their research; beginning to roll back myriad regulatory actions, including the Clean Power Plan, the Waters of the United States (WOTUS) rule, the massive increase in the Corporate Fuel Economy Standard (CAFE), and various energy efficiency mandates for appliances, EPA began changing the way it did business.
Ending sue-and-settle agreements; reshaping EPA’s science advisory committees to better reflect diversity of geography, experience, and points of view; reducing the chance of graft by halting those who make EPA research funding decisions from also receiving funding for their research; beginning to roll back myriad regulatory actions, including the Clean Power Plan, the Waters of the United States (WOTUS) rule, the massive increase in the Corporate Fuel Economy Standard (CAFE), and various energy efficiency mandates for appliances, EPA began changing the way it did business.
Based on the media coverage of EPA’s changing of the guard,
critics and supporters of President Donald Trump’s energy and environment
agenda alike agree substantively nothing much will change with Wheeler’s
ascension to head the agency. In the immortal words of The Who, “Meet the New
Boss, Same as the Old Boss.”
Trump expressed confidence in Wheeler’s ability to keep the
agency carrying out his agenda, tweeting on July 5, “I have no doubt that Andy
will continue on with our great and lasting EPA agenda. We have made tremendous
progress and the future of the EPA is very bright!”
Sadly, but entirely predictably, the environmental left took
Wheeler’s rise as another opportunity to declare the end of the world. A Huffington Postheadline
succinctly stated radical environmentalists’ point of view: “Scott Pruitt’s
Replacement Is Even Worse.” The article quotes Frank O’Donnell, president of
Clean Air Watch, saying, “This is like rearranging deck chairs on the
environmental Titanic.”
The left’s histrionic response to Wheeler taking over at EPA is
a mirror image of its response to Trump’s nomination of Brett Kavanaugh as
associate justice to the U.S. Supreme Court: regardless of qualifications,
anyone who helms EPA under Trump will be tarred by the left as a friend of
polluters and destroyer of environmental policies that are the only thing
keeping our children from dying of air and water pollution and climate
disaster.
Former Congressman Tim Huelskamp, Ph.D., president of The
Heartland Institute, said Wheeler will be effective in accomplishing EPA’s
mission despite environmentalists’ attacks.
“With his resume of commitment to the cause of commonsense
policymaking, Andrew Wheeler is an excellent choice to run the EPA, and we are
excited to work with him,” said Huelskamp. “Just like the extremist Left had it
out for Scott Pruitt before he was even sworn in, they have targeted Wheeler as
well. However, we doubt these personal attacks will deter Wheeler from his
noble goal to focus the EPA on its core mission of helping to keep America’s
air, land, and water clean of pollution.”
Environmentalists fear Wheeler for the same reason supporters of
Trump’s regulatory reform efforts welcome him: he is expected to be much more
effective than Pruitt at rolling back regulations imposed under previous
administrations that go beyond what federal law allows and ultimately harm
American businesses and workers.
Why more effective? Because of Wheeler’s experience and style.
Wheeler has a great deal of experience working with EPA, both within and
outside of the agency. Wheeler won awards for his work at the agency between
1991 and 1995. Subsequently, Wheeler worked alternately as majority staff
director, minority staff director, and chief counsel at the Senate Committee on
Environment and Public Works, with oversight responsibility for EPA. As a
result, Wheeler, unlike Pruitt, knows intimately which levers to push within
the agency and in Congress to succeed at reining in EPA overreach, which is
vital because Wheeler has a lot left to accomplish.
Along with myriad new regulatory reviews and actions EPA is
expected to undertake under legislative or court deadlines, EPA is still
working on replacements for CPP, WOTUS, and CAFE rules; to improve the
transparency and public accessibility of the science used to guide agency decisions
and rules; and to establish new nationwide pollution limits for drinking water
and groundwater — all efforts started under Pruitt.
In public statements, supporters and detractors alike have
indicated Wheeler could serve as a more disciplined, less scandal-prone
replacement for 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 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.”
“For the top people at the EPA, the various Pruitt accusations
have been a real challenge and a distraction,” Ebell continued. “Once Pruitt is
gone, and Andrew is in charge, people will get back to doing their jobs every
day, rather than accusations.”
“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. “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 at a regulatory agency and didn’t fully understand the administrative
process and what it would take to get them finalized. Andy certainly does,”
Holmstead said. “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.”
Clean Air Watch’s O’Donnell, a fierce critic of Wheeler, agrees
his personality may make Wheeler more effective.
“This is a guy who shares all the ideology of Pruitt, except his
style is totally different,” Huffington
Post quotes O’Donnell as saying. “He’s not a flamboyant,
backslapping politician with a taste for scandal.”
We can’t yet be certain what Wheeler’s tenure might mean for
EPA’s climate policy. Driven by the endangerment finding, EPA has begun the
process of drafting a replacement for CPP. Wheeler’s past statements give hope
this effort won’t continue. In March of 2010, while working for the Senate,
Wheeler “accused the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change of blurring
‘the lines between science and advocacy’ and functioning ‘more as a political
body than a scientific body,’ suggesting EPA could ‘reconsider its endangerment
finding without almost exclusively relying upon the IPCC,’” the Huffington Postnotes.
Under the intense spotlight trained on any Trump administration
official, it’s hard to do anything under the radar, but with his knowledge of
the inner workings of EPA’s regulatory processes and his low-key,
non-confrontational style, if anyone can successfully rescind the endangerment
finding and save the American people from unnecessarily high energy prices and
shortages, it may just be Andrew Wheeler.
Buona fortuna, Mr. Wheeler!
Dr H. Sterling Burnett is a Heartland Institute senior fellow on environmental policy and the managing editor of Environment & Climate News.
Dr H. Sterling Burnett is a Heartland Institute senior fellow on environmental policy and the managing editor of Environment & Climate News.
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