WASHINGTON--U.S. Environmental Protection Agency chief Scott Pruitt, who pleased President Donald Trump with his aggressive efforts to roll back environmental regulations, resigned on Thursday under heavy fire for a series of ethics controversies.
Pruitt was one of Trump's most effective Cabinet members, slashing regulations on the energy and manufacturing industries, including his move to repeal Democratic former President Barack Obama's signature program to cut carbon emissions from power plants, dubbed the Clean Power Plan. He was also instrumental last year in lobbying Trump to withdraw the United States from the global 2015 Paris climate accord to combat global warming.
But Pruitt lost favour with Trump’s inner-circle after a string of controversies ranging from his first-class travel at taxpayer expense, lavish spending on security, the installation of a $43,000 soundproof phone booth in his office, and accusations he used his position to receive favours such as a discounted rental on a high-end condo from an energy lobbyist's wife.
"The unrelenting attacks on me personally, my family, are unprecedented and have taken a sizable toll on all of us," Pruitt said in his resignation letter.
Trump announced the resignation on Twitter and said EPA Deputy Administrator Andrew Wheeler, a former mining industry lobbyist, will become the regulatory agency's acting chief on Monday. Wheeler is widely expected to continue Pruitt's efforts to roll back and streamline regulation.
"Scott has done an outstanding job, and I will always be thankful to him for this," Trump wrote. Trump told reporters later that Pruitt had approached him and offered to resign, as opposed to being pushed out.
Democrats and environmental advocacy groups cheered the departure of Pruitt, a close ally of the fossil fuel industry who has often questioned mainstream climate change science. "Scott Pruitt's reign of venality is finally over. He made swamp creatures blush with his shameless excesses. All tolerated because Trump liked his zealotry. Shame," Democratic U.S. Representative Gerry Connolly said.
The Environmental Working Group, a public health and environment watchdog, called Pruitt "unquestionably the worst head of the agency in its 48-year history."
Pruitt also rankled some Republican lawmakers, including in Midwest corn states, with his efforts to overhaul a U.S. policy requiring biofuels like corn-based ethanol in gasoline. Republican Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa, said Trump made the “right decision”.
Other Republicans, as well as coal and oil industry groups, issued statements Thursday evening saying Pruitt had been a good friend to industry. "Scott Pruitt did great work to reduce the regulatory burdens facing our nation while leading the Environmental Protection Agency," said Republican Senator Jim Inhofe, from Pruitt's home state of Oklahoma.
