Washington, DC – Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), a senior member of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, released the following statement on the confirmation today of Andrew Wheeler to be Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA):
“Andrew Wheeler is another poster boy for the capture of our Environmental Protection Agency by the polluters it regulates. He is a former coal lobbyist famous for literally delivering the political playbook for the coal industry. And since becoming the number two at the EPA, he has bent over backwards and forwards and sideways for polluting industries. He’s pushed to unwind climate safeguards, failed to act to protect drinking water from carcinogenic chemicals, slow-walked protections from toxics in consumer products, and undermined a crucial safeguard for mercury from power plants. Other than Scott Pruitt, he’s the last person Americans want at the helm of the EPA.”
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