(Photo: Federal Triangle Metro station at the Environmental Protection Agency building in Washington, DC. Credit: NCinDC, Flickr Creative Commons)Environmental Protection Agency assistant administrator Bill Wehrum announced plans to resign this week amid an ongoing House Energy and Commerce Committee ethics inquiry. A top EPA official responsible for air and radiation, Wehrum led the agency’s efforts to roll back the Obama-era Clean Power Plan.
In a statement issued Wednesday, EPA head Andrew Wheeler said Wehrum would be leaving the agency at the end of June, and thanked him for finalizing regulation last week allowing states to set emissions standards for coal-fired plants. Environmentalists quickly criticized the new EPA regulation, called the Affordable Clean Energy rule.
Reuters noted that Wehrum has also been working with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to change vehicle emissions standards — an effort that prompted state lawsuits and created uncertainty for automakers. However, these changes have not been finalized yet.
Before joining the Trump administration, Wehrum served as a lobbyist and a lawyer for the oil, gas, and coal industries, the New York Times reported. He was also acting assistant administrator at the EPA Office of Air and Radiation under President George W. Bush, the outlet noted.
Ethics questions have persisted since President Trump nominated Wehrum in 2017, PBS reported. In April, the House Energy and Commerce Committee launched an investigation into whether he and his deputy improperly aided their former industry clients, the Washington Post’s Juliet Eilperin wrote.
“[T]he lawmakers are demanding new details about the Utility Air Regulatory Group, an umbrella organization that Wehrum had represented and that is funded by several companies opposed to stricter limits on pollutants from coal-fired plants,” she wrote. “Under Wehrum’s tenure, the EPA has sought to loosen federal restrictions on coal plants’ emissions of carbon dioxide and other pollutants.”
Other Trump Administration officials responsible for environmental and energy regulation have raised ethics questions. Last year EPA chief Scott Pruitt resigned amid controversies over spending, ethics, and management decisions. The Department of the Interior has also been under a cloud. Ryan Zinke resigned in December while facing a number of federal investigations. Documents obtained by the New York Times appeared to show that Zinke’s replacement, David Bernhardt, continued lobbying for a former client after officially saying he had stopped.
Wheeler said this week that Anne Idsal, principal deputy assistant administrator, will become acting assistant administrator for the EPA. The Houston Chronicle’s James Osbourne reported that she is a former staffer with Texas Senator John Cornyn and joined the EPA’s air office last year. The Texas Observer’s Naveena Sadasivam wrote on Thursday that Idsal is a 34-year-old Baylor Law School graduate whose family has long been connected to the Republican guard in the state.
In December 2017, shortly after joining the EPA, Idsal told the Observer, “I think it’s possible that humans have some type of impact on climate change,” she said. “I just don’t know the extent of that.”
Sadasivam reported at the time, “Luke Metzger, executive director of Environment Texas, said it was ‘alarming’ that in 2017 Idsal doesn’t believe climate change is human-caused. ‘She acknowledges not having a technical background, making it even more important that she listen to the scientists and let them do their jobs,’ he said.”
