Pruitt has been gone for less than a day and his replacement is already under heavy attack

Tim Pearce, DCNF

Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) acting administrator Andrew Wheeler has not finished a day as head of the agency before getting attacked for his stance on climate change and history as a coal lobbyist.

Former EPA head Scott Pruitt resigned Thursday and President Donald Trump installed Wheeler as the EPA’s acting administrator for the interim. Trump announced the news on Twitter.

I have accepted the resignation of Scott Pruitt as the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency. Within the Agency Scott has done an outstanding job, and I will always be thankful to him for this. The Senate confirmed Deputy at EPA, Andrew Wheeler, will…

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 5, 2018

…on Monday assume duties as the acting Administrator of the EPA. 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!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 5, 2018

The preliminary attacks have come chiefly from environmental organizations, liberal news outlets and journalists. The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) tweeted a blog post written after the Senate confirmed Wheeler in April on why Americans should be “afraid of him.”

“Make no mistake: we’ll fight Wheeler’s pollution agenda with the same vigor as we did Pruitt’s,” NRDC tweeted.

Mary Ann Hitt, director of the Sierra Club’s Beyond Coal campaign, celebrated Pruitt’s resignation while reminding Wheeler that the environmental group has “our eye on him.”

Y'ALL WE BOOTED PRUITT! That small-time grifter is headed back to OK in a cloud of smog and coal ash thanks to Y'ALL who refused to let him pollute our country & our democracy! #Coal lobbyist Andrew Wheeler is next in line at EPA and you'd better believe we've got our eye on him.

— Mary Anne Hitt (@maryannehitt) July 5, 2018

Journalists from liberal-leaning news outlets tweeted out other stories and warnings of Wheeler’s embrace of Trump’s deregulatory agenda.

https://twitter.com/rebleber/status/1014977581647613953

https://twitter.com/AlexCKaufman/status/1014966996214145026

Lawmakers spoke against Wheeler as well, tempering celebrations about Pruitt’s resignation with warnings about his replacement.

https://twitter.com/RepValDemings/status/1014964352435269632

Andrew Wheeler is a carbon copy of #ScottPruitt and his polluting policies. #EnoughIsEnough

— Raul M. Grijalva (@RepRaulGrijalva) July 5, 2018

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