CHICAGO, IL -- A former Wisconsin state official known for an industry-friendly approach to environmental regulation has been named head of the regional Environmental Protection Agency office that oversees agency operations in Michigan.

Cathy Stepp, former secretary of the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources and a polarizing figure in the Midwest natural resources and environmental protection world, was named EPA Region 5 administrator on Tuesday, Dec. 19.

Stepp was a Republican state senator before a six-year tenure at the Wisconsin DNR marked by a sharp drop in pollution enforcement and funding cuts for climate change and mining damage research.

Stepp replaces acting Region 5 administrator Robert Kaplan, who took over the Chicago office after former chief Susan Hedman resigned in early 2016 amid criticism that EPA waited too long before stepping into the Flint drinking water crisis.

"Cathy Stepp's experience working as a statewide cabinet official, elected official, and small business owner will bring a fresh perspective to EPA as we look to implement President Trump's agenda." said EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt.

Her appointment came with praise from Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, Ohio EPA director Craig Butler, the Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce and Wisconsin Realtors associations, and Minnesota Pollution Control Agency commissioner John Linc Stine.

Walker called Stepp a "strong, trusted reformer" who led an agency "committed to preserving and promoting our natural resources while placing a strong focus on customer service and common sense."

Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce CEO Kurt Bauer said Stepp "routinely balanced the needs of a growing economy with the importance of protecting our natural resources."

"As Region 5 Administrator, I have no doubt that she will take a common-sense approach to environmental oversight, just as she did for nearly seven years in Wisconsin," Bauer said.

Environmental groups were less happy. The Natural Resources Defense Council, the Environmental Law & Policy Center and other groups expressed dismay and concern about Stepp's track record as an environmental regulator.

Stepp left the DNR "in tatters," said Wisconsin League of Conservation Voters director Kerry Schumann.

"Under her watch, the agency's environmental enforcement abilities were dismantled, its scientists kicked out, its website scrubbed of climate change information and, under the orders of the Walker Administration, she shifted its focus from protecting Wisconsin's natural resources to handing out favors to polluters," she said.

Putting Stepp in charge of the DNR was akin to "putting Lindsay Lohan in charge of a rehab center," a Democrat state senator told the Wisconsin State Journal in 2010.

A former homebuilder with no scientific background, Stepp oversaw a DNR reorganization that included staffing cuts in its science and research bureau, according to the Associated Press.

The number of DNR pollution enforcement cases fell sharply on her watch and the DNR scrubbed language from its website that said humans are partly responsible for climate change.

According to the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, Stepp gave a 2015 speech in which she said her goal at the DNR was to shift the agency from a "prohibiting agency to a permitting agency, which is frankly what I thought we were supposed to be."

According to the Journal-Sentinel, that shift is borne out by major exemptions from state environmental protection laws for Foxconn, which is building a $10 billion liquid crystal display panel plant three times larger than the Pentagon in Racine County, which Stepp represented part of as state senator.

As head of EPA Region 5, Stepp will oversee agency actions in the Midwest states of Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio and Wisconsin. The Chicago office also administers the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative, a toxic cleanup, green infrastructure and invasive species management program the Trump administration sought to eliminate in its 2018 budget as part of a wider attempt to slash the EPA's overall budget by a third.

Stepp has been working as deputy administrator at EPA's Region 7 office in Kansas City since August.