In the eight months since he took over EPA, Andrew Wheeler has efficiently carried out the president’s de-regulatory agenda. | Matt Rourke/AP Photo Agriculture Senate confirms Wheeler as Trump’s permanent EPA chief

The Senate confirmed Andrew Wheeler as EPA’s fifteenth administrator Thursday, cementing the authority of one of President Donald Trump’s most effective and prolific de-regulators.

He was confirmed by a vote of 52-47. Sen. Susan Collins (R-Me.) was the only Republican to vote against him; no Democrats voted for him. Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) did not vote.


Wheeler, a former lobbyist, was thrust into EPA’s top spot by the July resignation of Scott Pruitt, who was forced out of the agency by ethics scandals ranging from major travel and security expenses and his efforts to find employment for his wife to the use of staff resources to search for housing, a used mattress and ritzy lotion.

In the eight months since he took over EPA, Wheeler — whose previous clients include coal company Murray Energy, as well as a uranium company and cheese giant Sargento — has efficiently carried out the president’s de-regulatory agenda while avoiding the same constant stream of scandals that plagued Pruitt.

“Under acting Administrator Wheeler’s leadership, the EPA has taken a different approach,” Senate Environment and Public Works Chairman John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) said on Wednesday. “The agency is now putting forward proposals that both protect our environment and allow the country’s economy to flourish.“

Democrats, however, panned Wheeler as unwilling to take significant action on climate change or air and water pollution. “We need someone leading the EPA who will put the health and well-being of the people of this country above the profits of corporate polluters,” said Senate Democratic Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.).

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On power plants, Wheeler shepherded through a replacement for the Obama-era Clean Power Plan that would secure significantly fewer carbon dioxide reductions and make it easier for companies to extend the life of coal-fired power plants. The "Affordable Clean Energy" rule, or ACE, would no longer push states to replace coal with cleaner sources of generation, and it would waive key air permitting requirements for renovations that would allow coal plants to run more efficiently — a move critics say would increase emissions if plants were run more frequently.

Wheeler has also overseen a rollback making it easier to build new coal plants, although he says significant new coal generation is unlikely to be built in the U.S., even with the higher emissions limits. And Wheeler has proposed changing how EPA calculates cost-benefit analyses that discounts incidental health and environmental benefits, making it harder to justify many future regulations.

On autos, Wheeler faces an impending legal showdown with California over EPA’s plan to revoke its special authority to enforce its own stricter limits. That is part of a broader rollback of Obama-era auto rules that EPA and the Transportation Department hope to have finalized in the coming months.

Collins, a moderate Republican facing re-election next year, cited "the threat of climate change to our nation" in explaining why she opposed Wheeler's confirmation Thursday. (She voted to confirm him as deputy administrator last year.)

Wheeler has made a splash on water issues as well.

In December he proposed a re-write of the Waters of the U.S. rule that would significantly shrink the number of streams and wetlands that receive federal protection, delivering on a long-running priority for agricultural, homebuilding and energy interests.

And it was Wheeler's handling of a class of toxic chemicals called PFAS contaminating millions of Americans' drinking water presented one of the biggest hurdles to his confirmation after POLITICO reported in January that the agency did not plan to set an enforceable limit for the chemicals.

Under intense pressure from lawmakers on both sides of the aisle, Wheeler reversed course and said he intends to set the first-ever limits on the pollutant in drinking water when he unveiled the PFAS Action Plan unveiled earlier this month. However, the plan itself commits only to taking the first step in the process — making a formal determination of whether or not two of the chemicals warrant a drinking water limit — and even if the agency decides they do, it will be several years before EPA can finalize any such standard.

West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin, the only remaining Senate Democrat who voted for Wheeler's confirmation as deputy administrator, opposed Wheeler's bid to lead the agency, citing a lack of urgency on PFAS among his objections. Wheeler "hasn’t demonstrated a desire or a will to make any meaningful progress on clean drinking water standards," Manchin said in a statement Wednesday.

Although environmentalists have generally been critical of his work, Wheeler has made a few moves that received cautious approval from green groups.

After many months of hemming and hawing over whether EPA would try to roll back the ozone standard set in 2015, EPA decided instead to defend the rule in court against challenges from the coal industry and some Republican-controlled states. However, the agency hinted that it may re-work key details for the next update, planned to be finished by the end of 2020, that could lead it to weaken the standard again.

Wheeler also plans to review and likely update oxides of nitrogen pollution from heavy-duty trucks, following up on an Obama-era promise to do so.

Annie Snider contributed to this report.