“Through our deregulatory actions, the Trump administration has proven that burdensome federal regulations are not necessary to drive environmental progress,” Wheeler told the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee at his confirmation hearing. “Certainty, and the innovation that thrives in a climate of certainty, are key to progress.”

Wheeler, who was confirmed as the agency’s top deputy last year, has served as the EPA’s acting administrator since July. An agency veteran who also worked in the Senate before becoming a lobbyist, Wheeler is more low-key than his predecessor Scott Pruitt, who was forced to resign in July amid federal ethics inquiries.

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But Wheeler has continued to generate controversy because of the policies he’s continued to advance at the helm of the EPA. Protesters began chanting as soon as he began speaking, only to be removed from the room by police. One man shouted, “Shut down Wheeler, not the EPA!” Outside, a larger group of activists continued the same chant as Wheeler resumed his remarks.

Wheeler has made clear — both through his words and actions — that he would pursue many of the regulatory rollbacks Pruitt put in motion and carry out Trump’s promises of a more efficient, less powerful EPA. Wheeler highlighted nearly three dozen significant rules that the EPA had rolled back during the past two years in his prepared testimony. In the last six months EPA has proposed relaxing carbon emission limits on power plants and freezing fuel efficiency standards for cars and light trucks for six years.

Democrats have little hope of blocking Wheeler’s confirmation. But they used the hearing to lambaste him and the administration’s environmental record. Sen. Thomas R. Carper (Del.), the top Democrat on the panel, questioned why the EPA has worked to change federal rules that have broad industry support, such as limits on mercury pollution from power plants.

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“Mr. Wheeler is certainly not the ethically bereft embarrassment that Scott Pruitt proved to be and — to be fair — he has engaged more frequently and substantively than Scott Pruitt both with Congress and EPA career staff. I knew that Mr. Wheeler and I would not always agree,” Carper said. “But I hoped he would moderate some of Scott Pruitt’s most environmentally destructive policies, specifically where industry and the environmental community are in agreement. Regrettably, my hopes have not been realized. In fact, upon examination, Mr. Wheeler’s environmental policies appear to be just as extreme as his predecessor’s.”

Wheeler’s confirmation hearing comes amid a partial government shutdown that has limited the EPA’s ability to conduct its most basic functions, including industrial inspections and monitoring for pollution nationwide. Wheeler testified that about 800 of the EPA’s roughly 14,000 employees have been deemed essential to continue working during the shutdown, and many key policies will be delayed as a result of the budget stalemate. More broadly, the agency has shrunk roughly 6 percent since Trump took office.

Wheeler touted the administration’s record on enforcement during the hearing, noting that last week the EPA and the Justice Department reached a major settlement with Fiat Chrysler Automobiles over the firm’s cheating on vehicle emissions tests. “What makes our actions effective and durable is our ability to enforce them,” Wheeler said.

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But staffing cuts, coupled with the fact that EPA criminal investigators were diverted from their regular tasks to serve on Pruitt’s round-the-clock security detail in 2017, have taken a toll on the agency’s criminal enforcement division. Last fiscal year, the division referred 166 pollution cases for prosecution, according to figures obtained under the Freedom of Information Act by the group Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility. That marks a 30-year low.

Carper questioned why the Senate was taking up Wheeler’s nomination, given the shutdown. “I do not believe that giving the acting administrator a speedy promotion is more urgent and more important than protecting the public from contamination to our air and water and lands,” he said.

But Republicans countered that Wheeler’s extensive experience made him well qualified to steer the EPA and that he should be confirmed as soon as possible. Sen. James M. Inhofe (R-Okla.), who served as Wheeler’s boss in the Senate, introduced him to the committee and blamed Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) for the budget impasse.

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“I really do think the midst of the Schumer shutdown is a good time to confirm some of these nominees,” Inhofe said.

The panel’s chairman, Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) said that the nominee has demonstrated his mastery of policy arcana over the last six months.

“Under acting administrator Wheeler’s leadership, the agency has taken a number of significant actions to protect our nation’s environment while also supporting economic growth,” he said.

For the most part, Republicans asked questions about pending policies that affected economic sectors such as refiners and farmers. Barrasso, for example, asked whether the partial government shutdown was impacting the speed at which refiners could receive federal permits.

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They also defended Wheeler’s experience, saying his time working for the federal government and the private sector prepared him for his current task.

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“Should we bar farmers from being the head of the Department of Agriculture?” asked Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.). “Should we bar doctors from being the head of Health and Human Services or attorneys from being the attorney general or bankers from being the head of the Treasury Department?”

Democrats, meanwhile, sought to pin down Wheeler on questions about climate change and his ties to the fossil fuel industry.

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) pressed Wheeler repeatedly on whether he agreed with President Trump’s comment that climate change amounted to a Chinese “hoax.” After being pressed, the acting administrator replied, “I have not used the ‘hoax’ word myself."

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Sanders then asked Wheeler whether he accepts the consensus of most scientists that climate change is one of the most serious problems facing the nation. “I would not call it the greatest crisis, no, sir,” he replied. “I would call it a huge issue that needs to be addressed globally.”

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The global average temperature has increased by about 1 degree Celsius — 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit — above temperatures recorded in the preindustrial era. In November the administration published a massive report, compiled by federal scientists, that found the United States was already experiencing severe impacts of climate change, including deadly wildfires and more intense hurricanes and heat waves.

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) homed in on Wheeler’s work for coal firm executive Robert E. Murray, who heads Murray Energy Corporation, just before he joined the EPA, telling Wheeler, “You have had your thumb, wrist, forearm on the scales for the fossil fuel industry.” Whitehouse grilled the nominee about a meeting he and Murray attended with Energy Secretary Rick Perry in 2017.

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At one point the senator displayed a photo of Perry and Murray in a bear hug, “That’s not me, though,” the nominee interjected.

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“No, no,” Whitehouse responded. “That’s your client.”

Industry leaders indeed have welcomed Wheeler’s nomination.

Jim Matheson, chief executive of the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association, whose group includes hundreds of electric cooperatives nationwide, said in a statement that Wheeler “has demonstrated his ability to head the agency and understands the importance of common-sense regulatory reforms that promote a healthy environment and vibrant rural communities.”

Wheeler arrived back at the EPA — where he had worked during the early 1990s — last spring after the Senate confirmed him by a vote of 53 to 45 as the top deputy to Pruitt.

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It had been a long absence since his early-career work as a regulator. For nearly 15 years, Wheeler was a staff member on Capitol Hill, including as an adviser to Inhofe, a high-profile critic of the EPA and of climate science. He later spent nearly a decade lobbying for the sort of companies that EPA regulates, including energy and mining firms. Among his professional activities, he once listed his post as vice president of the Washington Coal Club.

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In July, several months after his return to the EPA, the Ohio native became acting administrator of the agency after Pruitt was forced to resign amid federal ethics inquiries.

“The agenda for the agency was set out by President Trump,” Wheeler told The Post at the time. “I will try to work to implement the president’s agenda as well. I don’t think the overall agenda is going to change that much, because we’re implementing what the president has laid out.”

In November, during an unrelated event at the White House, Trump announced that he intended to nominate Wheeler as permanent administrator. “He’s done a fantastic job,” the president said.

But environmental advocates have argued that he has too many conflicts of interest to serve in the agency’s top role and that the policies he aims to pursue threaten the public health and the safety of ordinary Americans.