President Donald Trump on Friday said he's going to nominate Andrew Wheeler to formally take over the Environmental Protection Agency.

Wheeler has been the acting head of the agency since July, when Scott Pruitt stepped down from the role amid multiple ethics scandals. Under Wheeler’s watch, the EPA announced it is rolling back car emission standards and proposed a weaker replacement to the Obama-era Clean Power Plan, which regulated coal pollution.

Wheeler’s nomination had been rumored for weeks. As the nominee, he will have to go through another Senate confirmation, which he already passed when he became deputy administrator earlier this year.

Trump said Wheeler has "done a fantastic job" and "is going to be made permanent."

But environmentalists from the Sierra Club and League of Conservation Voters were quick to criticize the decision.

“Putting a coal lobbyist like Andrew Wheeler in charge of the EPA is like giving a thief the keys to a bank vault," Michael Brune, executive director of the Sierra Club, said in a statement. "He should be swiftly rejected by any Senator who cares about protecting the health of their constituents.”

"To be clear @EPAAWheeler is a former coal industry lobbyist who has stayed the course set by disgraced EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt," tweeted Tiernan Sittenfeld, a senior vice president at the League of Conservation Voters.