“President Trump made the right decision. Administrator Pruitt’s ethical scandals and his undermining of the President’s commitment to biofuels and Midwest farmers were distracting from the agency’s otherwise strong progress to free the nation of burdensome and harmful government regulations," Grassley said in a statement.

He added that "fewer things are more important for government officials than maintaining public trust. Administrator Pruitt, through his own actions, lost that trust."

Trump announced on Thursday that he had accepted Pruitt's resignation, effective Friday, following months of high-profile controversies regarding his spending, ethics and management at the agency.

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Pruitt had faced a months-long drip of scandals, including intense criticism this week over reports that he maintained a secret, internal calendar that he directed aides to change from the public version they released.





GOP senators have said his future atop the EPA was up to Trump. But they were increasingly signaling that they believed he was becoming a distraction, despite approving of his efforts to roll back Obama-era regulations.

Grassley had previously threatened to call for Pruitt to resign over ethanol policy.