Story highlights EPA Administrator Pruitt was present for Cabinet meeting today

Pruitt told President Trump the US position was "received well"

(CNN) The Trump administration's top environment official left a meeting with international counterparts early, boarding a plane home to tell President Donald Trump the US position was "received well."

"I actually arrived back this morning at 1 o'clock from Italy, the G7 focused on the environment," Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt said at Monday's Cabinet meeting.

"Our message there was that the United States is going to be focused on growth and protecting the environment. It was received well," Pruitt continued.

His assessment of the meeting raised eyebrows, as it comes less than two weeks after he and Trump announced their intention to withdraw the US from the Paris climate accord, a major environmental agreement negotiated under the Obama administration with nearly every country on Earth.

Pruitt's departure on Sunday was planned, his spokesman Lincoln Ferguson said, and "senior staff" at the agency would remain part of the two-day meeting, which continued on Monday.

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