Andrew Wheeler

Andrew Wheeler, a coal lobbyist, was Trump’s second EPA administrator from July 2018 to January 2021. Under Wheeler, career experts stated that “scientific integrity was assassinated inside EPA,” and the EPA’s Science Advisory Board complained that his actions were inconsistent “with established EPA recognized science.” Under his leadership, Wheeler’s EPA team overruled career scientists to weaken a major health assessment for a toxic chemical (PFBS, part of a class of chemicals known as PFAS) and to “lay as many landmines as possible” for then President-elect Biden’s ability to support environmental regulations.

Wheeler’s tenure was marked by controversies. In one example, numerous employees accused Wheeler’s EPA of “directing expert staff to refrain from submitting comments that could be part of the formal administrative record; blocking use of scientific information to inform policy; and publicly mischaracterized scientific content,” which constituted “an autopsy on how scientific integrity was assassinated inside EPA.”

Wheeler also proposed limiting the kinds of studies the EPA could rely on to regulate air pollution and other hazards, which a bipartisan group of former EPA administrators strongly criticized in testimony before the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations. The proposed rule was also denounced by 69 scientific and medical groups, including the American Lung Association, American Medical Association, and American Psychological Association and the editors of four leading scientific journals: Nature, Cell, PLOS One, and Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Wheeler’s EPA also declined to raise environmental standards for fine soot pollution (PM 2.5), during a mandated review. A draft scientific assessment by the EPA had estimated that the current standards (12 micrograms per cubic meter) were “associated with as many as 45,000 deaths” per year, but if the standards were raised (9 micrograms per cubic meter), then 12,150 lives would be saved. But after some polluters objected, the new draft rule placed “little weight on quantitative estimates” of potential deaths of Americans.

Wheeler’s EPA also gutted an Obama-era rule credited with cutting back emissions of mercury and other human health hazards, a move designed to limit future regulation of power plants. Mercury is a neurotoxin that is demonstrably dangerous to a baby’s brain and nerves.

Wheeler also had at least three meetings with former lobbying clients of his in a potential violation of an ethics pledge and the promises he made during his confirmation hearing.

This profile has been updated.