Nomination and confirmation On December 7, 2016, President-elect
Donald Trump announced his intention to nominate Pruitt as the
Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency. President-elect Trump said that the EPA had an "anti-energy agenda that has destroyed millions of jobs" and that Pruitt, "the highly respected Attorney General from the state of Oklahoma, will reverse this trend and restore the EPA's essential mission of keeping our air and our water clean and safe." Pruitt was endorsed by the
American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). Following Pruitt's nomination hearing, Republican Senator
John Barrasso stated that "Pruitt ... has demonstrated his qualifications to lead the EPA." West Virginia Attorney General
Patrick Morrisey, who worked with Pruitt on multiple cases, said of Pruitt that "He cares passionately about the rule of law" and that "All the actions he's been involved in are rooted in the firm belief that what the [Obama] administration was doing was unlawful." Ken Kimmell, president of the
Union of Concerned Scientists, has said, "Pruitt's record gives us no reason to believe that he will vigorously hold polluters accountable or enforce the law ... everything we do know makes it clear that he can't and won't do the job." Saying that Pruitt had deliberately given misleading information about his position on the regulation of mercury emissions, a spokesperson from the
Natural Resources Defense Council said, "It is a serious matter to give misleading testimony to Senators during a confirmation hearing." 447 former EPA employees penned a joint letter to oppose Pruitt's nomination, arguing that his lawsuits against the EPA "strongly suggest that he does not share the vision or agree with the underlying principles of our environmental laws" and that they believed that he had not "put the public's welfare ahead of private interests". Senate Democrats unsuccessfully attempted to delay a vote until after the release of a batch of emails ordered by an Oklahoma judge. On February 17, 2017, the Senate confirmed Pruitt, by a vote of 52–46, to be the
Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency. The vote was mostly along party lines, with Republican
Susan Collins voting against, and Democrats
Joe Manchin and
Heidi Heitkamp voting in favor (Republican
John McCain and Democrat
Joe Donnelly did not vote). Pruitt was sworn in the same day by Supreme Court Justice
Samuel Alito.
Tenure as EPA Administrator At the end of 2017,
The Washington Post summarized Pruitt's leadership of the EPA in 2017 as follows: In legal maneuvers and executive actions, in public speeches and closed-door meetings with industry groups, he has moved to shrink the agency's reach, alter its focus, and pause or reverse numerous environmental rules. The effect has been to steer the EPA in the direction sought by those being regulated. Along the way, Pruitt has begun to dismantle former president
Barack Obama's environmental legacy, halting the agency's efforts to
combat climate change and to shift the nation away from its reliance on
fossil fuels. A 2018 study in the
American Journal of Public Health found that in the first six months of Pruitt's tenure as EPA head that the agency had adopted a pro-business attitude unlike that of any previous administration. The study argued "that the Pruitt-led EPA has moved away from the public interest and explicitly favored the interests of the regulated industries." The study found that the agency was vulnerable to
regulatory capture and that the consequences for public and environmental health could be far-reaching. According to a 2018
Harvard University analysis, the Trump administration's rollbacks and proposed reversals of environmental rules under Pruitt would under the most conservative estimate likely "cost the lives of over 80 000 US residents per decade and lead to respiratory problems for many more than 1 million people." In April 2018,
Politico disputed the narrative that Pruitt had been effective in overturning Obama's environmental legacy. According to
Politico, "Pruitt has yet to create new regulations that would outlast his tenure or Trump's, or to rescind any of the regulations Obama created. He's only been able to delay a few that were already on hold before he took office because they were mired in litigation." As a result, legal experts considered it likely that some of the rollbacks may be reversed in the courts. By April 2018, six of Pruitt's rollbacks had been struck down by courts, and Pruitt had withdrawn two of his proposed rollbacks. This was in direct contradiction with EPA's public stance that was published on their official website which stated: "Carbon dioxide is the primary
greenhouse gas that is contributing to recent climate change". By April 28—the day before the
climate change mass protests—EPA announced that the website "would be 'undergoing changes' to better represent the new direction the agency is taking" which included "the removal of several agency websites containing detailed climate data and scientific information" including the site that "had been cited to challenge Pruitt's Squawk Box statements." Pruitt picked Washington State senators
Don Benton and
Doug Ericksen to be, respectively, a White House liaison and a regional administrator. Pruitt's principal deputy at the EPA's Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention was previously an executive at the
American Chemistry Council. In December 2017,
Michael Dourson withdrew his nomination to be Pruitt's assistant administrator. The
President's first budget instructs Pruitt to cut the agency's budget by 24% and reduce its 15,000 employees by 20%. Pruitt has issued a directive to stop litigants from pressuring the EPA to regulate, referring to the practice as "sue and settle". In response, 57 former EPA counsels signed a letter criticizing Pruitt's directive. Pruitt has offered himself as a replacement of U.S. Attorney General
Jeff Sessions. On April 28, 2017, Pruitt fired scientists from the agency's 18-member Board of Scientific Counselors (BOSC), indicating he intended to replace them with industry representatives. Ryan Jackson, Pruitt's chief of staff, asked the BOSC's chair to change testimony she had submitted before a May 23 hearing of the
House Science Committee, causing her to complain she felt "bullied." In October 2017, Pruitt removed several scientists from EPA advisory panels and forbade any scientist who receives a grant from the EPA from then serving those panels. By December 2017, 700 staff had left EPA during Pruitt's tenure, including over 200 scientists. During that time, Pruitt hired 129 people, including 7 scientists. In March 2018, Pruitt proposed to restrict the EPA from considering research that relies on confidential information, such as medical data. The proposal was modeled on a stalled Congressional bill. It was expected that by August 2017, 47 of 58 serving scientists would have been removed from their positions, though they typically serve three year terms and which are renewed after they first expire. In April 2020, Pruitt's directive was found to have been arbitrary and capricious by the unanimous
United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. On June 29, 2017, Pruitt attended a board meeting of the
American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity, and told them that he will have researchers publicly debate the human role in
climate change, adopting
Steven E. Koonin's suggestion to hold a "red team blue team" exercise. In December 2017, White House Chief of Staff
John F. Kelly rejected the debate idea. Pruitt has met with industry representatives almost daily while rarely meeting with environmentalists. Pruitt and other agency heads delayed the public release of the Climate Change Report within the
National Climate Assessment. The report was ultimately released in November 2017. In August 2017, the
Environmental Integrity Project determined that the administration was collecting 60% less money in civil environmental penalties than prior administrations. Pruitt has sought injunctive relief valued at 12% of that sought by the prior administration. As of January 2018, the administration had removed, relaxed, or delayed 67 environmental rules. In March 2018,
Time magazine reviewed the status of the EPA's website after a year of Pruitt's tenure. The magazine reported that the website's Climate Change section was taken down in April 2017 after existing in various forms for more than twenty years. The message, "This page is being updated", was left in its place. In addition, searching for "climate change" produced 5,000 results compared to the previous 12,000. Resources on how local communities could combat climate change were cut from 380 to 170 pages, and a 50-page resource on "a Student's Guide to Global Climate Change" was not archived. On some pages, edits have been made to remove terms like "climate change", "air pollutant", "greenhouse gas", while "carbon footprint" and "carbon accounting" were replaced with "environmental footprint" and "sustainability accounting". Calling Pruitt on March 2, 2018, President Trump assured him, "we've got your back," urging him to "keep fighting," according to administration officials who remained anonymous. However, two additional officials confirmed that presidential Chief of Staff
John F. Kelly had expressed the administration's displeasure over being caught unaware by some of the ethical problems Pruitt's conduct raised. Senate Environment Committee Chair
John Barrasso of Wyoming, supported Pruitt, as did Senators
Rand Paul and
Ted Cruz. Former coal lobbyist
Andrew Wheeler's nomination as Deputy Administrator was submitted to become Pruitt's deputy in 2017, but was not confirmed. It was resubmitted in 2018. He was confirmed as Deputy Administrator of the EPA on April 12, 2018, by a mostly party line vote of 53–45, which included three Democratic Senators,
Joe Manchin,
Heidi Heitkamp, and
Joe Donnelly.
Secrecy In contrast to prior EPA administrators since its founding in 1973, Pruitt neither provided lists of scheduled public speaking events nor disclosed most trips until afterward. He avoided news conferences. On one occasion journalists who became aware of an event beforehand were ejected from a venue after an EPA official threatened to call law enforcement. Looking at a recent batch of documents released through a
Sierra Club FOI request, the
New York Times commented that it appeared that the Pruitt schedulers divided people into "friendly" and "unfriendly" camps and noted one case where a meeting was kept so secret that even the meeting hosts were confused about it. Commenting on Pruitt's claim that his unusually extensive security expenses were related to his need for security, the
New York Times said, "[The documents] show that the agency's close control of Mr. Pruitt's events is driven more by a desire to avoid tough questions from the public than by concerns about security, contradicting Mr. Pruitt's longstanding defense of his secretiveness." A
Freedom of Information Act request from the
Sierra Club showed that between February and December 2017, Pruitt had only sent one e-mail to anyone outside EPA from his government e-mail account, leading to questions of whether Pruitt was using a private account to conduct government business. An EPA official said that Pruitt and his top aides kept "secret" schedules and calendars to hide controversial meetings with industry representatives, destroying or altering records that might reflect poorly on Pruitt. A review by
CNN of internal EPA emails and the official EPA calendar found discrepancies in Pruitt's official EPA calendar with more than two dozen meetings and calls omitted. at least 20 members of Congress, including three Republicans (
Carlos Curbelo,
Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and
Elise Stefanik), called for his resignation. Curbelo said that Pruitt's "corruption scandals are an embarrassment to the Administration, and his conduct is grossly disrespectful to American taxpayers." House Oversight Committee Chairman
Trey Gowdy, a Republican, started a probe into Pruitt in early April 2018 over his housing arrangements. President Donald Trump defended Pruitt, saying "Rent was about market rate, travel expenses OK. Scott is doing a great job!" By early April 2018,
Politico reported that the number of mushrooming scandals, leaks and staff disapproval of Pruitt's expenditures and ethical conflicts had created chaos at the EPA and put morale at an all-time low. Three Republican Senators joined the criticism, including Susan Collins, who had voted against his confirmation, as well as South Carolina's
Lindsey Graham and Louisiana's
John Neely Kennedy. Kennedy said, "Now these are unforced errors. They are stupid. There are a lot of problems we can't solve. But you can behave." South Dakota Senator
Mike Rounds defended Pruitt on
Meet the Press, however, referring to the criticism by saying, "I don't know how much of it is overblown and how much of it is accurate, to be honest." On June 5, 2018, Iowa Republican Senator
Joni Ernst said Pruitt "is about as swampy as you get here in Washington, D.C., and if the president wants to drain the swamp, he needs to take a look at his own cabinet." Two of Pruitt's top aides—senior counsel Sarah Greenwalt, and director for scheduling and advance Millan Hupp—were reported on June 6, 2018, to be resigning from the EPA. Both Greenwalt and Hupp were Pruitt associates from Oklahoma and had come under scrutiny regarding various controversies during his EPA tenure. When contacted for comment by a reporter from
The Atlantic, EPA spokesman Jahan Wilcox declined to comment apart from saying, "You have a great day, you're a piece of trash." That same day, Trump stated, "People are really impressed with the job that's being done at the EPA. Thank you very much, Scott." Pruitt came under the scrutiny of the
United States Office of Government Ethics regarding potential violations of
Title 5 of the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR), which specifically incorporates, "Employees shall not use public office for private gain," and "Employees shall endeavor to avoid any actions creating the appearance that they are violating the law or the ethical standards set forth in this part." Emails generated by EPA staffers, when Pruitt was the nominee for the EPA post, showed he considered running the agency at least part-time from Tulsa, his hometown, and sought office space in that city that would include room for his security detail. House Democratic committee members requested details from the EPA about his plans to open a Tulsa office, citing ethical concerns. "Establishing a new EPA office in Tulsa may be personally convenient for you, but it seems ethically questionable, professionally unnecessary, and financially unjustified," they wrote in a May letter to Pruitt. EPA staff emails said Pruitt required a "secure cabinet or safe" as well as a secure room to receive classified information from President Donald Trump and his cabinet members. He also wanted the latitude to work from home at times. They ventured that the "optics" of receiving donated office space would be a public relations problem for Pruitt. An additional issue was the EPA didn't want the cost of such a space to appear as a line item in a congressional bill.
Management of agency EPA employees reported that the doors to the floor in the EPA's headquarters containing Pruitt's office were frequently locked, and employees were required to have escorts while visiting the floor. Some EPA employees also reported being told not to bring cellphones or take notes in meetings with Pruitt. Pruitt was also accompanied by armed guards even while at EPA's headquarters, an unprecedented level of security for an EPA administrator. Pruitt also ended the longstanding practice of making public the appointments of the administrator and other top agency officials. These measures prompted critics to charge that Pruitt was running the agency in secret. Several of these officials played a key role in reviewing Pruitt's travel plans; on occasions they put a halt to unjustifiably expensive travel plans. Early in his tenure, Pruitt asked his security detail to use flashing lights and sirens when they were stuck in D.C. traffic. Eric Weese, the lead agent of his security detail, told Pruitt that flashing lights and sirens were only used in emergency circumstances. Perrotta obtained a waiver to maintain outside employment while also heading Pruitt's security detail. Under Perrotta, there was a rapid expansion of Pruitt's security detail, as he signed off on various requests by Pruitt's team. Besides Weese, Reginald E. Allen was moved to a job where he had less say in spending decisions and less interaction with Pruitt. A third career official, John E. Reeder, was told to find a new job and John C. Martin, who also served on the security detail, was removed from the team and had his gun and badge taken away after questioning how Pruitt's security was being handled. A sixth official, Mr. Pruitt's chief of staff, Ryan Jackson, also raised questions about Mr. Pruitt's spending, according to unnamed EPA officials, remaining in his position, but who considered resignation. He tasked members of his security detail to run errands like picking up his dry cleaning and driving him around to search for a favorite moisturizer. Under Pruitt, EPA Chief of Staff Ryan Jackson created a pilot program to "centralize" FOIA requests that go through the various sub-offices that make up EPA's Office of the Administrator, as revealed by released emails. In internal emails from August 2017 (later turned over to the
Natural Resources Defense Council), Jackson and another top Pruitt aide (Liz Bowman, the head of EPA's Office of Public Affairs) complained that career EPA officials had released records in response to a FOIA request from a news organization (
E&E News), when such records could have been withheld for several additional weeks. The aides directed that they be notified prior to any release of Pruitt-related material. This approach was criticized by FOIA experts; Nate Jones, director of the FOIA Project at
George Washington University's
National Security Archive said the process "does look like the most burdensome review process that I've seen documented." Pruitt hired the former treasurer of his political action committee, Elizabeth Beacham White to run the EPA office that handles Freedom of Information Act requests for Pruitt's office. The office run by White has been slow to meet FOIA requests, far exceeding legal deadlines and causing a massive surge in court challenges. Pruitt's office had the slowest response rate to FOIA requests of any section of the EPA. Unlike his predecessors, Pruitt has, as EPA head, regularly flown first or business class on commercial airlines, as well as chartered private jets and military planes at exorbitant costs. The cost of Pruitt's seats on those flights are often several times higher than the seats for his accompanying staffers. In August 2017, the inspector general of the EPA launched a probe into Pruitt's travel to and from Oklahoma at taxpayer expense. In February 2018, a
Washington Post investigation determined that Pruitt has thus far spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on first-class airline travel, charter flights, military aircraft and luxury hotel stays, potentially contravening federal travel regulations and contrary to the practices of his predecessors, who routinely traveled in economy class. On June 5, 2017, for example, Pruitt billed the government for a $1,641.43 first-class ticket on a flight from Washington, D.C. to New York. Pruitt defended his unprecedented travel costs as necessary for security reasons. His spokesman told
The Hill that Pruitt has a "blanket waiver" to travel regulations which normally prohibit first-class travel by federal employees. Pruitt's staff later elaborated that the security reasons included other passengers being uncivil, quoting one individual yelling a vulgarism at him, referring what he was doing to the environment. Despite the purported security threats to Pruitt, he opted to travel in coach on flights home to Oklahoma when taxpayers were not paying for his travel. Furthermore, according to a former top aide, Pruitt refused to stay at hotels which had been vetted by the U.S. Embassy while traveling abroad, opting instead for more expensive and less secure hotels. Pruitt frequently opted to fly with Delta Air Lines, despite US government contracts giving discounts on certain routes. In September 2017, the EPA spent what was thought to be $25,000 to build a
soundproof booth for Pruitt to use in his office. The EPA's spokesperson said that this was to protect against hacking and eavesdropping. In March 2018, it was revealed that the cost of the booth was even higher than initially reported; actually almost $43,000.
Christine Todd Whitman, EPA Administrator under
George W. Bush, noted that there was already a secure phone booth in the building. In April 2018, the
Government Accountability Office concluded that Pruitt's purchase of the $43,000 soundproof booth violated federal spending laws. The EPA also swept for bugs in Pruitt's office and installed biometric locks on his office doors, at a cost of approximately $9,000. The Associated Press failed to find any case where someone had been charged or arrested for threatening Pruitt. In April 2018, it was reported that Pruitt's aides had researched leasing a private jet on a monthly basis for Pruitt's travel. The estimated cost of this would have been approximately $100,000 per month. The aides evaluated such expenditures prior to the outbreak of a similar scandal regarding exorbitant travel costs by Health and Human Services Secretary
Tom Price, which later led to Price's resignation. Each ticket cost $9,000 (an economy class ticket would have cost approximately $1,400). Responding to allegations of ethics violations, in April 2018, thirty-nine members of the Senate and more than 130 members of the House of Representatives called for Pruitt's resignation. In June 2018, it was reported that Pruitt had spent approximately $1,500 on 12 customized fountain pens from a Washington jewelry store.
2017 Morocco trip to encourage U.S. LNG sales In 2018, Pruitt faced increased scrutiny concerning a December 2017 trip to
Morocco. The trip was disclosed via a press release after Pruitt had returned. During the trip, Pruitt met with Moroccan officials to discuss the
bilateral Morocco-U.S. agreement and promoted the export of
liquified natural gas (LNG) to Morocco. Pruitt's travel expenses for the trip cost $17,631; the costs for Pruitt's 10-person entourage were not disclosed. In April 2018, Smotkin received a $40,000-a-month contract (retroactive to January 2018) with the Moroccan government to lobby on behalf of the country. Critics also said that Pruitt's trip was improper because the export of liquified natural gas (LNG), a
fossil fuel, falls outside the EPA's mission of ensuring clean air and water, and because the Energy Department and
Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, not the EPA, oversee the export of LNG. At the time of the trip, Pruitt's landlord's lobbying firm represented the only U.S. domestic exporter of LNG. In response to Carper's letter, "the IG said he would expand the scope of the investigation of Pruitt's travel costs through the end of 2017 and would look at whether EPA followed all policies and procedures."
Housing arrangements In March 2018, it was reported that Pruitt had leased a condominium
townhouse in Washington D.C. from a lobbyist couple, Vicki and Steven Hart, at a price of $50 per night, which amounted to $6,100 over a six-month period. The average price for
Airbnb lodging in the same neighborhood is $142 per night. Pruitt's adult daughter also stayed for months in the condo's second bedroom while a White House intern, but was not charged for her stay. The Harts' firm was registered to lobby on behalf of at least a half a dozen clients in industries regulated by the EPA, including Canadian energy company Enbridge. At the same time that Pruitt was renting the condo, the EPA approved Enbridge's plan to expand a pipeline carrying oil to the United States from Canadian tar sands. The three people were recommended by a company that Hart lobbied on behalf of. However, Minoli emphasized he had only evaluated the narrow terms of the lease itself, not any other activities or benefits provided outside of the lease that the document did not address. Minoli issued a second memorandum on April 4, 2018, providing additional explanation of his determination and the factual information he considered. As to allegations that Pruitt's daughter stayed in a separate bedroom, Minoli's memorandum did not opine on the implication of those or other allegations explaining that to evaluate them "would have required factual information that was not before" the ethics office. Minoli's memorandum also explained that it was limited only to the question of whether the rental agreement constituted a gift and "did not address other portions of the Federal ethics regulations such as the impartiality rule. Other apartments in the building complex, located in a prime location less than a block away from the U.S. Capitol, rented for as much as $5,000 per month. Furthermore, when the EPA ethics official reviewed the undated lease document, the name of the husband who had EPA interests had been struck through by Vicki Hart and her own name had instead been handwritten in. Pruitt's landlords gave him notice that he would have to move by July 2017, and changed the locks on the doors when he departed. On June 30, 2018, four days before Pruitt's resignation, the New York Times reported that Minoli had referred multiple allegations against Pruitt to the EPA's Inspector General, including aspects of Pruitt's use of the Hart's condo. The townhouse rented by Pruitt was also used as a Republican fundraising hub while he and his adult daughter were living there. On March 29, 2017, Pruitt's security detail, unable to reach him, broke down the front door to the apartment building to gain entrance. The EPA eventually reimbursed the condo association $2,460 for the necessary repairs.
No-bid contract to Republican opposition research firm In December 2017,
Definers Public Affairs was paid $120,000 in a
no-bid contract from the EPA for services which included searching for "resistance figures" opposing Pruitt's agenda. Pruitt sought to increase the salary from $107,435 to $164,200 for one aide and from $86,460 to $114,590 for the other. The provision was intended to allow the EPA administrator to hire specialists into unique roles in especially stressed offices. Pruitt hired former Oklahoma banker Albert Kelly to head the
Superfund program, which is responsible for cleaning up the nation's most
contaminated land. Kelly completely lacked any experience with environmental issues, and had just received a lifetime ban from working in
banking, his career until then, due to "unfitness to serve". Kelly had a long-standing financial relationship with Pruitt as head of a
SpiritBank, which held extensive outstanding loans to Pruitt.
White House Dining Room Pruitt ate frequently at the
White House Mess, a restaurant seating only 50 that provides fine dining at bargain prices and is available only to senior officials and is not intended for daily use. He ate there so frequently that it triggered push back from the White House cabinet affairs team and criticism from the press and public.
Reactions from ex-EPA administrators Former EPA Administrators have been critical of Pruitt's tenure.
William Ruckelshaus, the first and fifth EPA Administrator under
Richard Nixon and
Ronald Reagan respectively, characterized Pruitt as disbelieving of "the mission of the agency" while believing that the EPA was "over-regulating". Ruckelshaus accused Pruitt of having an "ideological approach ... that affects the large contributors in his party in Oklahoma". Ruckelshaus also described the ideological opposition to the scientific consensus on climate change as a national "threat", and that "lives will be sacrificed" with further inaction. Ruckelshaus has also criticized Pruitt for lacking transparency.
Carol Browner, EPA Administrator under
Bill Clinton, said, "Under Pruitt, what they're doing is conscientiously tearing the place down."
Christine Todd Whitman, EPA Administrator under
George W. Bush, said it was "mindless" that under Pruitt, policies enacted under Obama were being reversed regardless of their merits or shortcomings.
Gina McCarthy, EPA Administrator under Barack Obama, said that Pruitt's EPA had created a "wealth of uncertainty" in undoing so many regulations because businesses would not know if they should "take rules seriously". The EPA's overhaul of their website under Pruitt has also drawn flak from former administrators. Whitman has argued that the website's credibility was damaged, and that "undermining science means there is no basis on which to act based on fact, which is dangerous." McCarthy described the EPA's website changes as "censoring scientific data" and carrying out "a dangerous assault on public health safeguards that protect all Americans." Maryland Democrat
Chris Van Hollen asked Pruitt if sources of donations would be publicly disclosed. Pruitt agreed they would be and added that his attorney would be working with the
General Accounting Office (GAO) to assure the fund met legal requirements. The subcommittee's ranking member, New Mexico's
Tom Udall remarked, "It's hard to know what to begin with today. Every day, there seems to be a new scandal, and you at the center of it." Subcommittee Chairwoman, Alaska Senator
Lisa Murkowski stated said she's "constantly asked" about his management of the agency, continuing, "I think there are legitimate questions that need to be answered." Three months after being sworn in as head of the EPA, Pruitt's scheduler sent an email to
Dan Cathy, the chairman, president, and CEO of fast-food chain
Chick-fil-A, about "a potential business opportunity". When one such donor said that it would be a conflict of interest to offer a job to Pruitt's wife, Pruitt continued to solicit the donor's help in finding job opportunities. Pruitt's security detail accompanied the family to the game.
Resignation Following the assorted ethics and management scandals, Pruitt announced on July 5, 2018, he would be resigning effective July 9. Following Pruitt's resignation, EPA Deputy Administrator
Andrew R. Wheeler became acting administrator. The EPA Office of Inspector General continued its probes of Pruitt after the resignation, but in November 2018 the EPA Inspector General's Office closed two probes as inconclusive because it could not interview Pruitt after his resignation. (The office lacks the ability to
subpoena officials who have resigned.) ==Post-EPA career==