WASHINGTON, D.C.  — The U.S. Senate must press Acting Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Andrew Wheeler on how he will restore the agency to its core mission of protecting Americans’ health and the environment following his nomination today to lead the critical agency. National Wildlife Federation President and CEO Collin O’Mara said Wheeler’s actions as acting administrator have been deeply disconcerting, including his moves to undo standards aimed at protecting Americans from mercury pollution and to reduce the scope of streams and wetlands protected by the Clean Water Act. 

“For the past two years, the Trump Administration’s Environmental Protection Agency has fundamentally failed to uphold its mission to protect public health and the environment,” O’Mara said. “Acting Administrator Wheeler must answer for his role in the unprecedented rollback of common-sense health standards governing toxic chemicals, water pollution, mercury emissions, methane, and carbon. The nomination should be rejected unless Mr. Wheeler fully commits to uphold our nation’s bedrock environmental laws, respect sound science, and support the agency’s 14,000 hardworking public servants.”

The National Wildlife Federation called on the previous EPA administrator, Scott Pruitt, to resign in April of last year — only the third time in the organization’s 82-year history it had called on a Cabinet-level official to step down.