Pruitt leaves to prepare asshole for prison.

Pruitt leaves behind a long to-do list

Here are the top ongoing legal and political battles that acting Administrator Andrew Wheeler will have to tackle.

By ERIC WOLFF and EMILY HOLDEN

Scott Pruitt has left a lot of unfinished business for his successor.

For all his reputation as a deregulatory crusader — the trait that helped him stay atop the Environmental Protection Agency through months of ethics scandals — Pruitt’s efforts to wipe out the Obama administration’s environmental rules suffered at least five early setbacks in court.

Now EPA is adopting a more deliberate approach to undoing regulations. And that task might be better suited for new acting Administrator Andrew Wheeler, the former coal lobbyist who will run EPA at least until a permanent nominee is confirmed.

“Andy has been around these issues his whole professional career,” said Jeff Holmstead, an energy lawyer and the head of EPA’s air office under President George W. Bush. Wheeler “went to EPA right out of grad school, he’s been working on EPA issues a long time, he comes with a more sophisticated understanding of these issues.”

Matt Dempsey, a managing director at FTI Consulting who worked with Wheeler on Capitol Hill, said Wheeler will pursue largely the same policy platform as Pruitt. “I don’t think you’re going to see a lot of separation there,” he said.

Jody Freeman, director of Harvard Law School’s environment and energy program who was climate change counselor for the Obama White House, said in a tweet that “the Wheeler for Pruitt swap at EPA could be on net negative” for environmentalists.

“Wheeler is a sophisticated insider who will not make Pruitt’s amateur and corrupt mistakes. Expect an iron deregulatory fist in a velvet glove,” she said.

Here are the top ongoing legal and political battles Wheeler will have to tackle:

Climate change

Three federal judges have warned that EPA is running out of time to issue a draft replacement for the Clean Power Plan, the Obama rule aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions by spurring states to shift away from burning coal for electricity. The agency is expected to send its proposal to the White House any day now. In the meantime, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit has been withholding a decision on legal challenges to the Obama-era rule filed by red states and industry groups.

Wheeler has opposed Obama’s efforts to cut carbon pollution — but, unlike Pruitt, is not expected to pursue a public debate on the soundness of the underlying climate science. He could face pressure from the conservative activists and coal executives who had lobbied Pruitt to attack a 2009 EPA legal conclusion that obligated the agency to regulate climate change — but other Republicans fear such an effort could prove politically embarrassing.

Waters and wetlands

Pruitt arrived at EPA looking to achieve one victory in a matter of months: repealing and replacing the Waters of the U.S. rule, a 2015 regulation on waterways and wetlands that has drawn criticism from the farming, mining, development and energy industries. But just the repeal has been stalled for nearly a year.

The Obama administration produced more than 400 pages of scientific research to support its years-long effort to write the rule. Pruitt initially tried to repeal it with an 11-page proposal insisting that he had the discretion to reverse course — even if the facts and circumstances haven’t changed. Last week, EPA appeared to acknowledge the shortcomings of that approach and issued a hefty set of additional paperwork that must go through its own 30-day comment period. EPA also sent its draft replacement rule to the White House for interagency review last month.

The replacement would vastly restrict the types of streams and wetlands that enjoy protection under the Clean Water Act. The repeal fight is expected to head eventually to the Supreme Court, where it recently received a major leg up thanks to the retirement of Justice Anthony Kennedy, who cast the deciding vote in a turning-point 2006 decision on the issue.

Car rules

Wheeler faces an all-out war with blue states over EPA’s expected proposal to freeze tough vehicle standards. California can set its own mileage rules, which other states can adopt, but the Trump administration reportedly may try to claw back that authority. Californians hope Pruitt’s departure will enable some kind of negotiated truce — but they might be looking in the wrong place. Sources say Heidi King, deputy administrator of the Department of Transportation’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, is in the driver’s seat on fuel economy rules, and King sees lowering the requirements as a key part of Trump’s deregulatory agenda. EPA and NHTSA have not yet released formal proposals.

Ethanol

Wheeler inherits the bad blood that erupted during the Pruitt era between EPA and the corn interests that are key to Trump’s Midwestern electoral dominance.

Pruitt achieved one rare accomplishment: For two years in a row, he managed to put the annual rule setting biofuel mandates on schedule. But his expansion of “economic hardship waivers” for small refiners infuriated ethanol interests. Wheeler will have to use all his Hill experience to convince Iowa Republican Sens. Chuck Grassley and Joni Ernst that EPA can fix the problems Pruitt created — while simultaneously keeping oil refiners, who have gotten their way so far, happy enough that they or their allies, like Sens. Ted Cruz or Pat Toomey, don't march into the Oval Office and demand changes.

“The RFS is the law of the land. I fully support the program,” Wheeler said at his confirmation hearing last year.

Ozone pollution

Another major rollback in limbo is EPA’s 2015 rule creating more stringent smog, or ozone, standards, which the Obama administration had hailed as a major advance for public health.

States challenging the move had agreed to delay their lawsuit while EPA contemplated whether it could withdraw or alter the rule, but a court on Monday decided EPA had taken too long and restarted the case. Wheeler might decide to take up the gauntlet, or he could let the legal battles run their course.

Behind the scenes, EPA has granted air pollution exemptions to oil and gas producers, such as those operating in an area of Utah that aren’t meeting ozone standards meant to prevent asthma and other respiratory illnesses, POLITICO reported.

The lesser-known climate treaty

EPA will play a key role in one unlikely sounding debate: Whether the Trump administration will embrace an Obama-era treaty meant to reduce the use of Earth-warming coolants called hydrofluorocarbons, found in refrigerators and air conditioning. Wheeler criticized the 2015 Paris climate deal, which Pruitt last year helped persuade Trump to exit, but he does not appear to have weighed in on the HFC treaty Obama endorsed in 2016. The Trump administration has not said whether it will submit the HFC treaty for Senate ratification, a decision Wheeler may help shape.

The D.C. Circuit struck down EPA’s previous attempt to write a rule to implement the treaty, so it will be up to Wheeler and the agency’s lawyers to decide whether EPA can develop another implementing regulation under a different law — or should wait for Congress to pass new statute.

The treaty has significant support from U.S. coolant manufacturers who will produce the world’s supply of next generation coolants, but conservative organizations like the Competitive Enterprise Institute oppose it as new red tape.

Reshaping EPA

Aside from the sweeping rollbacks Pruitt has pursued, he has also fundamentally restructured the way the agency works, barring EPA from considering science that doesn’t have publicly available data, installing conservative state and industry representatives on advisory boards and limiting the health benefits that the agency can count in considering regulations. Those changes, along with a sharp decrease in the agency’s workforce, leave an agency far less likely to issue standards to curb industry pollution, environmental advocates say. EPA enforcers are aiming to issue fewer penalties and instead work with companies to comply with rules, top officials have said. Wheeler will have broad authority over those changes.