ICYMI: Wheeler Does Not Belong at EPA

Putting a coal lobbyist like Andrew Wheeler in charge of the EPA is like giving a bank robber the keys to the vault, making Tony Soprano the head of the FBI, hiring Palpatine to run the Galactic Senate, or putting the Hamburglar in charge of McDonalds. The fox in the hen house analogies are endless here, but so is Wheeler’s ability to rollback vital safeguards to our air, water, and climate and put our environment and health at risk should he remain in the top spot at the EPA. Wheeler isn’t just friendly with corporate polluters; he’s been on their team for years. 

We know Andrew Wheeler is a dangerous threat to the health of our families and our air and water because he’s already proven that in his short time at the EPA and in his long career as a lobbyist for corporate polluters. Here’s how we know:

• Gave Corporate Polluters a Pass: Under Wheeler, hit a 30-year low  in 2018 in the number of pollution cases it referred for criminal prosecution
• Endangers Health Every 3 Days: In his first 100 days as Acting Administrator, Wheeler, on average, every three days he rolled back a new climate safeguard, ignored and contradicted science, met with big polluters, limited the EPA’s ability to protect us from pollution, or gave in to corporate polluter demands every three days. 
• Rolled Back Protections from Mercury: During Trump’s needless government shutdown, instead of advancing the EPA’s core mission to protecting our land, air, and water, during the government shutdown, Wheeler used EPA’s final hours of staff time before they were furloughed to attack the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards (MATS). These lifesaving protections prevent up to 11,000 premature deaths a year, help avoid as many as 130,000 asthma attacks and keep deadly neurotoxins that impair children’s brain development out of our air and water. 
• Rolled Back Clean Car Standards: Under Wheeler’s backward leadership, the EPA proposed reversing what were the single greatest and most effective strategy we had to reduce GHG emissions -- the clean car standards. 
• Dirty Power Scam: Wheeler has proposed gutting the Clean Power Plan and replacing it with a Dirty Power Scam.  While the Clean Power Plan would prevent 3,600 premature deaths and 90,000 asthma attacks every year by 2030, Wheeler’s Dirty Power Scam will let coal-burning plants pollute our air with impunity. The Dirty Power Scam even admits it will kill up to 1,600 people every year. It's linked to lung disease, asthma, and more.  
• Rolled Back Protections from Methane: Wheeler released a plan to weaken key safeguards limiting methane and other harmful pollutants from the oil and gas industry. Methane is a greenhouse gas that is 87 times more potent than carbon dioxide during the time it remains in the atmosphere. 
• There’s still more we don’t know: A federal court has ruled in favor of the Sierra Club that the EPA must expedite the public release of approximately twenty thousand pages of emails and calendars from Acting Administrator acting Wheeler and 24 other political staff involved in Wheeler’s rollbacks of critical public health and environmental safeguards. FOIA’d documents told us about Scott Pruitt’s wrongdoings, and they can tell us about Wheeler’s, too.