Republican lawmakers on Thursday expressed relief that Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) head Scott Pruitt is resigning, removing a significant headache for them.
While nearly all Republicans in Congress cheered Pruitt’s policy actions and deregulation, few lawmakers stood up for him following President Trump’s tweet that he was leaving. Pruitt’s resignation came after months of scandals over adherence to ethics and spending rules and allegations that he used his office for personal gain.
“I believe the President was right to accept @EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt’s resignation,” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) tweeted, going on to say that “it has become increasingly clear it was time for a change at EPA.”
Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.), Pruitt’s main Senate overseer as chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee, said that under him the EPA “has rolled back punishing regulations that were hurting American workers and stifling our economy.”
But “it has become increasingly challenging for the EPA to carry out its mission with the administrator under investigation,” Barrasso said. “President Trump made the right decision to accept his resignation.”
As Pruitt’s scandals started to come to light earlier this year, Republicans initially defended him and dismissed the controversies as his opponents trying to stop him.
“This step was long overdue. Scott Pruitt was never the right choice to lead the EPA, and his scandal-plagued tenure has been an embarrassment to the Agency, and grossly disrespectful to American taxpayers,” Rep. Carlos Curbelo (R-Fla.), an outspoken critic of Pruitt’s who previously called on him to resign, said in a statement.
“He was a disaster and an embarrassment from day one, and the country is far better off without him,” Curbelo tweeted.
Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.), who joined Curbelo in April in calling for Pruitt to step down, echoed the approval Thursday.
“I was proud to join my legislative brother, @RepCurbelo, months ago in calling for Pruitt’s removal. That was so many scandals ago. And many degradations of our environment ago,” she tweeted.
Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) was initially highly critical of what he saw as anti-ethanol policies from Pruitt, but started to slam him over the ethics and spending scandals as well.
“President Trump made the right decision. Administrator Pruitt’s ethical scandals and his undermining of the President’s commitment to biofuels and Midwest farmers were distracting from the agency’s otherwise strong progress to free the nation of burdensome and harmful government regulations,” Grassley said in a statement.
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