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For Immediate Release
January, 08 2019, 11:00pm EDT
Contact:
(202) 667-6982
Trump Nominates Ex-Coal Lobbyist, Andrew Wheeler, To Head EPA
Wheeler is ‘doubling down’ on Pruitt’s disastrous legacy
WASHINGTON
President Trump today officially nominated Andrew Wheeler, a former top lobbyist for the coal and chemical industries, to head the Environmental Protection Agency.
Wheeler has been acting EPA administrator since Trump's first environmental chief, Scott Pruitt, resigned last year after a spate of ethical and spending scandals. Although Wheeler has mostly avoided the kind of public controversies that drove out Pruitt, EWG President Ken Cook said he has surpassed his predecessor in pushing dangerous rollbacks of public health protections.
"Scott Pruitt was an amateur at the Washington game, prone to nonstop political gaffes and pratfalls that eventually were too embarrassing even for Donald Trump," said Cook. "Andrew Wheeler is a deregulation pro: much more sophisticated, experienced and therefore more dangerous to the environment and human health.
"Wheeler actually knows how to turn the EPA over to the industries it regulates," Cook said. "He won't be caught shopping for used Trump hotel mattresses or sending his security team to buy skin lotion at the Four Seasons. He'll be studiously taking apart the EPA's ability to regulate polluters."
"Wheeler has not just failed to reverse the disastrous course the agency is on courtesy of Scott Pruitt, he's actually doubling down on behalf of polluters," said Cook. "He's pushed policies that will make our air and water dirtier and the chemicals in everyday products more toxic. His horrendous record shows that he simply lacks the commitment to protect public health and the environment required by a nominee to run the EPA."
Since taking over as the head of the EPA, Wheeler has steadily overseen the repeal of major air and water pollution and climate change initiatives implemented by the Obama administration. Wheeler has presided over the official repeal of the Clean Power Plan, the mercury rule and the Waters of the U.S. rule and is fighting a federal court ruling requiring the agency to ban the brain-damaging pesticide chlorpyrifos.
He is largely ignoring the updated chemicals law passed by Congress in 2016, by allowing a number of highly toxic chemicals, including asbestos, to remain in use. Just this week, Wheeler proposed to keep legal the use of methylene chloride, a paint-stripping chemical so dangerous it has killed 50 Americans in recent decades.
"Wheeler is just as zealous in his animosity toward EPA's mission of protecting public health as Pruitt was but without the humiliating headlines," said Cook. "Since taking over at EPA, Wheeler has shown a fervent commitment to boosting the fortunes of his former employers in the coal and chemical industries by knocking down the agency's efforts to protect people from pollution and combat climate change."
The Environmental Working Group is a community 30 million strong, working to protect our environmental health by changing industry standards.
(202) 667-6982LATEST NEWS
Dem Senator Raises Alarm About Trump Bringing 'Illegal and Dangerous Misuse of Lethal Force' to Domestic Foes
"If Trump is using this justification to use military force on any individuals he chooses... what’s stopping him from designating anyone within our own borders in a similar fashion and conducting lethal, militarized attacks against them?"
Dec 12, 2025
A Democratic senator is raising concerns about President Donald Trump potentially relying on the same rationale he's used to justify military strikes on purported drug trafficking vessels to kill American citizens on US soil.
In an interview with the Intercept, Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.) argued that Trump's boat strikes in the Caribbean and the Pacific Ocean have been flatly illegal under both domestic and international law.
Diving into specifics, Duckworth explained that the administration has been justifying its boat-bombing spree by arbitrarily declaring suspected drug traffickers as being part of "designated terrorist organizations," which the senator noted was "not grounded in US statute nor international law, but in solely what Trump says."
Many other legal experts have called the administration's strikes illegal, with some going so far as to call them acts of murder.
Duckworth, a military veteran, also said it was not a stretch to imagine Trump placing terrorist designations on US citizens as well, which would open up the opportunity to carry out lethal strikes against them.
"If Trump is using this justification to use military force on any individuals he chooses—without verified evidence or legal authorization—what’s stopping him from designating anyone within our own borders in a similar fashion and conducting lethal, militarized attacks against them?" Duckworth asked. "This illegal and dangerous misuse of lethal force should worry all Americans, and it can’t be accepted as normal."
Independent journalist Ken Klippenstein reported last week that Attorney General Pam Bondi recently wrote a memo that directed the Department of Justice (DOJ) to compile a list of potential “domestic terrorism” organizations that espouse “extreme viewpoints on immigration, radical gender ideology, and anti-American sentiment.”
The memo expanded upon National Security Presidential Memorandum-7 (NSPM-7), a directive signed by Trump in late September that demanded a “national strategy to investigate and disrupt networks, entities, and organizations that foment political violence so that law enforcement can intervene in criminal conspiracies before they result in violent political acts."
The Intercept revealed that it reached out to the White House, the DOJ, and the US Department of Defense and asked whether the tactics used on purported Caribbean drug traffickers could be deployed on the US citizens that wind up on Bondi's list of extremists. All three entities, reported the Intercept, "have, for more than a month, failed to answer this question."
The DOJ, for instance, responded the Intercept's question about using lethal force against US citizens by saying that "political violence has no place in this country, and this Department of Justice will investigate, identify, and root out any individual or violent extremist group attempting to commit or promote this heinous activity."
Rebecca Ingber, a former State Department lawyer and current professor at Cardozo Law School, told the Intercept that the administration's designation of alleged cartel members as terrorists shows that there appears to be little limit to its conception of the president's power to deploy deadly force at will.
“This is one of the many reasons it is so important that Congress push back on the president’s claim that he can simply label transporting drugs an armed attack on the United States and then claim the authority to summarily execute people on that basis," Ingber explained.
The Intercept noted that the US government "has been killing people—including American citizens, on occasion—around the world with drone strikes" for the past two-and-a-half decades, although the strikes on purported drug boats represent a significant expansion of the use of deadly force.
Nicholas Slayton, contributing editor at Task and Purpose, pointed the finger at former President Barack Obama for pushing the boundaries of drone warfare during his eight years in office.
"Really sucks that Obama administration set a legal precedent for assassinating Americans," he commented on Bluesky.
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'Stop Arming Israel,' Jewish-Led Groups Tell DNC Leaders at Party Summit
"The American public is demanding decisive action to end US complicity in the Israeli government’s war crimes by stopping the flow of weapons to Israel."
Dec 12, 2025
Jewish Voice for Peace Action on Friday led a coalition of groups demanding that the Democratic Party stop providing arms to the Israeli government.
Speaking outside the Democratic National Committee’s Winter Meeting in Los Angeles, Jewish Voice for Peace Action (JVP Action) held a press conference calling on Democrats to oppose all future weapons shipments to Israel, whose years-long assault on Gaza has, according to one estimate, killed more than 100,000 Palestinian people.
While carrying banners that read, "Stop Arming Israel," speakers at the press conference also called on Democrats to reject money from the American Israeli Political Action Committee (AIPAC), which has consistently funded primary challenges against left-wing critics of Israel.
JVP Action was joined at the press conference by representatives from Health Care 4 US (HC4US), Progressive Democrats of America, the Council on American-Islamic Relations Action (CAIR Action), and the United Teachers of Los Angeles (UTLA) Board of Directors.
Estee Chandler, founder of the Los Angeles chapter of Jewish Voice for Peace, warned Democrats at the press conference that they risked falling out of touch with public opinion if they continued to support giving weapons to Israel.
"The polls are clear,” Chandler said. "The American public is demanding decisive action to end US complicity in the Israeli government’s war crimes by stopping the flow of weapons to Israel, and the Democratic Party refusing to heed that call will continue to come at their own peril."
The press conference came a day after the progressive advocacy group RootsAction and journalist Christopher D. Cook released an "autopsy" report of the Democratic Party's crushing 2024 losses, finding that the party's support for Israel's assault on Gaza contributed to last year's election results.
Chandler also called on Democrats to get behind the Block the Bombs Act, which currently has 58 sponsors, and which she said "would block the transfer of the worst offensive weapons from being sent to Israel, including bombs, tank rounds, and artillery shells that are US-supplied and have been involved in the mass killing of Palestinian civilians and the grossest violations of international law in Gaza."
Although there has technically been a ceasefire in place in Gaza since October, Israeli forces have continued to conduct deadly military operations in the enclave that have killed hundreds of civilians, including dozens of children.
Ricardo Pires, a spokesperson for the United Nations Children’s Fund, said last month that the number of deaths in Gaza in recent weeks has been "staggering" given that they've happened "during an agreed ceasefire."
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'Good!' Declares AOC After Arizona City Council Rejects Data Center Pushed by Sinema
"She can't even be effective as a shill," said one critic of the ex-senator's lobbying.
Dec 12, 2025
Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was among those celebrating after the Chandler, Arizona City Council on Thursday night unanimously rejected an artificial intelligence data center project promoted by former US Sen. Kyrsten Sinema.
"Good!" Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) simply said on social media Friday.
The defeat of the proposed $2.5 billion project comes as hundreds of advocacy groups and progressive leaders, including US Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), are urging opponents of energy-sucking AI data centers across the United States to keep pressuring local, state, and federal leaders over climate, economic, environmental, and water concerns.
In Chandler, "the nearly 43,000-square-foot data center on the corner of Price and Dobson roads would have been the 11th data center in the Price Road Corridor, an area known for employers like Intel and Wells Fargo," the Arizona Republic reported.
The newspaper noted that around 300 people attended Thursday's meeting—many holding signs protesting the project—and city spokesperson Matthew Burdick said that the government received 256 comments opposing the data center.
Although Sinema skipped the debate on Thursday, the ex-senator—who frequently thwarted Democratic priorities on Capitol Hill and ultimately ditched the party before leaving office—previously attended a planning and zoning commission meeting in Chandler to push for the project. That stunt earned her the title of "cartoon villain."
Sinema critics again took aim at her after the 7-0 vote, saying that "she can't even be effective as a shill" and "Sinema went all in to lobby for a data center in Chandler, Arizona and the council told her to get rekt."
Progressive commentator Krystal Ball declared: "Kyrsten Sinema data center L. Love to see it."
Politico noted Friday that "several other Arizona cities, including Phoenix and Tucson, have written zoning rules for data centers or placed new requirements on the facilities. Local officials in cities in Oregon, Missouri, Virginia, Arizona, and Indiana have also rejected planned data centers."
Janos Marton, chief advocacy officer at Dream.Org, said: "Another big win in Arizona, following Tucson's rejection of a data center. When communities are organized they can fight back and win. Don't accept data centers that hide their impacts behind NDAs, drive up energy prices, and bring pollution to local neighborhoods."
When Sinema lobbied for the Chandler data center in October, she cited President Donald Trump's push for such projects.
"The AI Action Plan, set out by the Trump administration, says very clearly that we must continue to proliferate AI and AI data centers throughout the country," she said at the time. "So federal preemption is coming. Chandler right now has the opportunity to determine how and when these new, innovative AI data centers will be built."
Trump on Thursday signed an executive order (EO) intended to block states from enforcing their own AI regulations.
"I understand the president has issued an EO. I think that is yet to play itself out," Chandler Mayor Kevin Hartke reportedly said after the city vote. "Really, this is a land use question, not [about] policies related to data centers."
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