Washington: US President Donald Trump’s top environmental aide Scott Pruitt has resigned, months after he was embroiled in a series of ethics controversies over his spending habits and misuse of office.
Pruitt left the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) having faced more than a dozen inquiries or reviews into his practices, including his first-class plane travel, a room that he rented from a lobbyist at $ 50 per night and the installation of a soundproof booth in his office.
President Trump first tweeted the news Thursday that Pruitt had resigned.
“I have accepted the resignation of Scott Pruitt as the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency. Within the Agency Scott has done an outstanding job and I will always be thankful to him for this,” Trump tweeted.
A staunch conservative, Pruitt, 50, has backed Trump over his controversial decision to pull out of the Paris climate accord. Trump also said that Pruitt’s recently Senate-confirmed deputy Andrew Wheeler will Monday assume the duties of acting administrator of the EPA.
Pruitt has been under scrutiny for renting an apartment with ties to a fossil fuels lobbyist. He is also accused of bypassing the White House to secure big pay rises for two long-time staff members. Besides, he angered many liberals and environmentalists by severely curtailing the EPA’s activities and repealing many measures designed to protect the environment.
In his resignation letter, Pruitt said he was stepping down, citing the unrelenting and unprecedented attacks on him and his family. He thanked Trump and expressed confidence that he was able to advance the President’s agenda beyond what anyone anticipated at the beginning.
Pruitt becomes the fourth Cabinet-level official of the Trump administration to resign or be fired, after Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Veteran Affairs Secretary David Shulkin.
Democrats quickly welcomed Pruitt’s resignation, but there was also little enthusiasm for his replacement Wheeler, a former coal industry lobbyist.
Massachusetts Senator Ed Markey said “#BigOil’s right hand man” was being replaced by “King Coal’s best lobbyist.”
