On July 5, President Donald Trump announced the resignation of Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt.

The Cornwall Alliance was pleased to support Mr. Pruitt’s nomination in 2017, and we have valued his service to the American people since then.

He has brought to the EPA, which in past years frequently overstretched the statutory limits of its authority, a strong commitment to our Constitutional order. Mr. Pruitt has honored the separation of powers and worked vigorously to roll back needless, costly EPA regulations imposed on the American people by the Obama Administration.

Hand-in-hand with President Trump, Mr. Pruitt led the United States out of the Paris climate agreement, rolled back the Clean Power Plan and the Waters of the United States rule, taken steps to end the use of “secret science” in EPA regulatory formation, and acted to expand the EPA’s consultation of scientists other than those whose receipt of agency funding creates a conflict of interest.

We fully expect that Acting Administrator Andrew Wheeler, formerly Deputy Administrator, will follow in Mr. Pruitt’s footsteps, reforming the EPA according to President Trump’s agenda to improve the American economy while continuing to protect its environment. We wish him well in those endeavors, we wish Mr. Pruitt well in the next chapter of his distinguished career of public service, and we encourage President Trump to name a permanent new Administrator who will be as dedicated as was Mr. Pruitt to the agenda the America people affirmed when they elected him President.