Tell Your Senators to Oppose Andrew Wheeler as EPA Administrator

An ex-coal lobbyist is unfit to lead the EPA. PERIOD!

Andrew Wheeler is a dangerous threat to the health of our children, communities, air, and water. He is not the leader our kids deserve.

Yet Senate Republicans are rushing to get him approved as the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). As Acting Administrator, this ex-coal lobbyist has already continually protected the interests of polluters over families -- taking countless actions to increase climate-harming pollution.

In his short tenure at EPA, Wheeler gutted the coal ash rule, dismantled America's clean car standards, weakened methane standards, and is putting forward a Dirty Power Plan that the EPA's own analysis says will cause an additional 1,400 deaths each year due to more pollution. He is also pushing plans to reverse how the EPA calculates public health impacts from its own rules. This would ruin the lifesaving Mercury and Air Toxics Standards finalized in 2012, opening the door to more toxic mercury pollution from coal plants and directly jeopardizing the health of kids and our communities. To add insult to injury, Wheeler is pushing to redefine which U.S. waterways are covered by the Clean Water Act, putting drinking water for one in three Americans at risk.

Our children deserve an EPA administrator who will protect them. And we all deserve better than an ex-coal lobbyist with a toxic agenda.

Tell your senators to oppose his nomination!

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Oppose Andrew Wheeler for EPA Administrator

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For a decade, Wheeler has been a lobbyist for the coal industry and has denied the science of climate change. And as Acting Administrator, he has stacked the deck in favor of polluters and against the public by attacking bedrock principles of clean air and clean water, failing to act on toxic chemicals like methylene chloride and chlorpyrifos, halting progress on clean car standards, and undermining how EPA calculates health benefits of proposed safeguards. Under Wheeler, the EPA has recently proposed to ignore the public health benefits provided by the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards (MATS), arbitrarily decreeing the harms posed by mercury and other neurotoxins to be insignificant, and turning a deliberately blind eye to the dangers of particulate pollution. The MATS rule produces massive reductions in toxic particulate pollution and is currently saving up to 11,000 lives per year (and approximately 130,000 asthma attacks per year), yet Wheeler has proposed to ignore these benefits in a massive handout to corporate polluters.

The Senate should staunchly oppose Andrew Wheeler or any nominee for EPA Administrator that does not put people, our health, our climate, clean air, and clean water before the interests of corporate polluters.

As your constituent, I am deeply concerned about public health, the environment, and who is in charge of the EPA. Former Administrator Scott Pruitt was plagued by scandal and endangered public health during his time as Administrator. Now, Andrew Wheeler, Pruitt’s former deputy, is serving as EPA Acting Administrator. Wheeler has his own dangerous record, and his actions at EPA to roll back lifesaving health protections and pollution standards have put countless Americans’ health at greater risk and our environment in jeopardy. That’s why I urge you to oppose the nomination of Andrew Wheeler for Administrator of the EPA. For a decade, Wheeler has been a lobbyist for the coal industry and has denied the science of climate change. And as Acting Administrator, he has stacked the deck in favor of polluters and against the public by attacking bedrock principles of clean air and clean water, failing to act on toxic chemicals like methylene chloride and chlorpyrifos, halting progress on clean car standards, and undermining how EPA calculates health benefits of proposed safeguards. Under Wheeler, the EPA has recently proposed to ignore the public health benefits provided by the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards (MATS), arbitrarily decreeing the harms posed by mercury and other neurotoxins to be insignificant, and turning a deliberately blind eye to the dangers of particulate pollution. The MATS rule produces massive reductions in toxic particulate pollution and is currently saving up to 11,000 lives per year (and approximately 130,000 asthma attacks per year), yet Wheeler has proposed to ignore these benefits in a massive handout to corporate polluters. The Senate should staunchly oppose Andrew Wheeler or any nominee for EPA Administrator that does not put people, our health, our climate, clean air, and clean water before the interests of corporate polluters.