The U.S. Senate confirmed a new Environmental Protection Agency administrator Thursday, with New Hampshire’s two senators among those voting “no.”
Andrew Wheeler will become permanent EPA administrator. He filled the post after former administrator Scott Pruitt resigned last July.
The Senate voted mostly along party lines to confirm Wheeler as the nation’s top environmental regulator. Maine Sen. Susan Collins was the only Republican voting against him.
In their 'no' votes, New Hampshire Sens. Jeanne Shaheen and Maggie Hassan, both Democrats, criticized the EPA's stances under Wheeler on issues like industrial pollution, PFAS chemicals and climate change.
Under Wheeler, said Shaheen in a statement, “the EPA has not only failed to respond to this [climate change] emergency – the agency has taken actions that risk exacerbating the effects we’re already seeing.”
She and Hassan also cited Wheeler’s past in the fossil fuel industry, as well as continued regulatory rollbacks, as some of their top concerns.
