Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency


The Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency is the head of the United States Environmental Protection Agency, and is thus responsible for enforcing the nation's Clean Air and Clean Water Acts, as well as numerous other environmental statutes. The Administrator is nominated by the President of the United States and must be confirmed by a vote of the Senate.
President Trump's first EPA Administrator, Scott Pruitt, resigned effective July 6, 2018, amid a series of scandals. Deputy Administrator Andrew Wheeler, a former coal industry lobbyist, started serving as Acting Administrator on July 9, 2018. Wheeler was confirmed as EPA Administrator on February 28, 2019.

Rank in the Cabinet

The EPA Administrator is customarily accorded Cabinet rank by the President and sits with the President, Vice President, and the 15 Cabinet secretaries. The Administrator of the EPA is equivalent to the position of Minister of the Environment in other countries. Since the late 1980s, there has been a movement to make the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency a Cabinet secretary, thus making the EPA a 16th Cabinet department, dealing with environmental policy.

List of Administrators

Acting Administrators

Acting Administrators usually assume the office in the interim period between the resignation of a previous Administrator and the confirmation of his or her successor, including during the transition period between two presidential administrations, before the successor has been nominated and confirmed. Acting Administrators come from within the EPA and usually hold an office that is subject to Senate confirmation before becoming the Acting Administrator. Linda Fisher and Stephen L. Johnson had served as Deputy Administrator when they became Acting Administrator. Marianne Lamont Horinko was an Assistant Administrator at the time. They are not subject to Senate confirmation to serve as the Acting administrator, though to continue to serve as a full-fledged Administrator, they must be confirmed by the Senate.

Line of succession

The line of succession for the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency is as follows:
  1. Deputy Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency
  2. General Counsel
  3. Assistant Administrator for the Office of Land and Emergency Management
  4. Assistant Administrator for the Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention
  5. Assistant Administrator for the Office of Air and Radiation
  6. Assistant Administrator for the Office of Water
  7. Assistant Administrator for the Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance
  8. Chief Financial Officer
  9. Assistant Administrator for the Office of Research and Development
  10. Assistant Administrator for the Office of International and Tribal Affairs
  11. Assistant Administrator for the Office of Administration and Resources Management
  12. Assistant Administrator for the Office of Environmental Information
  13. Regional Administrator, Region 7
  14. Principal Deputy General Counsel
  15. Principal Deputy Assistant Administrator for the Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance
  16. Deputy Regional Administrator, Region 2
  17. Deputy Regional Administrator, Region 5