Donald Trump intends to nominate a chief critic of the EPA to be its next head, a source confirmed Wednesday.
Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt will be named the next Environmental Protection Agency administrator, the source said.
Pruitt, who was elected in the 2010 tea party wave, has filed lawsuits targeting the environmental policies of the Obama administration.
He also won big rulings in fights against the Obama administration’s Clean Power Plan and the Waters of the United States rule.
The appointment will be sure to frustrate President Obama and his left-wing allies.
“The left is going to hate him in the EPA. What they want is a bureaucrat they can push around, or a liberal governor like Christie Todd Whitman. They definitely don’t want Pruitt, a rule-of-law guy who relishes a fight,” said a source close to Pruitt.
But, the source said, Pruitt’s not going to destroy the regulatory agency. “He wants to mend it, not end it.”
“Pruitt is the nominee most likely to bring the EPA back within the legal limits that Congress and the Constitution impose upon it,” he added.
In addition to battling the EPA, Pruitt has taken on Obama’s signature legislation — ObamaCare — which he calls by its proper name, the Affordable Care Act, to avoid politicizing the issue.
He’s also fought the federal government over the Dodd-Frank financial bill.