Report: Former DEQ head in running for No. 2 EPA job

Speculation that former N.C. Department of Environmental Quality Secretary Donald van der Vaart is in the running for a top job at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency picked up steam this week.

The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday that van der Vaart is under consideration for the No. 2 post at the EPA. The newspaper reported the other contender for the position of administrator is Andrew Wheeler, once an aide to Oklahoma Republican Sen. James Inhofe and now a fossil-fuel industry lobbyist.

The Senate is expected to approve President Donald Trump’s pick to head the EPA, Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt, and will also have to confirm the administrator appointment. The Wall Street Journal named van der Vaart and Wheeler as top contenders based on multiple unidentified sources.

Van der Vaart was head of North Carolina’s environmental agency for two years, serving under Gov. Pat McCrory. With McCrory’s re-election loss, van der Vaart fled the Cabinet-level housecleaning that accompanies a change in administration by demoting himself to a lesser position with personnel protections.

Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper chose Michael Regan, a former federal EPA official, to run DEQ. Resistance to EPA regulation by conservative politicians and industry took on a focused opposition under McCrory, who along with van der Vaart complained of costly federal overreach that did not necessarily protect the environment.

In an interview shortly after taking office, van der Vaart told The News & Observer that he accepted the reality of climate change and believed that humans have some hand in causing it, but he said not enough was known scientifically on which to form public policy.

Environmental groups in the state were consistently at odds with van der Vaart and his predecessor, John Skvarla, and the EPA more than once scolded the North Carolina agency for falling short in enacting protections.

The Wall Street Journal article said state Agriculture Commissioner Steve Troxler was drumming up support for him. Troxler, a Republican, was a political ally of McCrory.

Speculation that van der Vaart, a longtime state environmental regulatory agency employee, would fit into the upper echelons of the Trump administration have been persistent since McCrory lost.

This story was originally published February 10, 2017 at 12:40 PM with the headline "Report: Former DEQ head in running for No. 2 EPA job."