Scott Pruitt couldn’t do it anymore.
The embattled Environmental Protection Agency chief finally resigned Thursday, putting a meek end to a short federal career darkened by a thick, smog-like cloud of controversies.
The paranoid climate change denier entrusted by Trump to defang the agency meant to cut back on pollution heaped praise on the President in a resignation letter replete with religious references and declarations of fealty.
“My desire in service to you has always been to bless you as you make important decisions for the American people,” Pruitt, 50, wrote. “I believe you are serving as President today because of God’s providence. I believe that same providence brought me into your service.”
Trump returned the favor in a couple of lofty tweets.
“Within the Agency Scott has done an outstanding job,” Trump tweeted, “and I will always be thankful to him for this.”
The scandal-scarred EPA administrator’s resignation officially takes effect Friday. His deputy, Andrew Wheeler, will take over as acting EPA administrator while Trump looks for a successor.
“I have no doubt that Andy will continue on with our great and lasting EPA agenda,” Trump tweeted.
While en route to Montana later in the day, Trump conceded some of Pruitt’s actions were sketchy.
“You know, obviously the controversies with Scott but within the agency we were extremely happy,” Trump told reporters onboard Air Force One. “He’ll go on to great things and he’s going to have a wonderful life, I hope. But he felt that he did not want to be a distraction for an administration that he has a lot of faith in.”
Pruitt’s EPA tenure was plagued by a seemingly never-ending stream of scandals that included exorbitant taxpayer-funded travel, security and accommodation costs, questionable raises and bizarre management moves.
Pruitt’s desire to deregulate and do away with longstanding environmental protections was only matched by his penchant for first class travel, 24 hour-a-day security and the paranoia that led him to spend more than $43,000 in taxpayer money on a soundproof booth in his office. He spent thousands more on bulletproof furniture and car seats.
He burned through more than $120,000 in public funds for a trip to Italy — and spent more than $105,000 on first-class airfare alone since February 2017, outspending his predecessors by astronomical proportions.
His expenses in Italy — all of which were funded by taxpayer dollars — included $30,500 for his security detail and $90,000 for food, hotels, commercial airfare and a military jet.
More recently, congressional testimony and reports have revealed Pruitt used the leverage of his top government post to try and get his wife a lucrative franchise from Chick-fil-A and a cushy job offer from a Republican think tank, drawing sharp rebuke from government ethics watchdogs.
Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics and Washington, one of Pruitt’s most persistent critics, issued a one-word statement after the resignation announcement: “Good.”
Pruitt’s congressional critics, of which there are nearly as many Republicans as Democrats, also breathed a sigh of relief.
“Scott Pruitt was the worst EPA administrator in the history of the agency,” Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders said. “Not only has he acted, time and time again, in an unethical manner, but he has led the agency in exactly the wrong direction.”
Outside the walls of the EPA, Pruitt rented a Capitol Hill condo from the wife of a fossil fuel lobbyist who repped companies that were actively petitioning against EPA regulations.
After EPA’s internal watchdog launched at least 14 ethics probes into Pruitt, some of his most bizarre cases of misconduct surfaced.
Records reveal he sent top aides on bizarre scavenger-hunt-style quests for a discounted Trump Hotel mattress, moisturizer and other odd items.
Despite the scandals and a bipartisan chorus for his resignation, Trump remained supportive of Pruitt until the end, lauding him for spending his first year battling environmental groups and meeting regularly with corporate executives from the automobile, mining and fossil fuel industries.
Environmental and science groups bristled when Trump first appointed Pruitt, while oil and gas companies were giddy to see strict oversight implemented in previous administrations scaled back.
Pruitt steered the President toward pulling the U.S. out of the Paris climate accord and embarked on a record-setting series of regulation rollbacks, including filing a proposal to undo Obama-era climate change regulations.
He also squashed legal plans to halt pollution in the nation’s waterways, delayed rules requiring fossil fuel companies to rein in leaks of methane and greenhouse gases, and reversed a ban on the use of a pesticide the EPA deemed dangerous to children’s health.
Kieran Suckling, executive director of the Center for Biological Diversity, said Pruitt’s resignation was a long time coming.
“Pruitt was the most secretive, hostile, paranoid EPA administrator in history,” Suckling said. “It will take a decade to reverse the damage he did to America’s air, water, farm workers and children.”
New York State Attorney General Barbara Underwood, who has successfully led a coalition of AGs in blocking some of Pruitt’s deregulation efforts, welcomed his resignation and vowed to continue her work.
“No matter who leads the EPA, my office will continue to hold the agency accountable,” Underwood said. “As we have proven again and again, when the EPA threatens New Yorkers’ health and environment, we will take the agency to court — and we will win.”
For Kristen Mink, Pruitt’s resignation carried a vein of poetic justice.
The sixth-grade teacher confronted Pruitt in a Washington, D.C., restaurant on Monday, urged him to resign and told him the country deserves an EPA chief who “believes in climate change.”
“I hope that this empowers everyone to speak up when they see public servant out and about,” Mink told the Daily News after Pruitt’s resignation. “Our job is not over. Everyone has to go to the polls in November and do their part.”