By Glynn Wilson —

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The news seems surreal in Trump’s swamp as a seven day heat wave grips the nation’s capital and wildfires burn all over the west even before the fire season is set to begin in earnest.

Every news outlet in the land jumped to break the news that Environmental Protection Agency chief Scott Pruitt resigned on Thursday, although it’s more likely that the president fired him and not for doing a horrible job. The debilitating bad publicity just became too much.

According to the New York Times, “… people who have spoken with Mr. Trump said he sounds exasperated with his EPA administrator’s negative headlines. ‘It’s one thing after another with this guy,’ one person close to Mr. Trump quoted the president as saying.”

In another story that was out so fast it must have been in the can and prepared in advance, the Times listed 13 Reasons Scott Pruitt Lost His Job as E.P.A. Chief.

I don’t know whether to say it’s funny or just plain weird that nowhere on the list is that Pruitt from day one was in violation of the agency’s entire mission, “to protect human health and to safeguard the natural environment — air, water, and land — upon which life depends.”

While President Donald Trump announced the resignation in a tweet on Thursday in which he thanked Mr. Pruitt for an “outstanding job” of deregulating the government to open up the country for rampant economic development, including oil and gas exploration, coal and uranium mining in and around America’s great national parks, and every news outlet reported that as factual news, the EPA’s mission since it was established in the early 1970s by Republican President Richard Nixon was to “develop and enforce regulations” to “ensure that Americans have clean air, land and water … to reduce environmental risks … based on the best available scientific information (and) … to enforce federal laws protecting human health and the environment.”

Should Pruitt not have been fired for violating the mission of the agency as well as his unethical and in some cases illegal behavior? He never did a damn thing to enforce the regulations passed at the behest of Congress and he did everything he could from day one to destroy the agency from within and screw up the environment at every turn.

The response was swift from Democrats, environmental organizations and even some Republicans.

The bipartisan watchdog group Citizens for Ethics and Responsibility in Washington quickly put out a one-word statement on the long-overdue decision: “Good.”

“It’s about time,” said Ohio Congressman Tim Ryan, a Democrat.

Elise Stefanik, a Republican in Congress from New York, issued a statement saying: “There have been too many ethical lapses under Administrator Pruitt’s watch and this decision is in the best interests of the agency and our country.”

Senator Chuck Grassley, a Republican from Iowa who voted to confirm Pruitt, said: “Fewer things are more important for government officials than maintaining public trust. Administrator Pruitt, through his own actions, lost that trust.”

Sierra Club Executive Director Michael Brune released a statement starting with, “It’s about time.”

“Scott Pruitt was the worst EPA Administrator in history, and any president that cared about protecting taxpayers, respecting science, tackling the climate crisis, or protecting the environment would have fired him months ago,” Brune said in a broadside to President Trump. “Still, credit is due to the many Americans on both sides of the aisle who have taken action and spoken out to oust one of the most corrupt officials in the history of our nation — and the Trump Administration can be assured that same energy and passion that helped boot Scott Pruitt will be focused on ensuring the next EPA administrator works for the public, not corporate polluters.

“We have to restore public trust in the EPA and let the agency fulfill its mission, rather than gut the laws that keep our families safe,” Brune continued. “A coal lobbyist dogged by ethical questions like Andrew Wheeler is not the person to do that. Senators must confirm a nominee who will hold the health and safety of American families in higher regard than the profits of big polluters.”

Trump announced that EPA Deputy Administrator Wheeler would lead the agency for now. How can a lobbyist for the coal industry possibly lead an agency created to protect the environment, not destroy it?

Oklahoma Republican Senator Jim Inhofe, a friend and champion of Pruitt’s from his home state, said Thursday that Pruitt “did great work to reduce the nation’s regulatory burdens” during his tenure at the EPA. Both Ebell and Inhofe applauded Pruitt’s work to pull out of the Paris Climate Accords.

But environmentalists, Democrats and others accepting of the scientific consensus known as climate change welcomed the news of the Pruitt’s departure.

“Good riddance,” said Eric Schaeffer, Executive Director of the Environmental Integrity Project and former Director of Civil Enforcement at the EPA.

“The worst EPA administrator in the history of the agency,” added Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders.

“Unusually greedy and shamelessly corrupt,” Senator Brian Schatz, a Democrat from Hawaii, said. “But his worst transgression was that he systematically worked on behalf of polluters to poison our air and our water and make climate change worse.”

“Scott Pruitt’s petty grifting and pervasive corruption are known far and wide, but it will take generations to fully reverse the widespread harm he inflicted on our air, our water and the health of our people,” said Maryland Congressman Elijah E. Cummings, the top Democrat on the House oversight and government reform committee, which is investigating Pruitt’s spending and ethical failings as EPA chief.

The Environmental Defense Fund offered a eulogy for both Pruitt’s tenure and the damage he’s done: “Scott Pruitt’s reckless tenure at EPA is over, but the damage will be lasting and the threat of additional harm to public health and the environment remains grave,” the group said.

“Scott Pruitt’s reign of venality is finally over,” said Massachusetts Congressman Gerry Connolly, a Democrat. “He made swamp creatures blush with his shameless excesses.”

In spite of Trump’s loaded language during his campaign to “drain the swamp” in Washington, he has just made the swamp worse. In the words of one of our friends and fans on Facebook: “If Trump wants to drain the swamp, he should stop appointing alligators like Scott Pruitt.”

Our apologies to alligators.

The famous Dauphin Island gator, April 19, 2018: Photo by Glynn Wilson