WASHINGTON (AP) — Bowing out after months of scandals, Scott Pruitt is turning the Environmental Protection Agency over to a far less flashy deputy who is expected to continue Pruitt's rule-cutting, business-friendly ways as steward of the country's environment.

With Pruitt's departure, President Donald Trump lost an administrator many conservatives regarded as one of the more effective members of his Cabinet. But Pruitt had also been dogged for months by scandals that spawned more than a dozen federal and congressional investigations.

EPA Deputy Administrator Andrew Wheeler, a former coal ind...