Providing an Order of Succession Within the Environmental Protection Agency

The order establishes a ranked list of seventeen EPA officials — beginning with the General Counsel and running through various Assistant Administrators, Regional Administrators, and deputy positions — who may serve as Acting Administrator when both the Administrator and Deputy Administrator have died, resigned, or become unable to perform their duties. The succession line must be followed in the order listed, subject to the constraints of the Federal Vacancies Reform Act.

The order bars any individual already serving in an acting capacity in a listed position from using this order to then act as Administrator. It also preserves the President's discretion to depart from the list as permitted by law, and it explicitly creates no enforceable legal rights for any party. Executive Order 13763 from January 2017, which previously governed EPA succession, is revoked.

Senior officials within the Environmental Protection Agency whose acting-Administrator responsibilities are now formally ranked, including the General Counsel, Assistant Administrators for various program offices, the Chief Financial Officer, Regional Administrators, and their principal deputies.

EPA has a clear, pre-set chain of seventeen acting-authority holders during any leadership gap, which avoids ambiguity about who can sign agency actions or issue guidance when both the Administrator and Deputy Administrator seats are vacant or incapacitated.