A White House official has confirmed plans to withdraw the nomination of a climate change sceptic to serve as President Donald Trump's top environmental adviser.
Kathleen Hartnett White was announced last October as Trump's choice to chair the Council on Environmental Quality.
But White's nomination languished and was among a batch of nominations the Senate sent back to the White House when it adjourned at the end of 2017.
Trump would have had to resubmit White's nomination.
The Washington Post first reported late on Saturday on the plans to pull White's nomination, citing two unnamed administration officials who had been briefed on the matter.
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A White House official later confirmed the Post report. The official was not authorised to discuss personnel decisions by name and spoke on condition of anonymity.
White served under former Texas Governor Rick Perry, now Trump's energy secretary, for six years on a commission overseeing the state environmental agency.
White, who is not a scientist, has compared the work of mainstream climate scientists to "the dogmatic claims of ideologues and clerics."
In a contentious Senate hearing last November, she defended past statements that particulate pollution released by burning fuels is not harmful unless one were to suck on a car's tailpipe.
She has also called carbon dioxide not a pollutant but "a necessary nutrient for plant life."
White could not immediately be reached late Saturday for comment.
