Jonathan Z. Cannon, President Obama’s pick to be the Environmental Protection Agency’s deputy administrator, has withdrawn as a candidate, saying that a group on whose board he had served “has become the subject of scrutiny.” A 2007 EPA inspector general’s report said the group, America’s Clean Water Foundation, didn’t comply with federal financial, program management and procurement standards for EPA grants it received.

Cannon said on March 25, “While my service on the board of that now-dissolved organization is not the subject of the scrutiny, I believe the energy and environmental challenges facing our nation are too great to delay confirmation for this position, and I do not wish to present any distraction to the agency.”