President Donald Trump’s temporary replacement for embattled former EPA chief Scott Pruitt may not be so temporary after all.

Senate Republicans are eager to avoid a politically charged fight to confirm Andrew Wheeler as EPA administrator, the role he’s filling on an acting basis, before midterm elections in November and amid a separate battle over Trump’s Supreme Court nominee.

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The duration of Wheeler’s time at EPA’s helm depends on whether Trump nominates someone else as EPA chief in his stead. But Wheeler could serve as acting administrator for years under the 1998 federal vacancies law, with virtually no legal limitations on his power to lead the EPA, said Anne Joseph O’Connell, a professor of law at Stanford University.

“Formally, these acting officials have the full authority of the position,” she said. “Functionally, there is a debate, because they don’t have the stature” of fully confirmed leaders, and may lack the authority, guaranteed tenure and gravitas to effect big change.

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Wheeler’s 85 days as deputy administrator is just shy of the 90 days required under law for him to simultaneously serve as the EPA’s acting chief and as a nominee for the top job, O’Connell said. If Trump later nominates him for the gig permanently, Wheeler would need to yield his acting administrator status, even if some of the administrator duties were still delegated to him.

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Under the law, Wheeler’s time as acting administrator is initially on a 210-day clock, set to run out Feb. 2, 2019. But the clock gets paused if Trump nominates someone for the administrator job — and it can stay that way for essentially two years that an administrator nomination is pending before the Senate, O’Connell said. A final 210 days on top of that could take Wheeler all the way to July 2021 as an acting administrator, without a Senate confirmation vote to lead the EPA.