WASHINGTON — Unsafe drinking water, not climate change, is the world’s most immediate public health issue, the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, Andrew Wheeler, said Wednesday.

He made his case for a shift in focus in a CBS News interview aired Wednesday and in a speech later in the day in Washington.

Wheeler told CBS News climate change is ‘‘an important issue’’ but that most of the threats it poses are ‘‘50 to 75 years out.’’ He said it was ‘‘unreasonable’’ for Democratic candidates to pay so much attention to it.

Environmental groups said the Trump administration was neglecting — or worsening — both health threats. The Natural Resource Defense Council cited damage and deaths from hurricanes Harvey and Maria in 2017, and from back-to-back years of record wildfires in California.

‘‘Wheeler’s claim is off by about 50 to 75 years,’’ NRDC spokesman Jake Thompson said. ‘‘Climate change and its impacts are here today, and getting worse soon.’’

Wheeler’s assessment is in line with that of the Trump administration overall, which is working to open more public lands for oil and gas development and to prop up the flagging domestic coal industry.

President Trump at times belittles the warnings on climate change coming from scientists in and out of his government. ‘‘Wouldn’t be bad to have a little of that good old fashioned Global Warming right now!’’ Trump tweeted during a cold snap in January.

The government’s own climate assessment last year concluded climate change from oil, gas, and coal emissions is already hitting the United States.

Wheeler is a former coal industry lobbyist.