Coal lobbyist gets Senate’s OK as deputy director of the EPA

If embattled Environmental Protection Agency chief Scott Pruitt were to leave office, the reins of the agency could fall to a former Senate aide and coal mining lobbyist who was confirmed 53-45 on Thursday afternoon to become second-in-command at EPA.

Andrew Wheeler worked at the EPA more than two decades ago and later served as an adviser to Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., a high-profile critic of climate science who famously brought a snowball to the Senate floor as a prop. For the past nine years, Wheeler has been a lobbyist for a variety of companies, including Appalachian coal mining firm Murray Energy.

President Donald Trump nominated Wheeler for the deputy administrator job last fall, but only this week did his nomination finally arrive on the Senate floor for a vote.

Wheeler, who works for the lobbying firm FaegreBD Consulting, received $370,000 in fees last year from Murray Energy. Murray has paid Wheeler’s firms $225,000 to $559,000 over the past nine years.

In March 2017, shortly after working for the Trump transition team, Wheeler attended a meeting between Murray’s chief executive Robert Murray and then-newly confirmed Energy Secretary Rick Perry.

Murray asked Perry to increase payments to coal and nuclear plants supplying electricity to the Midwest and Appalachia. Perry tried to implement such a plan, but independent electricity regulators rejected it.

Environmental groups have sharply criticized the notion of installing Wheeler at the EPA in any capacity. But in recent days, as Pruitt has faced scrutiny over allegations of wasteful spending and unusual management of the agency, attention has turned to the prospect that Wheeler could end up in charge of EPA.

“It is critically important that the public understand Wheeler’s career as a lobbyist for some of the worst actors in the energy industry,” Keith Gaby, a spokesman for the Environmental Defense Fund, said in an email this week.