Questions remain on condo use
Lobbying firm in Pruitt controversy has long helped oil industry with EPA, but agency says rate for apartment didn’t violate ethics rules
WASHINGTON — The lobbying firm at the center of the controversy surrounding EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt’s $50 a night Washington apartment is well known to oil and gas companies in Texas and beyond seeking to navigate the agency’s environmental regulations.
Williams & Jensen last year lobbied on behalf of Midlandbased Concho Resources on EPA regulations related to oil and gas production, according to federal lobbying records. The firm also lobbied on EPA regulations designed to reduce emissions of the greenhouse gas methane for Oklahoma City pipeline company Enable Midstream, a joint venture in which the Houston utility Center Point Energy is a partner.
Neither Concho nor Enable returned calls seeking comment Monday.
Williams & Jensen has operated in Washington for more than four decades. It came into the spotlight last week when it was reported the wife of the firm’s chairman, J. Steven Hart, had allowed Pruitt to use her apartment in a pricey neighborhood a few blocks from the U.S. Capitol, as he needed it, for $50 a night last year.
EPA Senior Counsel for Ethics Justina Fugh said Friday in a statement she did not “conclude that this is a prohibited gift at all. It was a routine business transaction and permissible even if from a personal friend.”
And another agency ethics official at the EPA also said Pruitt’s lease of the Capitol Hill condo didn’t violate federal ethics rules.
A memo signed by Kevin Minoli contends that Pruitt’s $50-anight rental payments constitute a fair market rate. The memo was dated March 30, the day after ABC News first reported
about Pruitt’s stay in the condo.
But environmentalists, government watchdog groups and others are questioning whether $50 a night was appropriate for a room in an apartment that one neighborhood resident told ABC News could draw $5,000 a month in rent.
“Clearly energy companies are going to lobby the EPA but there’s clear protocols in place of what’s appropriate communication,” said Luke Metzger, executive director of the advocacy group Environment Texas. “For him to be paying such low rent, he’s clearly getting a benefit from them. That’s worrying. ”
Williams & Jensen, which declined to comment Monday, has long served as the entry point to Congress and federal agencies for a number of large corporations, including Round Rockbased computer manufacturer Dell and United Airlines, which operates a major hub out of Houston. The firm took in more than $16.6 million in lobbying fees last year, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan, nonprofit group that tracks money in politics.
Among the firm’s clients are a long list of energy firms, including Houston-based Cheniere Energy, oil giant Exxon Mobil, the Canadian pipeline firm Enbridge, the utility El Paso Electric and the industrial conglomerate General Electric, which is the majority shareholder in the Houston oil field services company Baker Hughes.
Williams & Jensen lobbied on issues ranging from obtaining approval for liquefied natural gas facilities — for Cheniere — to the impact of tax cuts on the energy sector — for Exxon, according to federal records. It also lobbied the EPA on behalf of the Oklahoma power utility OGE Energy Group in regard to the Clean Power Plan, the Obama administration’s effort to cut greenhouse gas emissions that Pruitt repealed last year.
A spokesman for Cheniere said the company terminated its contract with Williams & Jensen last year. He added the company was “not aware of the arrangement nor the relationship” between the lobbying firm and Pruitt.
The controversy around Hart’s apartment has swamped the lobbying firm and the EPA, with activists calling for an investigation by the agency’s Office of Inspector General to see whether Pruitt violated federal rules prohibiting officials from taking gifts from lobbyists.
“Why didn’t (Pruitt) get ethics advice at the outset? Clearly he knew both (Hart and his wife) appeared to be registered lobbyists. Clearly he was dealing with an entity with business before the agency,” said Virginia Canter, executive branch ethics counsel at Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics, a government watchdog group in Washington. “You’re expected to make a decision on an impartial basis and something like this undermines the validity of the whole process.”
Hart, a veteran lobbyist who worked directly for clients including United and Cheniere, served on President Donald Trump’s transition team. Andrew Jones, a principal at the firm who advised Concho and Dell, had earlier in his career worked for former Texas Democratic congressmen Ruben Hinojosa and Ken Bentsen Jr.
A lobbyist representing Concho and Enbridge, George Baker, was an attorney at the Department of Energy in the late 1970s. During a visit last year to his alma mater, Hamilton College, Baker talked to students about the importance of developing connections and establishing credibility.
“Credibility is all you have,” said Baker, according to an account on Hamilton’s website, “and once you do something to undermine the relationship you developed, you will never be able to get it back.”