The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Coal lobbyist gets Senate’s OK as deputy director of the EPA
Environmentalists denounce him as friend to polluters.
WASHINGTON — 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 Faegre BD 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. “Andrew Wheeler running EPA would go far beyond having an administrator overly influenced by lobbyists — the head of EPA would be an energy industry lobbyist.”
“The mission of the EPA is to protect human health and the environment, but Andrew Wheeler has dedicated his career to weakening environmental protections, serving as a lobbyist for numerous fossil fuel clients, including one of our country’s biggest polluters, Murray Energy,” Gene Karpinski, president of the
League of Conservation Voters, said in an open letter to members of the Senate. “Andrew Wheeler’s inherent conflicts of interest from his long history of ties to the fossil fuel industry make him an entirely inappropriate choice for EPA’s number two leadership role.”
Members of the EPA and others have said that Wheeler worked closely with industry even when he was working for Inhofe, who was then chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee.
Karpinski pointed to a measure known as the Clean Skies Act which would have undermined the landmark Clean Air Act. Inhofe was a vocal critic of climate change, which he said was “the greatest hoax” ever foisted on U.S. citizens.
On Thursday, Wheeler’s former boss praised him on the Senate floor. Inhofe called Wheeler “a wonderful guy, and I would like to find anyone who knows him well to say there is any flaw in his character. He’s going to do a great job.”
Myron Ebell, a senior fellow at the conservative Competitive Enterprise Institute who headed Trump’s EPA transition team and is a climate skeptic, described Wheeler in a statement as levelheaded and effective.
“He has the experience and the expertise necessary to manage the agency and to make sure that the reforms undertaken by Administrator Pruitt will be fully implemented,” Ebell said. “[His] experience in how the EPA operates and his commitment to President Trump’s agenda to undo the regulatory onslaught of the previous administration will be valuable to his work managing and reforming the agency.”
Wheeler spent four years as a career employee at the EPA under President George H.W. Bush and President Bill Clinton before moving to the Hill.
After leaving the Senate staff, Wheeler received lobbying fees from a variety of clients.
Last year he received $40,000 from Energy Fuels Resources Inc., $20,000 from Underwriters Laboratories and $60,000 from Sargento Foods in addition to Murray.
During the 2016 campaign, Wheeler volunteered to consult on energy and environmental policy for the campaign of Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla.
Lukas Ross, climate and energy campaigner at the advocacy group Friends of the Earth, said in a statement that Wheeler would almost certainly carry out the regulatory rollbacks started under Pruitt.
“Andrew Wheeler is Big Oil’s backup plan in case Scott Pruitt’s corruption finally finishes him,” Ross said. “As Scott Pruitt stumbles from scandal to scandal, there is nothing more dangerous than a dirty energy lobbyist waiting in the wings to become acting Administrator.”