WASHINGTON — The number two official at the Environmental Protection Agency, Andrew Wheeler, has spent a decade working for just the sort of companies he will now be expected to regulate as EPA’s acting administrator.
Even if Wheeler ends up recusing himself from some decisions, his record as a lobbyist at the firm Faegre Baker Daniels Consulting suggests that he will have no trouble picking up where Pruitt left off. Wheeler represented energy companies, mining companies, and a mixture of others with issues ranging from food to salvaging automobiles. Among his professional activities, he listed his post as vice president of the Washington Coal Club.
With the scandal-plagued EPA administrator Scott Pruitt stepping down Thursday amid investigations and criticism even from fellow Republicans, Wheeler provides an appealing alternative for those hoping to continue to roll back key EPA policies — and a continuing challenge for environmental groups.
‘‘I have no doubt that Andy will continue on with our great and lasting EPA agenda,’’ President Trump tweeted as he announced that he had accepted Pruitt’s resignation. ‘‘We have made tremendous progress, and the future of the EPA is very bright!’’
The Senate confirmed Wheeler for the deputy slot in April by a 53-45 vote.
‘‘There is every reason to expect that he will pursue just as vigorously all the regulatory policies and initiatives in progress that were initiated by Pruitt,’’ said Joseph Goffman, executive director of Harvard Law School’s environmental law program.
As a lobbyist, Wheeler’s best-paying client was the coal mining firm Murray Energy, which paid the firm $300,000 or more annually from 2009 through 2017, according to records from the Center for Responsive Politics.
Wheeler arranged and attended a March 28, 2017 meeting between Robert Murray, the company’s chief executive, and Energy Secretary Rick Perry. Murray, who had contributed heavily to the Trump campaign, laid out a four-page plan for rolling back regulations and protecting coal plants in danger of closing because of competition from other fuel supplies.
The Trump administration has already taken steps to address most of the issues on Murray’s list. The president recently ordered the Energy Department invoke Cold War era energy emergency powers to take actions that would prevent the closure of coal and nuclear power plants for at least two years, which is what Murray has been seeking.
Wheeler had served as senior aide to Senator James Inhofe, an Oklahoma Republican, who rejects that climate change is being cause by human activity. And as staff director and chief counsel to the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, he worked to defeat climate-related legislation that came before lawmakers.
He supported efforts to exempt industrial plants from pollution controls in the aftermath of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita and limit their liability for harm caused by the release of toxic chemicals. He favored the elimination of the New Source Review permitting process that is an important part of environmental legislation.
During his decade as a lobbyist, Wheeler also represented Energy Fuels Resources, a uranium mining firm that could benefit from Trump’s December announcement to halve the size of the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. Wheeler was lobbying about the issue nearly nine months before the announcement.
In May 2017, Energy Fuels wrote a letter asking the administration to change the monument’s boundaries because of ‘‘many other known uranium and vanadium deposits’’ that ‘‘could provide valuable energy and mineral resources in the future.’’
Another former Wheeler client, the Minneapolis-based utility Xcel, has fought an EPA regulation that would require coal plants built between 1962 and 1977 to upgrade their facilities with scrubbers to meet sulfur dioxide emissions standards. Installing scrubbers could be costly for Xcel. One of its coal units in Amarillo, Texas, dates back to 1976.
Another client, Darling Ingredients, paid Wheeler’s firm $420,000 over the past three years. The company has a stake in reforms of the complicated Renewable Fuel Standard and the tax credit for companies that blend ethanol with gasoline.
The company also agreed in 2016 to settle allegations of Clean Water Act violations at four facilities used to store petroleum fuels, vegetable oil, and animal fats for just $99,000. In 2014, the company paid a $1.1 million penalty to EPA.
Wheeler also represented Whirlpool, Sargento Foods, Underwriters Laboratories, the Nuclear Energy Institute, the Coalition for Domestic Medical Isotope Supply, and Insurance Auto Auctions, which deals in large numbers of salvaged cars.
But Murray Energy was his steadiest client. In 2014, Murray joined the fight against the Obama administration’s landmark rule limiting mercury and other toxic emissions from coal- and oil-fired power plants.
Murray, who said he has not had any contact with Wheeler since he became deputy administrator, said in an e-mail that ‘‘Scott Pruitt was an exceptional administrator of the US EPA in overturning the illegal actions of the Obama administration. It is a tragedy for America to lose such a qualified administrator.’’
Many Republicans will find that track record makes Wheeler the sort of EPA leader they want.
‘‘Andrew Wheeler is the perfect choice to serve as Acting Administrator,’’ Inhofe said in a statement Thursday. ‘‘Andrew worked for me for 14 years, has an impeccable reputation, and has the experience to be a strong leader at the EPA. I have no doubt and complete confidence he will continue the important deregulatory work that Scott Pruitt started while being a good steward of the environment.’’
