Share
Senate Republicans Confirm Former Coal Lobbyist and Climate Change Denier as Pruitt’s #2 at EPA
UPDATE 7/5/18: Wheeler is now the acting head of the EPA following Pruitt's resignation.
------
Scott Pruitt now has a #2 at the EPA that might be as bad as him. When our loud resistance and smart dissent pushes Pruitt out of power, we now have Andrew Wheeler to worry about destroying our globe.
The Senate confirmed Andrew Wheeler to be the No. 2 official at the Environmental Protection Agency on Thursday [April 12th].... The vote was 53-45.
If Pruitt left [or fired], it would fall to Wheeler to run the agency until a new administrator is confirmed.
No one has heard of Wheeler. Who is he? Please sit down for this.
Andrew Wheeler worked at the EPA more than two decades ago and later served as an adviser to Sen. James M. Inhofe (R-Okla.), a high-profile critic of climate science....
Wheeler manages the energy and natural resources practice at the law firm of Faegre Baker Daniels for the past nine years. His lobbying energy clients have included the coal company Murray Energy, the largest privately owned coal firm in the United States, as well as Xcel Energy, a major utility interest group. Public disclosures show that Wheeler most recently lobbied for the firm in August 2017.
Wheeler worked closely with the energy industry when he was working for Inhofe.... Inhofe co-sponsored known as the Clear Skies Act, which would have undermined the landmark Clean Air Act. Inhofe was a vocal critic of climate-change science, which he said was “the greatest hoax” ever foisted on U.S. citizens.
It shouldn't be a surprise that Andrew Wheeler was confirmed by Senate Republicans to be the second-in-command at the Environmental Protection Agency. He literally paid them to do so, hosting fundraising events for Senators to hand them money before they voted on his nomination. THIS IS THE DEFINITION OF THE SWAMP.
While waiting for a nomination to the Environmental Protection Agency, Andrew Wheeler, a coal lobbyist, cozied up with the senators who would decide upon his appointment in the most direct way possible: giving them money. Wheeler, who was first rumored to be tapped for the EPA last March [2017], raised funds for Republican senators on the committee that makes the preliminary decision on confirming appointments to the agency.
Everyone who has a brain and is not corrupt finds this disgusting.
Environmental groups have sharply criticized the notion of installing Wheeler at the EPA in any capacity.
- “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.
- “Mr. Wheeler — not atypical of this administration, not atypical of the dense swamp that they’ve made a whole lot worse — is a former industry lobbyist who has worked on behalf of big polluters and climate-change deniers,” Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) said on the Senate floor April 9. “He has spent years working to undermine or lobby against the environmental protections he may soon oversee. As a lobbyist, he helped raise money for a few Republican senators who sit on the committee that recently approved his nomination.”
- “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.”
There are three Democrats that should be receiving our phone calls.
Three Democrats voted for Wheeler, all from coal states. They included Sens. Heidi Heitkamp (N.D.), Joe Manchin III (W.Va.) and Joe Donnelly (Ind.).
“Andrew Wheeler is Big Oil’s backup plan in case Scott Pruitt’s corruption finally finishes him. 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," said Lukas Ross, climate and energy campaigner at the advocacy group Friends of the Earth.
Sources:
https://www.wsj.com/articles/senate-confirms-andrew-wheeler-for-no-2-spot-at-epa-1523568483
https://theintercept.com/2018/02/07/coal-lobbyist-andrew-wheeler-epa-deputy-confirmation/