"Documents reveal details of how extensively Bill Wehrum's firm worked to coordinate the power industry’s strategy against the Obama-era regulations."

"The nation’s biggest coal-burning power companies paid a top lobbying firm millions of dollars to fight a wide range of Obama-era environmental rules, documents obtained by POLITICO reveal — shortly before one of the firm’s partners became President Donald Trump’s top air pollution regulator.

Now that ex-partner, Bill Wehrum, is aggressively working to undo many of those same regulations at the EPA, where he is an assistant administrator in charge of issues including climate change, smog and power plants’ mercury pollution.

Wehrum’s past role as a utility lobbyist is well-known, but the documents reveal never-before-disclosed details of how extensively his old firm, formerly called Hunton & Williams, worked to coordinate the power industry’s strategy against the Obama administration’s regulations. Twenty-five power companies and six industry trade groups agreed to pay the firm a total of $8.2 million in 2017 alone, according to an internal summary prepared in June of that year — less than three months before Trump tapped Wehrum for his EPA post."

Zack Colman and Alex Guillén report for Politico February 20, 2019. [2]

SEE ALSO:

"EPA Official Bill Wehrum Stayed In Close Touch With His Former Law Firm, New Emails Show" (Washington Post) [3]

"EPA Air Chief Worried About Conflicts Of Interest — Emails" (Greenwire) [4]

"Wehrum on Climate Change: 'I'm Trying To Figure That Out'" (Greenwire) [5]