"Glenn Coffee, who served with Scott Pruitt in the Oklahoma Senate, and Crystal Coon, Pruitt’s former chief of staff, hadn't lobbied at the federal level before 2017. "

"When Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt declared this week that tree burning was inherently a carbon-neutral way to produce electricity, it was a victory for some Oklahoma friends of Scott Pruitt.

An Oklahoma City-based lobbying firm that opened in 2017, the Coffee Group, was paid $100,000 over the past year by an alliance of forestry companies—including giants Weyerhaeuser and Sierra Pacific—that have been seeking federal recognition of biomass as renewable energy on par with solar or wind.

Glenn Coffee, who served in the Oklahoma Senate with Pruitt, and Crystal Coon, who was Pruitt's chief of staff while he was state attorney general, made the case before EPA for the forestry companies, according to lobbying disclosure reports."

Marianne Lavelle reports for InsideClimate News April 26, 2018. [2]