by Tim Peterson, Utah Wildlands Director
The answer is probably yes. Scott Pruitt’s replacement doesn’t seem to have the same penchant for first-class travel or tactical pants, but he’s a well-connected Washington, D.C. operator, and could be much more effective than Pruitt at pushing an anti-conservation agenda.
Pruitt’s replacement is Andrew Wheeler, and in addition to being acting EPA administrator until the president nominates a permanent successor, he’s a former lobbyist for the white-shoe K Street lobbying firm FaegreBD Consulting. According to FaegreBD’s website: “Wheeler served as co-leader of FaegreBD’s energy and natural resources industry team,” before being confirmed by the Senate as the EPA’s second-in-command in April 2018.
Wheeler’s name should ring a bell for those following the Bears Ears National Monument issue, and his ascension to EPA chief could be cause for concern. Wheeler was the principal lobbyist for FaegreBD on behalf of Energy Fuels Resources (USA) Inc., the uranium company that heavily lobbied the Trump administration to reduce the boundaries of Bears Ears National Monument.
According to Energy Fuels’ letter to the Department of the Interior during the national monument review process, Bears Ears contains: “many known uranium and vanadium deposits located within the newly created BENM [Bears Ears National Monument] that could provide valuable energy and mineral resources in the future.”
EFR respectfully requests that DOI reduce the size of the BENM [Bears Ears National Monument] to only those specific areas or sites, if any, deemed to need additional protection beyond what is already available to Federal land management agencies.
– Energy Fuels Resources (USA) Inc.
The issue of modifying Bears Ears’ boundaries was so important to Energy Fuels that the company enlisted Wheeler and his firm as paid lobbyists to advance its agenda. All in all, Energy Fuels paid Wheeler’s firm $30,000 for “…a concerted lobbying campaign to scale back Bears Ears National Monument, saying such action would give it easier access to the area’s uranium deposits and help it operate a nearby processing mill.”
Working on behalf of Energy Fuels, Andrew Wheeler joined two other lobbyists in a July 17, 2017 meeting with top administration officials at the Department of the Interior, including staffer Downey Magallanes — the official tasked with national monuments review. Bears Ears and uranium came up, and according to the Washington Post: “Zinke's deputies ‘were pretty positively disposed to’ the idea of spurring future domestic uranium production.”
Energy Fuels and Wheeler’s sentiments were backed by the Utah State Legislature’s Commission on the Stewardship of Public Lands, which argued in the monuments review comment period that Bears Ears: “threaten[s] national security and energy independence due to its negative impact on the United States’ uranium industry.”
The uranium industry and the state of Utah are linked by their desire to see Bears Ears reduced or rescinded.
Beyond lobbying for uranium interests at Bears Ears, Wheeler is the former chief of staff for Senator James Inhofe (R-Oklahoma) who has made a name for himself as a showman in circles of denial of human-caused climate change, even throwing a snowball on the Senate floor in 2014.
When Wheeler was confirmed as deputy EPA administrator earlier this year, Inhofe remarked: “Andy Wheeler is the most competent and qualified person for the job he’s been asked to fulfill.”
Mr. Wheeler has spent his career passing through the revolving door between industry and government, representing fossil fuel and mining interests when not working to make policy. Because he’s far more likely to quietly advance the administration’s agenda of dispensing with environmental protections than to draw the attention of late-night talk show hosts by seeking to acquire used mattresses or chicken franchises for family members, Andrew Wheeler has the potential to be far more dangerous to the environment than Scott Pruitt.
Six of Pruitt’s major initiatives have been struck down by the courts due to inattention to detail, but Wheeler is a skilled D.C. operator, and that should be cause for concern for all of us.
Proposal to build massive communications tower on state lands inside Bears Ears National Monument withdrawn
Read More
The Navajo Nation and communities along the haul route oppose uranium transport from Grand Canyon region mine.
Read More
Developer's attempt to dam a canyon near the confluence of the Colorado and Little Colorado rivers halted.
Read More