ICYMI: Wheeler FOIA Finds Friendliness With Industry

A recent Sierra Club FOIA request of Acting EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler’s emails and calendars show’s he is all too friendly with the industries he is supposed to be regulating. Here is a sampling of the findings from the first batch of newly-released documents:

• CNN and Reuters report that Wheeler is heavily preferring meetings with industry over anyone else, attending more than 50 meetings with companies or industry groups the EPA regulates between April and August of last year, including Darling Ingredients, a company he previously lobbied for.

• Companies include: BP, Duke Energy,Monsanto, HollyFrontier, Valero, FedEx Corp, Bayer, Darling Ingredients and American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers.

• Greenwire reports Wheeler's former lobbying firm lobbied the EPA on efforts Wheeler oversees

• Darrin Munoz, the Consulting Director of Wheeler’s former lobbying firm Faegre Baker Daniels, emailed the EPA about superfund clean up at General Mills/Henkel Corp in Minnesota. Wheeler, who oversees Superfund Cleanup, signed a financial disclosure form that he provided "strategic advice and consulting" to General Mills between 2015 and August 2017.

• Furthermore, according to reporting, Rena Steinzor, a University of Maryland Carey School of Law professor who worked on the 1986 Superfund reauthorization said Wheeler "is playing games with recusals and that's very serious," noting "It's not honest or consistent with ethical rules."

"This first batch of documents begins to lift the veil on just how cozy Wheeler and his deputies are with the polluters they are supposed to be protecting American families from,” said Sierra Club Senior Attorney Elena Saxonhouse. “It's now clearer than ever that Senators should not let Wheeler continue to run the agency charged with protecting our clean air and water, and we can only imagine what will be in the much larger set of documents we will see in the coming weeks and months."