Wheeler Accused Of Abusing Power To ‘Bully’ And ‘Intimidate’ Opponents

"As a Senate aide in 2005, Andrew Wheeler went after state air pollution regulators for opposing his boss’s bill."

"Andrew Wheeler, the former coal lobbyist President Donald Trump nominated as the Environmental Protection Agency’s deputy administrator, spent a decade as a Senate aide and four years as an agency staffer under Presidents George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton, where he built a reputation as the skillful operator the White House needs to execute on its deregulatory agenda.

But during his time as a counsel to the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, he was accused of abusing his power to target his opponents, which raises concerns for some about how he’d run an increasingly political agency. The same committee voted along party lines last week to advance his nomination to the full Senate for confirmation as the next-in-line to lead the EPA.

In January 2005, the Senate panel convened a hearing to discuss the Clear Skies Act, a bill Wheeler’s former boss Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.) sponsored in 2003. The legislation rewrote federal air pollution rules under the Clean Air Act to reduce power plant emissions of sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides and mercury, while allowing planet-warming pollution like carbon dioxide to continue unabated."

Alexander C. Kaufman reports for HuffPost February 13, 2018.