The House Energy and Commerce Committee is launching an investigation into whether top EPA officials violated ethics rules by launching a rollback of air pollution regulations that benefited their former lobbying clients
in the electric utility sector.
subcommittee chairs Diana DeGette and Paul Tonko wrote in letters that were sent Thursday to Hunton and eight utilities.the power companies and Hunton with EPA officials and to clarify their relationship to UARG. And the lawmakers are looking at whether Wehrum and Harlow worked on a December 2017 EPA policy memo that benefited one of their former clients, Michigan utility company DTE Energy.
POLITICO in February reported that Wehrum continued to hold meetings for UARG while working at Hunton even as he was being considered for his job at EPA. A June 2017 meeting at Hunton's office, which Wehrum attended, included a UARG proposed budget and policy blueprint that laid out many of the regulatory changes the group sought — and which resembles the policy moves that Wehrum is now overseeing at EPA.
Energy and Commerce Democrats want to shed more light on the relationship between Hunton, UARG and the companies, particularly whether the utilities used shareholders' funding or money derived from rate-paying customers to cover the fees. The companies that were sent the letters were DTE, Southern Company, American Electric Power, Ameren, FirstEnergy, Tennessee Valley Authority, Tri-State Generation and Transmission Association and Vistra Energy.
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