Coal Lobbyist Jeff Holmstead Expected To Join Trump EPA
As part of President Donald Trump’s effort to “drain the swamp” directly into his cabinet, a revolving door coal lobbyist is now poised to take a top position at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for the second time in his career.
According to Axios, President Trump is expected to appoint Jeff Holmstead to second-in-command at the EPA, where he will be in charge of overseeing the coal companies that he spent the last decade lobbying for.
As a partner at Bracewell LLP, a major K Street lobbying firm, Holmstead’s clients have been almost exclusively coal mining, utility and railroad companies since 2007. His mainstay clients include Southern Company, Duke Energy, Ameren, and Arch Coal.
Of the eighteen total companies that hired Holmstead at Bracewell, fourteen of them are coal interests. Those fourteen companies paid Holmstead’s firm over $23.5 million in the time they retained him, according to federal lobbying disclosure forms compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics. That’s not even the kicker. This is the second time that Jeff Holmstead has swapped jobs from coal lobbyist to coal regulator.