EPA regulator skirts the line between former clients and current job
Source: Washington Post
EPA regulator skirts the line between former clients and current job
By Juliet Eilperin February 25 at 6:00 AM
Less than a month into his tenure as the top air policy official at the Environmental Protection Agency, Bill Wehrum hopped into the EPA’s electric Chevy Volt and rode to the Pennsylvania Avenue offices of his former law firm.
There, he met with representatives of the nation’s largest power companies — including two groups that, shortly, had been his paying clients — to brief them on the Trump administration’s plans to weaken federal environmental regulations.
The Dec. 7, 2017, meeting is just one example of interactions between Wehrum, a skilled lawyer and regulator, and former clients that ethics experts say comes dangerously close to violating federal ethics rules. Since joining the EPA in November 2017, Wehrum acknowledges that he has met with two former clients at his old firm — without consulting in advance with ethics officials, even though they had cautioned him about such interactions. He also weighed in on a policy shift that could have influenced litigation involving DTE Energy, a Detroit-based utility represented by his former firm.
Late last week, three Democrats — Rep. Frank Pallone Jr. (N.J.), chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, and Sens. Sheldon Whitehouse (R.I.) and Thomas R. Carper (Del.) — asked the EPA’s Office of Inspector General to investigate Wehrum’s conduct, saying it runs afoul of rules requiring federal appointees to recuse themselves from most matters involving former clients and employers for two years.
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Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/epa-regulator-skirts-the-line-between-former-clients-and-current-job/2019/02/24/b826b5fa-3767-11e9-a400-e481bf264fdc_story.html