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The resignation of EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt leaves Deputy Administrator Andrew Wheeler in charge of the agency. While Wheeler is most notable for being a lobbyist for coal companies, he also has a track record of lobbying to reduce protections for public lands in the name of expanded uranium mining. Wheeler joins a scandal-plagued cabinet led by investigation-prone Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke.

As a lobbyist for Energy Fuels Resources, Andrew Wheeler asked the Interior Department to gut Bears Ears National Monument to allow for more uranium mining.

• Last year Wheeler served as a lobbyist for Energy Fuels Resources (EFR), a company operating uranium mines and mills just outside of Bears Ears National Monument in Utah.
• On July 17th, 2017, Andrew Wheeler and Paul Goranson, an executive at Energy Fuels Resources, met with high-level officials in the Interior Department, including Downey Magallanes, the architect of Secretary Zinke’s national monuments report, to “discuss the Bear Ears [sic] National Monument.”
• Two days later, on July 19th, 2017, Andrew Wheeler met with Vincent DeVito (see page 123). DeVito is Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke’s Counselor for Energy Policy.
• In a letter to Secretary Zinke, EFR made clear their desires, stating:
  • “There are also many other known uranium and vanadium deposits located within the newly created BENM that could provide valuable energy and mineral resources in the future."
  • "EFR respectfully requests that DOI reduce the size of the BENM to only those specific areas or sites, if any, deemed to need additional protection beyond what is already available to Federal land management agencies."

With Scott Pruitt’s resignation, Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke is now the most scandal-plagued cabinet member remaining.

• During his tenure, Scott Pruitt racked up an astonishing 19 federal investigations. Secretary Zinke is now racing to top that number, already facing 13 investigations of his own.
• Secretary Zinke is currently under investigation over his role in a Whitefish, MT real estate deal, backed by the chairman of Halliburton, in which the secretary stands to personally benefit. Five months after claiming to have cut ties with the project, Zinke met with David Lesar, the chairman of Halliburton and the project developer in his official office for 90 minutes, then gave them a private tour of the Lincoln Memorial.
• Zinke has also faced investigations over his use of chartered aircraft, suppressing science within his agency, violating the Hatch Act, and unjustified reassignment of senior staff, to name a few.

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To the Editor:

In a recent article about Energy Fuels and Andrew Wheeler, now the acting administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the Sentinel News left out several key facts that provide important context for our work together that we think is important for your readers to understand.

Mr. Wheeler represented Energy Fuels only for a few months in 2017, and our work was limited to matters related to the Department of the Interior and Department of Energy. None of this work was before EPA, and Mr. Wheeler withdrew from representing Energy Fuels completely when he was asked to stand for nomination as the EPA’s deputy administrator.

As for the Bears Ears National Monument, we have no claims or mines within its original boundaries. Energy Fuels proposed minor boundary adjustments to create buffers between the monument and our operations. This proposal affected only 2.5 percent of the monument. We never sought the 85 percent reduction the administration ultimately enacted.

We have consistently underscored the need for protecting culturally and historically important land in the region, and we support a permanent limit on future mining activity inside the monument’s original boundaries.

Mark Chalmers is president and CEO of Energy Fuels.