(From their days in the State Senate.)
Who could blame two of the newly-registered lobbyists on Capitol Hill in Washington DC for wanting to take advantage of old political ties. Both are Oklahomans and the man they will be lobbying is Scott Pruitt, new chief at the Environmental Protection Agency, a former colleague.
Former Oklahoma Secretary of State Glenn Coffee, the first Republican in State history to serve as President Pro Tempore recently registered as a lobbyist for QuikTrip Corp., the Tulsa-based convenience store and gas station chain. His associate, Crystal Coon, once chief of staff when Pruitt was Oklahoma Attorney General also registered.
Lobbying disclosure records at the U.S. Senate indicate both will be lobbying on behalf of Quiktrip regarding the renewable fuel standard. They will act as representatives of the Coffee Group.
Coon issued a brief statement to E and E News.
“I plan to lobby on behalf of interests that I care about and that share a pro market, pro energy, pro environment vision.”
The ties are obvious for each. Coffee, who was Secretary of State for two years until he resigned, founded Glenn Coffee and Associates in 2013. Its website stated the company was a law firm focusing on government, ethics and campaign finance. When Coffee was in the state senate, so was Pruitt. His law firm had also been hired by Pruitt to do election law compliance work for Pruitt’s state campaign for attorney general.
As for Coon, she was Pruitt’s first chief of staff when he became attorney general. She also founded Drwenski Communications and worked for Pruitt’s state campaign in 2015 and 2016.
Their work for QuikTrip will be some of the first lobbying efforts by the Oklahoma company. It hired Steptoe and Johnson LLP last summer and since then, has spent $40,000 on lobbying with concerns over the RFS.
Just last month, the company sent a letter to Pruitt in support of the EPA’s proposal to deny petitions for rulemaking to change the RFS’s point of obligation, saying it would be anti-consumer.
“It is important to emphasize that changing the point of obligatio jwill impose enormous regulatory burdens on entities that have no control over the chemical composition of petroleum products,” wrote Bruce Morgan, Vice President of QuickTrip Corporation and President of QT Fuels Incorporated.