Lobbyist Tied to Pruitt's Condo Had Clients Facing EPA
- Companies included Smithfield Foods, Cheniere Energy
- Bottling firm he represented paid pollution fine last year
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The energy lobbyist whose wife leased a bedroom to U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt last year had a roster of clients with business before the EPA, handing fodder to critics who are demanding that Pruitt be fired.
J. Steven Hart, the chairman of Williams & Jensen, has said he didn’t personally lobby the EPA in 2017 or this year. But plenty of his corporate clients had pending matters with the agency, according to a Bloomberg News review of lobbying disclosures. And over the past 13 years, Hart may have occasionally pressed the EPA on regulations governing air and water pollution, according to those filings.