Scott Pruitt, the embattled former administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, registered Thursday as a lobbyist with state regulators.
Pruitt's filings with the Indiana Lobby Registration Commission identify him as a self-employed consultant and list RailPoint Solutions LLC as his sole client. His lobbying topics include "energy" and "natural resources."
It's unclear what, exactly, Pruitt is working on or who he is meeting with at the Statehouse, but he has ties to the Indiana coal industry. IndyStar's attempts to reach him Thursday afternoon were unsuccessful.
RailPoint Solutions does not appear to have a web address, nor is a company by that name registered to do business in Indiana. A search of Delaware business records, however, shows an incorporation date of Jan. 22.
The lobbying registration lists Heather Tryon as a responsible party. Heather Tryon is also the name of the chief financial officer of Sunrise Coal, Indiana's second largest coal producer,
according to the company's website.
Pruitt is not unfamiliar with Indiana coal interests. While working at the EPA, he met with Steven Chancellor, CEO of White Stallion Energy, which owns coal mines in the state,
according to emails released through a Freedom of Information Act filed by the Sierra Club.
Pruitt's appearance in Indiana affairs comes at a time when the state's energy future is in question.
Two of the state's utilities —
NIPSCO and
Vectren — have released plans to retire all or nearly all of their coal generating plants over the next several years.
The Indiana Coal Council, Peabody Energy and Alliance Coal all have filed challenges to those plans with state regulators. The cases are pending.
The utilities' plans were further imperiled by
a now-defeated measure that would have prohibited state regulators from approving new electric generation, like NIPSCO's wind projects and Vectren's natural gas plant.
That moratorium, introduced as an amendment onto a Senate bill by Rep. Ed Soliday, R-Valparaiso,
received heavy criticism by utility companies as well as environmental groups, who said it was a way to keep coal power plants running in Indiana. Currently, Indiana generates about 65 percent of its electricity from coal.
