Trump elevates coal insider. WI AG Brad Schimel did, too

We now have a former coal industry lobbyist running the US EPA.

And before you say 'who'd put someone in that wrong job? (spoiler alert)' let me reminder you again that Wisconsin is in so many ways the laboratory for Trump's new swamp.

As I had noted in a 2017 summary of the Brad Schimel-Scott Pruitt similarities:

If you're draining the swamp, it's good to have a guy on hand who knows how to keep your A/C running full blast:

Trump Nominates a Coal Lobbyist to Be No. 2 at E.P.A.

 

Schimel-Pruitt are a solid chamber of commerce tag team when it comes to rolling back clean air and water protections:

*   Schimel beat Pruitt to the coal-industry-lobbying-hiring punch by tapping in 2014 a lobbyist for The American Coalition for Clean Coal as the AG's top aide, noted here. 

Here's who's to be Schimel's top aide, according to the Journal Sentinel:

[Andrew] Cook is a contract lobbyist with the Hamilton Consulting Group and currently represents Walmart; Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce, the state's largest business lobbying group; 3M; Aggregate Producers of Wisconsin; Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers; American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity; Association of Wisconsin Surgery Centers; the holding company for Enterprise Rent-A-Car; Lockridge Grindal Nauen, a law firm with offices in Minnesota and Washington, D.C.; Manitoba Hydro; Marathon Petroleum Company; Xcel Energy; Wisconsin Civil Justice Council, a group that successfully pushed legislation making it harder to bring civil lawsuits; Wisconsin Defense Counsel; and the Wisconsin Sheriffs and Deputy Sheriffs Association.

Cook is also the president of the Madison chapter of the Federalist Society, an influential national group of conservative lawyers.