The Coal Baron and the E.P.A. Administrator: The Documents

Joseph Craft III, the chief executive of Alliance Resource Partners, the nation's seventh-largest coal company, has long helped bankroll Scott Pruitt's political efforts. Now as head of the Environmental Protection Agency, Mr. Pruitt has moved to roll back regulations that Mr. Craft wants weakened or killed. These documents were collected by The New York Times via dozens of sources, including state and federal Freedom of Information requests.

Pruitt and Alliance's Joe Craft During Attorney General Era

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From the start of Mr. Pruitt's tenure as Oklahoma's attorney general in 2011, he began to challenge Obama-era regulations, including E.P.A. rules targeting air pollution caused by coal-burning power plants, even though Oklahoma produces very little coal. The moves made Mr. Pruitt a national champion for the coal industry and one of its primary trade groups, the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity. Here, the ACCCE posts on its Facebook page in 2013, praising Mr. Pruitt and his fight against the E.P.A.

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Alliance has never had a profile as prominent as players like Peabody or Arch Coal, but it has been a steady performer financially, in part because it sells lower-cost, higher-sulfur coal. Alliance has been active in the ACCCE for years, and Mr. Craft served as the chairman of the lobbying and advocacy group in 2016. He remains on the ACCCE board.

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In 2013, donations to Mr. Pruitt from major national players in the coal industry rose as he took up their cause in litigation challenging E.P.A. regulations, including the regional haze rule that is intended to limit air pollution in national parks. Here is a series of donations in November 2013 by the Alliance Coal PAC, Peabody Energy and ACCCE, as well as consultants and lawyers to the coal industry, such as DCI Group and Paul Seby.

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Around the same time as that surge of coal industry donations came in, Mr. Pruitt, acting as attorney general of Oklahoma, moved to ask the United States Supreme Court to consider a lawsuit he had filed challenging the E.P.A.'s regional haze rule, which was threatening to result in the shutdown of coal-burning power plants, because of the cost of complying with the rule. In this motion, he asked the court to stay the action while he prepared to file the appeal to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court ultimately rejected the request.

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While Mr. Pruitt serve as an attorney general, and for two years as Mr. Pruitt lead the Republican Attorneys General Association group, donations from Alliance increased, records show, and the company also became a sponsor of one of the association's events in Miami.

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Alliance has done better than many of its industry competitors. Here are details on its annual sales, pulled from recent annual reports. They have dipped since 2015, but still are much higher than a decade ago. Also below is a map of the company's mines.

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Pruitt and Joe Craft During EPA Era First Year

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Here is a copy of a letter that Alliance sent in 2014 to the E.P.A., challenging proposed new standards for emissions from new power plants, a regulation that was ultimately adopted and resulted in predictions that no new coal-burning power plants would be built in the United States. Alliance unsuccessfully asked for major changes.

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In 2016, the Republican National Committee listed Mr. Craft and his wife, Kelly Knight Craft, as leaders of the effort to raise money to help get Donald J. Trump. The Crafts donated more than $2 million to support Mr. Trump’s candidacy and inauguration.

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Soon after Mr. Trump was elected, the ACCCE, began urging him to consider Mr. Pruitt to lead the E.P.A., citing his record as attorney general in challenging E.P.A. rules. Mr. Craft was the chairman of the ACCCE board at the time.

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Here is the first reference to Mr. Craft attending a meeting with Mr. Pruitt on Feb. 24, 2017, just a few days after Mr. Pruitt was confirmed. Yet despite what this schedule says, the parties involved in the meeting said that Mr. Craft was not a part of this get-together. We are including it because it is in Mr. Pruitt's schedule. It is possible it was simply a mistake.

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Here, Mr. Craft writes directly to Mr. Pruitt's aide, trying to schedule additional events. The E.P.A. did not respond when asked if Mr. Pruitt attended the Coal and Investment Forum. Mr. Pruitt did speak with Alliance's board.

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Mr. Pruitt was invited to the National Mining Association meeting at the Ritz-Carlton in Naples, Fla., to give remarks. Here are some of the emails detailing the planning for that visit. Mr. Craft serves on the board of the organization, and his participation in the meeting was cited as an incentive for Mr. Pruitt to go.

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This calendar entry shows the details of the trip to Naples, along with a review of the trip by the E.P.A. ethics office .

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Here are emails as Ms. Craft and E.P.A. officials worked out details of a planned visit by Mr. Pruitt to a board meeting that Alliance held in Washington at the Trump International Hotel, within its BLT Prime steakhouse.

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Here are emails as planning was underway for another meeting with Mr. Craft and other coal executives. The meeting took place, at least according to the calendar, at the offices of DCI group, a consulting firm that represents the ACCCE.

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Here is an email detailing follow-up by an executive at Alliance with Samantha Dravis, then the top policy adviser to Mr. Pruitt.

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Mr. Pruitt's message to Mr. Craft was redacted, so it is not known what he said.

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The presentation, toward the end of the slides, details rollbacks by the E.P.A. and other Trump administration agencies. Here are excerpts from this presentation, where Alliance celebrates Mr. Craft's attendance at at least three events involving Mr. Pruitt.

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Kentucky Basketball Game

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Here is an email where E.P.A. officials discuss Mr. Pruitt's plans to use tickets held by Mr. Craft to attend a Kentucky basketball game. An ethics review was done by the Office of General Counsel, but it said that Mr. Pruitt would repay Mr. Craft with a check, a document that could be used to confirm the payment. A spokesman for Mr. Pruitt said that the reimbursement took place, but that it was done with cash. The agency spokesman did not respond when asked why the payment was in cash.

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Here are emails from the University of Kentucky detailing preparations for Mr. Pruitt's attendance at the basketball game, as Mr. Pruitt's security detail attended the game as well.

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Pruitt Calendar Omits Game

Note by News Documents

Mr. Pruitt's calendar from this period skips this day, as he was on vacation. The fact that he met with the chief executive of one of the nation's largest coal companies, as well as his family, is not mentioned.

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Here is correspondence with The New York Times detailing how to get access to the seats Mr. Pruitt sat in with his son. It requires a $1 million donation to the university and then a season ticket purchase. They are not sold individually.

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More Actions in 2018

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Alliance and Mr. Craft had raised concerns about this rule with the E.P.A., in part through the trade association. Here Mr. Pruitt moves to scale back the rule, which is intended to prevent ground water contamination from coal ash.

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Here the E.P.A. announces that it will not tighten the standard for nitrogen dioxide, which is a pollutant that comes in part from coal-burning power plants, and which Alliance lists as an area of regulatory concern.

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Here, the ACCCE, the coal industry group that Mr. Craft helps lead, urges Mr. Pruitt and the E.P.A. to move ahead with the planned repeal of the Clean Power Plan, which is intended to help slow climate change, but which would likely have resulted in the closure of dozens of coal-burning power plants.

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Here is a recent tweet from the ACCCE praising the efforts of Mr. Pruitt since he became the head of the E.P.A., even as he has faced questions over ethics and his management of the agency.

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