Environmentalists complain of conflict of interest for Trump's UN nominee

WASHINGTON -- The email went out from senior Environmental Protection Agency officials to Kelly Craft, the U.S. ambassador to Canada, responding to questions she had about a funding matter.

But the acknowledgment email the EPA got back a few hours later wasn't from the ambassador. It was from her husband, coal magnate Joseph Craft, a wealthy GOP donor who had simultaneously been taking part in a months-long press by the coal industry for access and regulatory relief from the EPA and the Trump administration in general.

The blurring of roles -- and email accounts -- by the Crafts this time and others since she began representing the U.S. is raising questions as senators consider her nomination by President Donald Trump. The U.N. post would give her a prime seat at international talks to fight climate change, in part by encouraging limits on the burning of coal, with its heat-trapping emissions.

"Thanks!!" the coal baron replied to the December 2017 email from EPA officials, which had been addressed to "Ambassador Craft." The agency was following up on a briefing she had gotten from then-EPA head Scott Pruitt on federal funding for cleaning up the Great Lakes, an issue of great interest to Canada.

Joseph Craft sent the acknowledgment on his work email for his Tulsa, Oklahoma-based coal company, Alliance Resource Partners LP.

His response ended with the breezy auto-tag from his cellphone: "Sent from my iPhone powered by coal!"

Kelly Craft acknowledged but did not immediately respond to a request for an explanation and comment. EPA spokesman Michael Abboud noted only that Craft had separately responded to the 2017 email a few hours after her husband.

The Sierra Club obtained the emails under the federal Freedom of Information Act and provided them to The Associated Press.

Virginia Canter, chief ethics counsel at the not-for-profit watchdog Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, reacted strongly when told Joseph Craft responded to a government email sent to his wife in her capacity as U.S. ambassador.

"That's highly unusual. I've never heard of that," Canter said.

The topic of the email exchange may not have been sensitive, "but he should not be accessing her official emails under any circumstances," however he came to reply to it, she said.

"It's an indication that their interests are intertwined -- his business interests and her government interests," Canter said. She noted the conflict for the U.N. job, given the international focus on climate change and coal, an objection also raised by Democratic lawmakers and others.

The Sierra Club's climate policy director, Liz Peters, said in a statement, "It is deeply concerning that a coal executive is receiving and responding to correspondence intended for U.S. diplomats. With Trump, it is impossible to see where the coal industry ends and where the administration starts."

Spouses of ambassadors typically are closely involved in the social, cultural and ceremonial aspects of a diplomat's job, reaching out on the soft power aspects of countries' charm offensives overseas.

But emails and other dealings by the Crafts with Canadian and U.S. officials raise questions about their neutrality and possible overlaps of interest between government representative and coal tycoon, Canter and environmental advocates say.