Powerful coal executive edges closer to White House

Joe Craft's wife, ambassador to Canada Kelly Craft, could become the next U.S. envoy to the U.N.

By ZACK COLMAN 03/30/2019 06:42 AM EDT

Joe Craft, the chief executive of one of the nation’s biggest coal companies and a major Republican bank roller, is on the verge of moving even closer into the White House inner circle.

President Donald Trump proposed in February that Craft's wife, Ambassador to Canada Kelly Craft, become the next U.S. envoy to the United Nations, which would give her a front-row seat to the international climate talks that have huge implications for Joe Craft's business.

As CEO of the Tulsa, Okla.-based coal empire Alliance Resource Partners, Joe Craft is already an active player in Washington when it comes to energy policy.

For example, key actors from Trump to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell mounted an unsuccessful last-second public campaign to get the Tennessee Valley Authority to reverse course on shuttering a power plant Alliance supplied last month. The federal power utility determined its Paradise Unit 3 facility in Kentucky, along with the Bull Run power plant in Tennessee, was too expensive to keep running.

“He’s got a keen understanding of the legislative and regulatory process, and increasingly the energy business is intertwined with government policy,” a federal government official who knows Joe Craft said. “He knows a lot of people. A lot of people respect him and he’s a prominent figure, so I imagine he can pick up the phone and call anybody.”

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https://www.politico.com/story/2019/03/30/coal-executive-white-house-1282376