Scott Pruitt is the head of the Environmental Protection Agency, for now. According to Politico, the former Oklahoma attorney general is “interested” in becoming U.S. attorney general if Jeff Sessions leaves the administration. It’s not the first time Pruitt reportedly has eyed a higher office, whether it be a governorship, a Senate seat, or even the presidency. Pruitt has denied it all, but even so, Republican presidencies have had short-lived EPA administrators. Scandal-plagued Anne Gorsuch lasted only two years as Ronald Reagan’s EPA chief. Christine Todd Whitman and Michael Leavitt each served two years under George W. Bush.

So who takes over if Pruitt leaves? The leading contender to date is Andrew Wheeler, a former coal lobbyist, EPA bureaucrat, and aide to the snowball-wielding Senator Jim Inhofe. President Donald Trump nominated Wheeler, who is currently an energy attorney, to be the EPA’s deputy administrator in October, and Wheeler faced a full Senate hearing in November. Because the Senate never voted on Wheeler’s nomination, his nomination was sent back to committee at the start of the new legislative session in January.

Wheeler’s nomination is now moving again. HuffPost’s Alex Kaufman reports that the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee will vote to advance Wheeler’s nomination on Wednesday. Soon after, Kaufman wrote, “Wheeler is likely to be confirmed in the full Senate, where the GOP holds a narrow majority.” If Wheeler is confirmed, he’d be first in line to become the acting administrator if Pruitt leaves.

Wheeler’s confirmation would be great news for the country’s largest coal mining company, which will have secured one of its longtime lobbyists in a position of power over environmental regulation. Murray Energy has seen a number of wins in the last year. Weeks after Trump’s inauguration, the New York Times’ reported, CEO Robert Murray “presented Mr. Trump with a wish list of environmental rollbacks,” and since then the majority of those 16 requests have been fulfilled. Murray personally donated $300,000 to Trump’s inauguration, and the company recently donated $1 million to Trump’s super PAC. (Wheeler de-registered himself as a Murray lobbyist on August 11, three days after the company’s donation.)

In many ways, Wheeler is similar to Pruitt. Both men are climate-change deniers who speak in a disciplined legalese, thereby avoiding political gaffes. But environmentalists should consider Wheeler a more egregious nominee. His conflicts of interests are certainly worse: Pruitt may have worked closely with the fossil fuel industry before taking office, but Wheeler worked for the fossil fuel industry. Before he took office, Pruitt indirectly raised money from conservative dark money groups to stop the EPA regulations he’s now in charge of. But Wheeler directly raised money for the same Republican Senators who are evaluating his nomination, the Intercept reported on Wednesday.