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This story was originally published by HuffPost. It appears here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. Coal giant Murray Energy cut ties with its longtime lobbying firm shortly after President Donald Trump announced plans to nominate Andrew Wheeler, the firm’s former lobbyist, to be the next Environmental Protection Agency administrator.

The country’s largest privately held coal producer, run by the bombastic coal baron Bob Murray, appears to have ended its relationship with Wheeler’s former lobbying firm, Faegre Baker Daniels Consulting, according to a lobbying termination notice buried last week in Politico Influence, a newsletter tracking K Street contracts. The termination took effect at the end of last year.

The announcement came six days after Wheeler, the acting EPA administrator and nominee to fill the role permanently, testified before a Senate committee in the first step of what’s expected to be an easy confirmation process to be the nation’s 15th EPA chief.

The timing could be a coincidence, a cost-cutting measure for a company facing significant headwinds going into the new year. And technically, the law firm could maintain Murray Energy as a client while not reaching the threshold necessary to report its activities as a lobbyist. But to some, the contract termination signaled what the New Republic this month dubbed Murray’s “nearly complete takeover” of the EPA and raises new questions about Wheeler’s potential conflicts of interest.

“Murray Energy has cut out the middleman,” Judith Enck, a former administrator for the EPA region that includes New York and Puerto Rico, told HuffPost in an interview Monday. “They’ve got their pro-coal guy in the driver’s seat at the EPA.” “They’ve got their pro-coal guy in the driver’s seat at the EPA.” The EPA declined to comment. Reached by phone, Murray Energy asked HuffPost to send written questions about its relationship with Faegre Baker Daniels via email, but did not reply to three follow-up emails. Faegre Baker Daniels did not respond to a request for comment.