Move to fight Obama’s new environmental regulations was shaped many months ago by Republican strategists, coal states and lobbyists.
WASHINGTON — In the early months of 2014, a group of about 30 corporate lawyers, coal lobbyists and Republican political strategists began meeting regularly in the headquarters of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, often, according to some of the participants, in a conference room overlooking the White House.
Their task was to start devising a legal strategy to dismantle the climate-change regulations they feared were coming from President Obama.
The group — headed in part by Roger Martella, a top environmental official in the George W.