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Is this true?
Energy Firms in Secretive Alliance With Attorneys General
The letter to the Environmental Protection Agency from Attorney General Scott Pruitt of Oklahoma carried a blunt accusation: Federal regulators were grossly overestimating the amount of air pollution caused by energy companies drilling new natural gas wells in his state.
But Mr. Pruitt left out one critical point. The three-page letter was written by lawyers for Devon Energy, one of Oklahoma’s biggest oil and gas companies, and was delivered to him by Devon’s chief of lobbying.
“Outstanding!” William F. Whitsitt, who at the time directed government relations at the company, said in a note to Mr. Pruitt’s office. The attorney general’s staff had taken Devon’s draft, copied it onto state government stationery with only a few word changes, and sent it to Washington with the attorney general’s signature. “The timing of the letter is great, given our meeting this Friday with both E.P.A. and the White House.”
Mr. Whitsitt then added, “Please pass along Devon’s thanks to Attorney General Pruitt.”
The email exchange from October 2011, obtained through an open-records request, offers a hint of the unprecedented, secretive alliance that Mr. Pruitt and other Republican attorneys general have formed with some of the nation’s top energy producers to push back against the Obama regulatory agenda, an investigation by The New York Times has found.
Attorneys general in at least a dozen states are working with energy companies and other corporate interests, which in turn are providing them with record amounts of money for their political campaigns, including at least $16 million this year.
Read More: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/07/us...eneral.html?hp
Is this true?
That's what Devon Energy claims. You can ask them.
Out of curiosity, is that the only part of that article that caught your attention?
BigCarbon's profits trump science, trump human, environmental health.
"Attorneys general in at least a dozen states are working with energy companies and other corporate interests, which in turn are providing them with record amounts of money for their political campaigns, including at least $16 million this year."
BigCarbon giving $16M to state AG's is a perfect example of the corporatocracy. BigCorps and the 1% own and operate the USA as their private ATM.
"“We are living in the midst of a cons utional crisis,” Mr. Pruitt told energy industry lobbyists and conservative state legislators"
but Pruitt's side is CAUSING the crisis, not solving it.
Last edited by boutons_deux; 12-07-2014 at 08:45 AM.
$1 Spent on Politics = $760 Gained from Federal Gov’t
America's most politically active corporations – like Ford Motor Company, McDonald's and Bank of America – pumped $5.8 billion into federal lobbying and campaign contributions between 2007 and 2012.
An analysis of 14 million records by the Sunlight Foundation found that in return, these companies got $4.4 trillion in federal business and support.
To put that in context, the federal government paid $4.3 trillion in Social Security benefits over the same period to 50 million Americans.
http://www.propublica.org/article/1-...muckreads-week
yeah, keep on voting, your vote REALLY counts.
Well, after all the breathless high school gossip-like framing, if it is true, it kind of makes any cooperation between government and the private sector understandable.
The claims of the story are only relevant if that statement is a fabrication.
"any cooperation between government and the private sector understandable."
I've go no problem with govt-business coop, but in our corporatocracy, the 1%, Corporate-Americans, and their investors are always enabled/enriched/protected/empowered while Human-Americans and the environment are harmed, exposed, enfeebled.
iow, it's a zero-sum game, what C-As win, H-As and environment lose.
Isn't the onus on Devon Energy and the States Attorney Genral to substantiate the claim that the estimates were grossly overestimated?
Perhaps they did. The story doesn't really concern itself with that does it?
EPA is a just another captured agency. My guess is they will fold. If they won't define coal ash as hazmat, ....
Look at the whining and screaming by BigCarbon and BigCorp on reducing ozone from 75 to the HORRIBLY LOW 65-70, which will cause the destruction of the economy.
Repugs and their paymasters do NOTHING but up the country.
who is the CEO of Big Carbon?
It's apparently not the only instance and not the only company. It's just unfortunate, but not surprising, that you think the story reduces itself to a sentence.
One has to wonder if these AGs are as receptive and accommodating to groups, companies or individuals that do not share the AG political view or provide funding to their campaigns/fundraiser groups.
I personally have no problem with AGs working with the private sector (or any group or individual, really) as they're the people's attorneys. However, I do find a huge conflict of interest in soliciting campaign money or sponsorship in the process. Especially when it's not disclosed and apparently there's no oversight. Reeks of influence peddling.
BTW, in the big picture, it's not just about AGs, but the whole politicization of important areas of the justice system (Holder's DOJ is no different) that's severely undermines the trust we have in justice, IMO.
Well, the story is predicated on something being wrong in the sentence i posted. They fail to explain whether or not the statement is true. If it's true, what's the point of the rest of the story. If it's false, why not demonstrate so and THEN talk about the alleged conspiracy between business and government.
There's a difference between financially supporting the truth and financially supporting a political position. Sometimes they can be the same and, it's only a problem for me when I believe they're not. The story leaves that question unexplored.
It actually isn't. The story is predicated in not disclosing that the claims is not the AGs, but an energy company's claims, despite the AG claiming it as it's own after copying it nearly verbatim. Then they proceed to describe numerous different instances of the same behavior, coincidentally from the same companies that provide campaign funds to said AG and related groups.
It's the repeated pattern of questionable behavior that's central to the story.
Except that's illegal to peddle influence for financial support, at least in an official capacity, as spelled out in the same article. The reason for that is that there's an obvious conflict of interest, something that apparently you for some reason don't want to acknowledge.
Yoni, would you be OK with environmental groups doing the same with Democratic AGs while their write their checks to fund their campaigns?
Or would that be the Eco-gate?
I would be surprised if they don't. I mean, the administration bought an economist to go around and pitch the virtues of Obamacare while knowing it was based on lies.
So, again, is the statement true? And, as far as politicians co-opting a position of a financial supporter, that happens all the time. I'm really only bothered if the AGs don't believe the statement is true and they're only doing so for the money.
So you would have a problem with that. Not surprising. Thanks.
Yeah, because it was based on a fabrication.
Is the statement made by the AGs and/or companies true or not?
You act as though this were a new phenomenon...
https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/list.php
who said conflict of interest is a new phenomenon? I certainly do condemn it whenever the situation arises, especially when it's egregious and secretive, such as this case.
but I'm not here to convince you or boutons of anything, tbh, there's no redeeming value in having a conversation with posters that cannot view past the red or blue veil...
pussy eater's false equivalence rules
BigCorp and 1% buying legislator's to increase/enable/protect their wealth, with citizens and the environments paying the costs is not the same as pro-environment, pro-human causes paying legislators to obtain pro-human, pro-environment objectives.
the corruption of the govt is above all done the Repugs and BigCorps, not by citizen voters.
It was the Repug politicized hacks of the SCOTUS5 that has enable corruption of govt by gutting the VRA and C-U, while the Dem justices voted against.
that the Dems are "just as bad" as the Repugs is just ain't so, but that's the main defense you right-wing pricks have when the Repugs are caught screwing up the country.
I simply ask if what they allege it true.
but I'm not here to convince you or boutons of anything, tbh, there's no redeeming value in having a conversation with posters that cannot view past the red or blue veil...
I have no idea, tbh... I think the answer, true or false, it's completely immaterial to the content of the article.
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