In secret tapes, mine executives detail their sway over leaders from Juneau to the White House

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

A direct line to the White House, but routed through a third party to hide it from public view. Easy access to Alaska’s governor, as well as the state’s two U.S. senators. A successful push to unseat nine Republican state lawmakers who opposed their plan to build a massive gold and copper mine — the biggest in North America — near Bristol Bay in Alaska.

Those were some of the boasts made by two top executives of a company trying to build the Pebble Mine in videotapes secretly recorded by an environmental group and made public Monday. It was a rare glimpse into the private discussions surrounding the company’s heated campaign to win federal permits for the project, which environmentalists say will destroy a pristine part of Alaska and decimate its world-famous sockeye salmon fishery.

The conversations were secretly recorded over the past month and a half by the nonprofit Environmental Investigation Agency. Posing as potential investors in the mine, EIA investigators conducted Zoom calls in which the mine’s sponsors detailed how they sought to curry favor with elected politicians from Juneau to Washington, D.C.

The tapes feature separate conversations with two key men behind the project — Roland Thiessen, chief executive of the Canadian-based Northern Dynasty Minerals, and Tom Collier, chief executive of its U.S. subsidiary, Pebble Limited Partnership.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/in-secret-tapes-mine-executives-detail-their-sway-over-leaders-from-juneau-to-the-white-house/ar-BB19jGWe?li=BBnb7Kz

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

1. Update

Pebble Partnership CEO resigns after secret tapes released

(Reuters) - The chief executive of Pebble Limited Partnership, the company trying to develop Alaska's Pebble Mine project, resigned on Wednesday after his comments on elected and regulatory officials in the U.S. state were covertly videotaped and released by an environmental activist group, its Canadian parent said.

The comments by Tom Collier embellished both his and the company's relationships with elected officials and federal representatives in Alaska, including Governor Michael Dunleavy, Senators Lisa Murkowski and Dan Sullivan and senior representatives of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Northern Dynasty Minerals Ltd said.

The video tapes, released on Monday, come as President Donald Trump's administration is considering whether to approve the company's copper and gold project, which opponents say would permanently damage Alaska's Bristol Bay watershed, an ecosystem that supports the world's largest salmon runs.

"The unethical manner in which these tapes were acquired does not excuse the comments that were made, or the crass way they were expressed," Northern Dynasty CEO Ron Thiessen said in a statement.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/northern-dynastys-pebble-partnership-ceo-215023378.html