Boston Globe: Energy bill a special-interests triumph

[gristy]

A long article that helps clarify what we are fighting. If you read it, give this thread a kick.


By Susan Milligan, Globe Staff | October 4, 2004

Second of three parts

WASHINGTON -- Robert Congel has grand plans and a heady vision for his upstate New York shopping complex. Billed as the biggest mall in the world, the yet-to-be-built DestiNY USA would be filled with 400 retailers, thousands of hotel rooms, a 65-acre glass-enclosed indoor park, a rock- and ice-climbing wall, and a theater suitable for Broadway shows.

And if its patrons in Congress get their way, the mega-mall would be partially funded through the federal energy bill, which would provide $100 million in public money. A fervent lobbying campaign by Congel paid dividends on Capitol Hill. When members of the House voted last winter to ramp up domestic oil production, they also voted to help Congel build the giant mall through tax-exempt "greenbonds."

The greenbonds initiative -- so named because the developments it funds are supposed to be energy efficient -- was among scores of items stuck into the energy bill by lawmakers meeting behind closed doors. These provisions had no official sponsors and weren't part of the original documents approved by the House and Senate, but were added later by unseen hands as the 816-page bill was crafted in a secret conference.

Intended to lay out an energy policy for the nation for the first time in more than a decade, the energy bill became a cash bonanza for corporate interests in and out of the energy arena. The bill, which is stalled because of a Senate filibuster but which is still one of President Bush's top legislative priorities, features initiatives to encourage production of new and existing energy sources. But it has also become a phonebook-sized symbol of modern Washington lawmaking, in which policy is driven by those who have money, power, and access to a relatively small group of decision-makers.

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2004/10/04/energy_bill_a_special_interests/

[Catt03]

1. Just to name a few

Sixty of Bush's 400 Pioneers and Rangers -- those who have committed to raising at least $100,000 and $200,000, respectively, for the Bush-Cheney reelection effort -- would benefit from the tax breaks, subsidies, and deregulation in the bill, according to an estimate by the Sierra Club.

Massey Energy of West Virginia -- whose director, James H. "Buck" Harless, is a major Bush fund-raiser --would get hundreds of millions of dollars in loan guarantees for a coal gasification plant. Harless served on President Bush's energy transition team, a precursor to Vice President Dick Cheney's Energy Task Force, which developed the critical blueprint for the energy package on Capitol Hill.

What's really amazing is how a combination of energy industry, oil and gas industry, utility industry guys, coal industry guys, through a whole host of policy decisions -- through the Environmental Protection Agency or the energy bill -- literally got billions of dollars in payback for millions of dollars" in contributions and lobbying expenses, said Mark Longabaugh, senior vice president for publicaffairs for the League of ConservationVoters

Senator Charles Grassley, an Iowa Republican who heads the Senate Finance Committee, and whose support for the energy bill was critical because of its tax provisions, wanted $50 million for a simulated rain forest in his corn-country state.

Jeeze...and all we want in Florida is a voting machine that works properly