Himmelstein, marc nes
see griles larry wide stance craig
ASCENT MEDIA CODY DRUCKER OREGON COaLition astro fuckery
SEE NES
SEE FIRSTENERGY OHIO NUKE GRAFT
SEE PRUITT ROB BISHOP RYAN JACKSON COS ~ NAT AM
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https://www.linkedin.com/in/marc-himmelstein-535a084/
Experience
President
NES
president
National Environmental Strategies
1990 - Present · 36 yrs 7 mos
Education
University of Tennessee Winston College of Law
University of Tennessee, Knoxville
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Dark money group targets Oregon swing districts with new mailers, ads
- Julia Shumway - Oregon Capital Chronicle
- February 16, 2024
The Coalition for Safe, Healthy and Prosperous Communities send new ads to voters praising Republicans and criticizing Democrats. (Julia Shumway/Oregon Capital Chronicle and submitted photo)
A dark money group founded by a national Republican political operative and oil industry lobbyists stepped up its efforts to influence Oregon voters this week, sending mailers and buying ad space in seven competitive state House districts.
Voters in the four Republican-held districts received glossy pieces of mail asking them to thank their representatives for sponsoring a bill to make drug possession a misdemeanor punishable by a year in jail, while voters in three swing districts held by Democrats were told their representatives “failed to protect Oregonians.” Some voters saw television ads.
The ads and mailers were paid for by the Coalition for Safe, Healthy and Prosperous Communities, a dark money group that has been involved in Oregon politics since 2022. That summer, the Capital Chronicle detailed how the coalition managed to avoid campaign finance laws by carefully wording its missives: Groups that do issue advocacy, or spend to support a cause that isn’t directly tied to an election, don’t have to file as political action committees or report their campaign spending or fundraising.
Nearly two years later, details about the organization remain scarce, though voters throughout the state have continued to see mail, web ads and even billboards paid for by the secretive group. Documents the group filed with the Internal Revenue Service last fall show it spent nearly $550,000 in 2022, with no data yet available for 2023 or 2024.
The organization didn’t respond to an attempt to reach it through the “contact us” tab on its website and has no other available contact information.
The coalition paid for a billboard last fall above the Lucky Thai Elephant Restaurant in Newport, thanking Sen. Dick Anderson, R-Lincoln City, for “leading our district toward a brighter future.” Last April, constituents of Rep. Hoa Nguyen, D-Portland, received text messages claiming she sponsored a bill she didn’t actually sponsor that would have allowed cities to ban fossil fuels in new construction. Republican Rep. Cyrus Javadi’s constituents received mail last spring praising him for supporting police funding, and online ads urged voters to email Rep. Ricki Ruiz, D-Gresham, to demand to know why he wanted to “put tampons in boys’ bathrooms,” based on a bill he introduced that would loosen an existing state law requiring free tampons in student bathrooms.
Most of the bills the coalition targeted in the 2023 legislative session had missed key deadlines and were already dead by the time voters saw the ads. That, combined with the latest batch of ads targeting specific candidates in swing districts, raised suspicions among political observers that the group is skirting state campaign finance laws to hide its donors and influence elections.
Under state law, any political communication that supports or opposes a clearly identified candidate must disclose the name of the person or group that paid for it. Most ads or mailers also must disclose the top five contributors to the campaign, and anonymous donations of $1,000 or more can’t be used for communications supporting or opposing a candidate.
Failing to include that information can result in a fine of up to 150% of the cost of printing or broadcasting an ad if an Oregon voter files a written complaint and the secretary of state’s office investigates it. The agency has a backlog of hundreds of election complaints dating back years.
A spokeswoman for the secretary of state’s office didn’t immediately respond to a phone call or email.
Documents show big spending with Republican groups
The Coalition for Safe, Healthy and Prosperous Communities hasn’t registered as a business in Oregon. The Internal Revenue Service approved it as a 501(c)4 nonprofit organization, exempt from paying taxes, in March 2022.
That type of nonprofit organization is allowed to advocate issues, but not for or against candidates. It doesn’t have to report its donors, but it does have to file annual Form 990 returns with the IRS each year. It filed two so far: a 2021 notice that the group had less than $50,000 and a 2022 return that shows it received close to $900,000 and spent nearly $550,000.
It didn’t disclose its donors, and it claimed it didn’t engage in “direct or indirect political campaign activities on behalf or in opposition to candidates for public office” in 2022. It has no employees but has three unpaid directors. President Marc Himmelstein is a longtime lobbyist for the energy industry. Secretary Jeff Berkowitz was formerly the chief researcher for the Republican National Committee. And treasurer Alby Modiano was the president of the U.S. Oil and Gas Association from 1993 until at least 2018. None of the men have clear ties to Oregon.
Nonprofit organizations have to report the names of their five highest-paid contractors that receive more than $100,000 in a year, and the coalition’s form shows ties with prominent Republican firms.
The group paid more than $200,000 to Salt Lake City-based Arena LLC for advertising. The mail and digital ad company works with the Republican National Committee and U.S. Rep. Cliff Bentz, R-Oregon, along with hundreds of other Republican campaigns. The Oregon Right to Life PAC, Republican state Reps. Kevin Mannix, Javadi and Tracy Cramer, as well as state Sen. Suzanne Weber, used the company for their 2022 campaigns, paying nearly $400,000 combined, according to state campaign finance records.
The coalition also spent close to $175,000 on consulting from Colorado-based Ascent Media, a firm founded by the former Republican leader in the Colorado Senate. That company worked to elect Republican gubernatorial candidate Christine Drazan in 2022, and state campaign finance records show a Republican candidate from southern Oregon paid it more than $565,000 in his failed attempt to replace Sen. Jeff Golden, D-Ashland.
None of the coalition’s spending is visible on ORESTAR, the state’s campaign finance system.
Traci Bean, a Democratic voter in Javadi’s district, started hunting for information when she received mail praising Javadi last year. She’s more familiar with the state’s campaign finance system than many voters, having served as a treasurer for two different political action committees, but she couldn’t find anything on ORESTAR or when she tried to contact the coalition directly. When she got in touch with Javadi’s office, his staff told her they didn’t know anything about it.
“I am disturbed every time I run into these black holes where you can’t find anything,” Bean said. “Because as a voter and as a citizen, I want to be informed.”
Cole Avery, executive director of the House Republican Caucus’s Evergreen Political Action Committee, said Republican lawmakers didn’t know about the ads.
“To my knowledge, our candidates have had no coordination with this organization and had no knowledge of the mailers,” Avery said. “The law allows for advocacy in the political space. Whether or not this organization’s advocacy is in compliance with the law is a question for the organization.”
Ads target swing districts
The latest round of mailers and ads are targeted at seven competitive House districts, four represented by Republicans and three by Democrats. All are held by representatives elected in 2022 for the first time or after a break in legislative service, and they’re all top priorities for both parties as Democrats seek to protect and expand their majority in the House and Republicans try to make inroads. Democrats now hold 35 districts; Republicans, 25.
Mannix and Cramer flipped two Marion County legislative districts formerly represented by Democrats, who outnumber Republicans in both districts. Their opponents’ personal issues – Mannix’s opponent spent time in prison for selling marijuana and Cramer’s opponent visited a spa where he later reported experiencing unwanted sexual advances – and low turnout among Democratic-leaning voters contributed to their victories.
Democrats also outnumber Republicans in Javadi’s coastal district, where Democrat Logan Laity is looking for a rematch after losing by fewer than 850 votes in a 2022 contest that saw nearly 35,000 votes cast. And Republican Rep. Jeff Helfrich, R-Hood River, won his district in the Columbia River Gorge by just more than 1,600 votes after narrowly losing in a similar district in 2018 and 2020.
The coalition’s mailers and 15-second ads praise the four Republicans for sponsoring House Bill 4036, which would create penalties for drug possession as part of the Republican response to the state’s addiction crisis. They include phone numbers that provide a patch-through line to the legislators’ offices.
The ads targeting Democratic Reps. Annessa Hartman, Emerson Levy and Hoa Nguyen, meanwhile, ask where the representatives are as Oregonians die from dangerous drugs. They also include a number.
Hartman, Levy and Nguyen all narrowly won their races in 2022 in districts based in Oregon City, Bend and southeast Portland, respectively.
Oregon Capital Chronicle is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Oregon Capital Chronicle maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Lynne Terry for questions: info@oregoncapitalchronicle.com. Follow Oregon Capital Chronicle on Facebook and Twitter.
STORY TIP OR IDEA? Send an email to Salem Reporter’s news team: info@salemreporter.com.
Julia Shumway - Oregon Capital Chronicle
Julia Shumway is editor of Oregon Capital Chronicle and has reported on government and politics in Iowa and Nebraska, spent time at the Bend Bulletin and most recently was a legislative reporter for the Arizona Capitol Times in Phoenix. An award-winning journalist, Julia most recently reported on the tangled efforts to audit the presidential results in Arizona.
GGL 7 26
An Ohio legislator defied FirstEnergy lobbyists. Then a ' ...
Center for Public Integrity
https://publicintegrity.org › politics › an-ohio-legislator...
May 22, 2018 — The Conservative Leadership Alliance's treasurer is Marc Himmelstein, who has worked for years as a FirstEnergy lobbyist in Washington, D.C. ...Read more
Dark money group linked to FirstEnergy helped sink GOP ...
An Ohio legislator defied FirstEnergy lobbyists. Then a ‘dark money’ group helped sink her bid for Congress
by Sarah KleinerMay 22, 2018
Christina Hagan, left, at a campaign event in March. On the right, FirstEnergy Corp.'s transformer in Beaver Valley Power Station in Shippingport, Pa. Facebook / FirstEnergy Corp.
Reading Time: 5 minutes
A “dark money” organization tied to a major electric company pumped significant cash into an Ohio congressional race in what a losing candidate describes as an act of retribution over a failed financial deal.
Christina Hagan, a state representative who was running in the Republican primary for Ohio’s 16th congressional district seat, said a group called the Conservative Leadership Alliance targeted her with a barrage of attack ads after she declined to support legislation Akron, Ohio-based electric company FirstEnergy had lobbied her to help pass.
The Conservative Leadership Alliance’s treasurer is Marc Himmelstein, who has worked for years as a FirstEnergy lobbyist in Washington, D.C. FirstEnergy has paid Himmelstein’s firm, National Environmental Strategies, $640,000 since 2010, according to congressional lobbying filings.
Hagan said she didn’t think the bill, which would have allowed FirstEnergy to collect an additional $300 million annually from customers to shore up its aging power plants, was fair to electric customers. House Bill 178 would have created “zero-emission credits” that would have raised customers’ monthly bills by about 5 percent.
“I didn’t budge when they came into my office to lobby me,” Hagan said of her meetings with FirstEnergy officials, which took place over a period of many months. “I became the target of the company and the members of our leadership team who wanted to get it done but couldn’t because I wasn’t going to be supportive. I’m sure they just wanted to make an example of me in my race for higher office that if you don’t play well, this is what will happen to you.”
Anthony Gonzalez, a former NFL player who is now running for the seat of representative for Ohio District 16 as a Republican. Anthony Gonzalez for Congress (via Facebook)
Hagan’s main opponent in the Ohio 16th district Republican primary was Anthony Gonzalez, a former Indianapolis Colts and Ohio State University wide receiver who won the race with 53 percent of the vote.
Hagan — an avowed supporter of President Donald Trump — placed second in the May 8 primary, with 41 percent.
Sarah Poggione, associate professor and chair of the department of political science at Ohio University, said establishment Republicans rallied behind Gonzalez, and they spent significant money to back him, because they saw Hagan as especially formidable.
“Both sides were seeing this as really competitive and the possibility that either one could potentially take it,” Poggione said.
Himmelstein did not return multiple messages left on his office phone, nor did he respond to emails to his address with National Environmental Strategies. No one responded to emails sent to a general Conservative Leadership Alliance address, either.
Todd Schneider, director of corporate communications for FirstEnergy, also did not respond to multiple emails and phone messages. When reached by phone, FirstEnergy communications staffer Tricia Ingraham said she would consult with Schneider about how to respond, then ceased further contact with a Center for Public Integrity reporter.
In an April hearing for House Bill 178 — which ultimately did not pass — FirstEnergy CEO Charles Jones told members of the House Public Utilities Committee that “Ohio cannot afford to continue heading down a path that could lead to less fuel-diverse and fewer homegrown energy resources, more energy imports, fewer jobs and less economic growth — not to mention more volatile electricity prices for our customers and your constituents,” according to the Cleveland Plain Dealer.
FirstEnergy describes itself as a “forward-thinking electric utility powered by a diverse team of employees committed to making customers’ lives brighter, the environment better and our communities stronger.”
But the company has come under fire in the past for the high levels of pollution its plants pump into the atmosphere. A 2016 Center for Public Integrity analysis of two federal data sets from 2014 found that four of FirstEnergy’s plants were on the top 100 list of U.S. “super polluters.”
The company’s nuclear and coal-fired power plants have been struggling to remain profitable in recent years because natural gas prices have been so low. Executives have asked the federal government for emergency funds to help keep some its plants operating.
The Conservative Leadership Alliance, an entity that states it’s a 501(c)(4) “social welfare” nonprofit, spent $113,000 in the Ohio 16th district race. Such groups do not have to disclose their donors, and Conservative Leadership Alliance has not revealed who funds it. (Politico reported last week that American Action Network, a politically active nonprofit tied to House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., gave Conservative Leadership Alliance $200,000 sometime in 2016 or 2017.)
Half of that money — $56,500 — bolstered Gonzalez. The other half funded ads opposing Hagan, according to Federal Election Commission records.
The Conservative Leadership Alliance, or CLA Inc., has spent money in two other congressional races so far this election cycle, federal records indicate.
The group spent $220,800 supporting Tommy Pope and $319,500 opposing Ralph Norman in a Republican runoff for South Carolina’s 5th congressional district seat in May 2017. (Norman won both the primary and special general election by narrow margins.)
CLA Inc. also spent $97,770 opposing John Eichelberger and the same amount opposing Arthur Halvorson in Pennsylvania’s 13th congressional district Republican primary on May 15, calling them, in a press release, “typical repeat politicians who are desperate to be in the swamp.” CLA Inc. spent $35,000 to support John Joyce, who won the eight-way race for the Republican nomination.
CLA Inc. has additionally aired political issue ads that targeted Rep. Walter Jones, R-N.C., and praised Rep. Martha Roby, R-Ala., while not overtly advocating for their re-election or defeat.
The true nature of CLA Inc., is murky. It does not appear to be a political action committee or super PAC, as it has not registered itself as such with the FEC.
Nor does it appear in the IRS’s publicly available registration databases, possibly because it has not requested tax-exempt status or because the IRS hasn’t updated its public-facing databases, tax experts say.
Cecilia Barreda, an IRS spokeswoman, said she was prohibited by law from disclosing information about a specific organization.
CLA Inc. states on its website that its “primary purpose is to put conservative policies into action” through reforms that “grow the economy, lower our national debt, fix a broken healthcare system and make our country safer and stronger through a bold national defense.”
Entities that operate as 501(c)(4) nonprofits and spend cash in political campaigns are called “dark money” groups because they do not have to disclose their donors.
The Supreme Court’s 2010 decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission allowed certain kinds of nonprofit groups, including 501(c)(4) organizations, to spend unlimited amounts of money to independently promote or oppose political candidates — so long as they do not, in practice, spend 50 percent or more of their money on politics, per IRS rules.
Hagan said “dark money” shouldn’t “be able to hide” — a view many in the Republican party disagree with.
“People have the right to know who is putting mail in their mailbox and who is putting ads on their TVs,” Hagan said. “Context is everything.”
FirstEnergy is a politically active company that has spent $24.3 million overall on federal lobbying since 2010, according to congressional lobbying records.
Since Jan. 1, 2017, the company’s political action committee has spent $442,500 to support federal political campaign committees and other PACs. It supports both Republicans and Democrats, but in recent years has favored Republicans, according to data maintained by the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics.
The company’s PAC, which is a separate entity from the Conservative Leadership Alliance, has been supportive of Gonzalez this year, giving his campaign $5,000 for the primary race and $5,000 for the general election — the maximum contributions allowed by PACs to congressional candidate committees.
In all, Gonzalez has raised $1.1 million and spent $677,200 between Jan. 1, 2017 and April 18, the end of the latest filing period. Hagan pulled in $386,200 and spent $261,000 in the same time period.
Gonzalez did not return email messages or a phone message left with his campaign’s treasurer, Natalie Baur.
Gonzalez faces Democrat Susan Moran Palmer in the November general election.
Hagan said she will finish out the remainder of her term in the Ohio legislature, and then she will “gladly go to the private sector, but I will not disappear from the public policy sector. I want to be actively engaged.”
Jamie Smith Hopkins contributed to this report.
The Columbus Dispatch
https://www.dispatch.com › congressional › 2018/05/22
May 22, 2018 — A “dark money” organization tied to a major electric company pumped significant cash into an Ohio congressional race in what a losing ...
Dark money group targets Oregon swing districts with new ...
Salem Reporter
https://www.salemreporter.com › 2024/02/16 › dark-m...
Feb 16, 2024 — Voters in the four Republican-held districts received glossy pieces of mail asking them to thank their representatives for sponsoring a bill to ...Read more
Utah oil drillers won pollution break from Pruitt
Politico
https://www.politico.com › story › 2018/07/03 › utah-o...
Jul 3, 2018 — Utah oil and gas producers tried for years to get the EPA to exempt them from smog rules meant to prevent ailments like asthma. They finally got their relief.Read more
Updated: 07/03/2018
Utah oil and gas producers tried for years to get the EPA to exempt them from smog rules meant to prevent ailments like asthma.
They finally got their relief after Scott Pruitt took charge of the agency, newly released emails show.
To groups opposed to President Donald Trump’s policies, the records are yet another sign that Pruitt has transformed an agency created to protect the environment into a tool for granting favors to industry. They say that’s troubling even if it falls short of the overt collusion his critics have accused him of amid revelations about his ties to lobbyists who helped him arrange housing and travel.
“The public is being shut out of the decisions that affect the air we all breathe while polluters have Pruitt at their beck and call whenever they ask to throw out a life-saving protection,” said Matt Gravatt, the associate legislative director at the Sierra Club, which obtained the emails in a lawsuit over a public records request.
EPA’s aid for the oil and gas companies in Utah came after an industry lobbyist, Marc Himmelstein, a former American Petroleum Institute executive with longstanding connections to top GOP fundraisers, enlisted help from another like-minded Republican, House Natural Resources Chairman Rob Bishop (R-Utah), who has pushed legislation to promote oil and gas development and ease permitting requirements.
Himmelstein coordinated a July 2017 phone call between the Utah lawmakers and Pruitt, offering specific talking points for Bishop to use, according to the records obtained in a lawsuit by the Sierra Club.
EPA was set to declare that the tribal land in the Uinta Basin in Utah was not meeting standards for smog, or ozone pollution. Once that happened, oil and gas producers wouldn’t be able to use a streamlined permitting process and would instead have to seek approval for each of the thousands of wells they aim to drill there.
“We ask the Agency to develop a streamlined permitting solution for future development of the Basin,” Himmelstein’s talking points for Bishop said.
In April, EPAproposed just that.
Himmelstein had also sent Pruitt’s chief of staff, Ryan Jackson, marked-up regulatory text that he shared with Bishop to propose. And he said EPA would receive a letter from the office of Republican Gov. Gary Herbert. Herbert, who is aiming to increase energy production in Utah, had been focused on the issue already and did convey the industry concerns to Pruitt in a letter last summer, his office confirmed.
The governor’s letter of July 18, 2017, provided to POLITICO late Tuesday, nearly exactly matches the talking points and suggested regulatory text that the lobbyist gave Bishop and Jackson.
Himmelstein is a longtime Washington lobbyist and president of the energy lobbying firm National Environmental Strategies, which was previously caught in an ethics controversy over its ties to a former Interior Department official. He told Jackson he was working with QEP Resources Inc. and Newfield Exploration Co., two of the biggest drillers in the region that includes the companies’ leases in the Uintah and Ouray Indian reservations.
Himmelstein is also treasurer of the Conservative Leadership Alliance, a 501(c)(4) that spent $1.4 million on federal elections this year, according to OpenSecrets. And he is a lobbyist for FirstEnergy Solutions, which has been influential with the Trump administration in its bid to keep coal and nuclear plants online.
Pruitt’s critics have long complained the former Oklahoma attorney general was too closely tied to the oil and gas industry. Email records show senior staffers at EPA also exchange scores of messages with top lobbyists for the fossil fuel, agriculture and chemicals industries, and the newly released messages show the consideration top agency staffers gave to energy companies, who often complained that the Obama administration ignored their concerns.
Oil and gas development has been blamed for contributing to northeastern Utah’s ozone pollution, which can affect people suffering from bronchitis, emphysema, and asthma. A 2013 study of the area found that at least 98 percent of volatile organic compounds and 61 percent of nitrogen oxides — building blocks of ozone — come from oil and gas.
Himmelstein and representatives for the two companies did not respond to requests for comment. But Jackson told POLITICO that EPA was eager to help them because the Obama-era requirements would have unfairly limited oil and gas production on the tribal lands compared with other nearby operations.
Jackson said the stricter permitting process for oil and gas companies in Utah would have been “entirely unnecessary and entirely unfair.” EPA is likely to pursue a broader rewrite of the rule, in addition to the carve-out for the Uinta Basin, he added.
“Why are we disadvantaging Indian country?” he said, “That makes no sense.”
But Jackson has it backward, said Jon Goldstein, director of regulatory and legislative affairs for the Environmental Defense Fund.
“What’s unfair is asking people to continue to breathe unhealthy air that has consequences,” Goldstein said.
While Himmelstein wanted EPA to remove the stipulation that drillers in any tribal areas that failed to meet ozone requirements must apply for source-by-source permits, EPA instead drafted an amendment specific to the Uinta basin.
The amendment would provide a “permanent mechanism for streamlining construction authorizations” on the reservation, including in areas not meeting ozone standards, EPA’s fact sheet explains. It notes that EPA is also working on a rule for the reservation to reduce ozone-forming emissions “while allowing continued development of its oil and natural gas resources.”
Himmelstein, who has long been acquainted with Jackson and met socially on several occasions with him last year, first emailed the EPA chief of staff and then-White House special assistant on energy Mike Catanzaro in June 2017 about setting up a meeting with the two companies.
“We need your help,” Himmelstein wrote. “The Uinta Basin in Northeast Utah (Rob Bishop’s district) is going to be listed as an ozone non-attainment area later this year. It is a prolific oil and gas producing area that encompasses state, tribal and federal lands.”
Pruitt had agreed to meet with QEP when he spoke at the American Exploration and Production Council in late May, Himmelstein reminded in another exchange.
Bishop’s spokesperson said the lawmaker’s phone call to Pruitt was part the Natural Resources Committee chairman’s efforts to press for changes in permitting and air quality rules in the Uinta Basin.
“This is an issue that dates back many years. The Chairman had numerous similar conversations with Pruitt’s predecessor, Gina McCarthy. The issue has not been resolved and Chairman Bishop continues to advocate for reasonable regulatory reforms that will protect and enhance the lives of the people of Utah’s first congressional district,” Bishop’s spokesperson said.
Anthony Adragna contributed to this report.
Filed Under:
White House
EPA
Oil
Oil and gas
Donald Trump
Utah
Sierra Club
Scott Pruitt
Marc Himmelstein - Last known job
LegiStorm
https://www.legistorm.com › person › bio › Marc_Himm...
See more about Marc Himmelstein including contact information, employment history, education, lobbying records and other biographical information.
Missing: gop | Show results with: gop
How Dark Money Helped Kevin McCarthy Go Full MAGA ...
Rolling Stone
https://www.rollingstone.com › politics › politics-features
Sep 19, 2021 — Republican donors posed as a "Tea Party" group to help Kevin McCarthy boost his MAGA cred — and climb to the top of the GOP.Read more
Marc Himmelstein - Add Relationship - LittleSis
littlesis.org
https://littlesis.org › person › 18957-Marc_Himmelstein
Republican National Committee U.S. political committee that leads the Republican Party of the U.S., a/k/a The Grand Ol' Party/GOP · 3 contributions · 2,600 USD ( ...
Marc Himmelstein - President at NES
LinkedIn · Marc Himmelstein
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NES University of Tennessee Winston College of Law. Washington, District of Columbia, United States. 434 followers 434 connections.Read more
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Oklahoma's Biggest Dark-Money Players
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A REVOLVING DOOR WHERE LOBBYING RULES DON'T APPLY
The Washington Post
https://www.washingtonpost.com › politics › 1997/07/21
Himmelstein said he did "give some ideas" to the GOP's National Policy Forum, a "think tank" that Barbour founded in 1993 and subsidized with RNC funds and ...
Now Griles was promising his former coal clients he would fix these rules. In May 2002, the EPA and the Army Corps of Engineers adopted the language recommended by his former client, the National Mining Association. Had Griles not intervened, the practice of mountaintop-removal mining would have been severely restricted.Griles also pushed EPA deputy administrator Linda Fisher to overrule career personnel in the agency's Denver office who had given a devastating assessment to a proposal to produce coal-bed methane gas in thePowder River basin in Wyoming.Although Griles had recused himself from any discussion of this subject because it would directly enrich his former clients, he worked aggressively behind the scenes on behalf of a proposal to build 51,000 wells. The project will require 26,000 miles of new roads and 48,000 miles of pipeline, and will foul pristine landscapes with trillions of gallons of toxic wastewater.
Blueprint for Plunder....
http://reporting.sunlightfoundation.com/lobbying/firm/national-environmental-strategies
Gresham Consulting Group LLC Quapaw Tribe of Oklahoma (O-Gah-Pah)
1/04 conf followed gop fundraiser at Az Biltmore; solicited changes toESA, Nat Env Pol Act, CAA, access to publ land, tort reform organized by coal lobby/DC
task force spkesman Jim Sims 129 connaught and griles there
GRILES1970-81 permitted Va; Buff Ck --> SMCRA, ~, lost 9-0 scotus, but watt appt him to Office of Surface Mining he's reportedly vowed to "turn out thelights"130 cut staff 1/3, morale down " we tore the agency to hell" Wa Post 130
Dept int RR in 1985, got rec'd for oil and gas leases offshore 82K acres for 2.50 ea (17k acres sold for $42.5K then flipped for $37 m 131.tried to open ANWR CA and Fla coast,hid risks. 89-95
sr vp United Coal,supervised one of
biggest mtntop, 1995 formed lobby shop for 40 co's, merged withNat Env Strats(barbour): NMAssoc, Dominon, EEI, shell, texaco arch coal etc etc131 2001
sold client list toNES partner Himmelsteinfor $1.1 mil in 4 payments so in essence on payroll (dept of Int refused req for info ;sen made him agree not to
meet w/ former clients, but met chevron while appt pending (paid $46mil not to drill off fla coast ?! (helped jeb?)
Griles pressFisherat epa to overrule
pipeline study, coal-bed methane, met w/ nat'l mining assic to lax mtntop;himmel gave party w/ grilesand bunch of b of int ppl who reg mining 134 , liberman
demanded ehtic invest: dept of int Insp Genl said he "did not take ethics seriously" "train wreak waiting to happen" ; he paid $180. to himmel for dinner.
changed stories several times on shell and chevron; rep went to Norton, who closed case.
Griles at least 30 WH mtgs, B22 w/ rove; met w/ industry 37x on Clear Skies, New Src Rev and CAA rollback, tho Int has no jurisdiction 136 (but he had lobbied on air for 13 co's)
Since 1975 "fill" meant no waste, but Army corps allowed mtntop even tho no authority to 137 Griles pushed EPA on this, tho violates CWA (intent, nit
explicit). Chf Judge Haden tossed, but rw 4th circuit upheld change. Griles rewrote EIS, 8 mil $ worth of studies relegated to appendix;80K ppl weighedin, but one day after comment period closed, stream buffer rule changed rfk2
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revolving dr SW: