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Waste Management

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see waste disposal

see wayne huizinga clarence

Simmons’s company Waste Control Specialists LLC, a subsidiary of the publicly traded Valhi Inc., also Waste mgmt corp

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an 7 24

Two Senate Democrats have published a list of roughly three dozen lavish gifts Supreme Court Associate Justice Clarence Thomas received from right-wing billionaires during his time on the Court.

On the eve of the Independence Day holiday, Sens. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-Rhode Island) and Ron Wyden (D-Oregon) called on Attorney General Merrick Garland to appoint a special counsel to investigate Thomas for "possible violations of ethics and tax laws" in his "repeated and willful omissions" of gifts from wealthy benefactors.

"The scale of the potential ethics violations by Justice Thomas, and the willful pattern of disregard for ethics laws, exceeds the conduct of other government officials investigated by the Department of Justice for similar violations," Whitehouse and Wyden wrote. "The breadth of the omissions uncovered to date, and the serious possibility of additional tax fraud and false statement violations by Justice Thomas and his associates, warrant the appointment of a Special Counsel to investigate this misconduct."

READ MORE:Expert: Clarence Thomas could face 'criminal prosecution' by not paying taxes on gifts

On page 14 of the PDF Whitehouse posted to his Senate website, there are two lists of gifts to Thomas. The first list describes gifts from far-right real estate magnate Harlan Crow, and the second list shows gifts from other wealthy sponsors, like entrepreneur Anthony Welters — who "loaned" Thomas a luxury RV and then later forgave the loan — and }:billionaire Wayne Huizenga.

The gifts from Crow date back to 2003, and list excursions like "Yacht trip to Russia and the Baltics" and Helicopter to Yusipov Palace, St. Petersburg." Out of the roughly two dozen gifts Crow gave to Thomas, four are private school tuition payments for his grand-nephew. Many of Crow's other gifts were private jet flights and yacht cruises, including one Sens. Whitehouse and Wyden described as "around Greek islands."

And out of the gifts on the second list, three were from Huizenga, two were from Welters, and five were from former Berkshire Hathaway board member David Sokol. Billionaire Warren Buffett, who owns Berkshire Hathaway, forced Sokol out in 2011 after he learned that Sokol bought a stake in a company he later convinced Buffett's company to buy. Buffett called Sokol's actions "inexplicable" and "inexcusable."

"No government official should be above the law. Supreme Court justices are properly expected to obey laws designed to prevent conflicts of interest and the appearance of impropriety and to comply with the federal tax code," the senators wrote. "We therefore request that you appoint a Special Counsel authorized to investigate potential criminal violations by Justice Thomas under the disclosure, false statement, and tax laws; pursue leads of related criminal violations by donors, lenders and intermediate corporate entities; and determine whether any such loans and gifts were provided pursuant to a coordinated enterprise or plan."

READ MORE:Clarence Thomas cut off contact with man he raised 'as a son' — now he faces decades in prison

In 2023, Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter Davide Cay Johnston commented that it was possible Thomas could face "criminal prosecution" by not paying taxes on the previously undisclosed gifts from Crow and others. He opined that any lower-level court judge would not be able to avoid the charges if they failed to pay taxes on gifts worth millions of dollars.

"What Clarence Thomas has done would result in not only any judges in America being removed from the bench, but there is a good chance it would result in criminal prosecution for income tax fraud and for false filings in his mandatory financial ethics disclosure statements," Johnston said in December.

Last month, anti-corruption watchdog group Fix the Court totaled Thomas' gifts and found that the conservative jurist had received approximately $4 million in gifts dating back to 2004 – far more than any other justice on the Supreme Court. And of the 193 gifts Thomas received, he only listed 27 on his required financial disclosure reports.

Click here to read Whitehouse and Wyden's full letter to Garland.

READ MORE:Clarence Thomas discloses billionaire Harlan Crow paid for two luxury vacations after decades of trips

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https://www.alternet.org/2021/03/clean-coal/

no lnx

A hilarious euphemism': US probe underway over 'clean coal' moniker that actually increases pollution

Kenny Stancil and Common Dreams March 15, 2021

Following the emergence of evidence that power plants using a chemically treated coal—purportedly designed to reduce smog—generated more smokestack pollution not less, the Government Accountability Office has reportedly launched a congressional probe of the "refined coal" tax credit program that yields at least $1 billion per year for U.S. corporations.

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With the multibillion-dollar fossil fuel subsidy set to expire at the end of 2021, the outcome of the GAO investigation could influence whether federal lawmakers vote to renew it, Reuters reported Monday.

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According to Reuters, Democratic Sens. Sherrod Brown (Ohio), Elizabeth Warren (Mass.), and Sheldon Whitehouse (R.I.) called for the probe in 2019 after the news outlet's December 2018 reporting "revealed that many power plants burning the fuel, which supporters call 'clean coal,' pumped out more pollution than previously."

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A subsequent analysis conducted by the nonprofit group Resources for the Future showed that "power plants using refined coal were not cutting mercury, nitrogen oxide, and sulfur dioxide pollution to levels required by the tax credit program."

twt

As Reuters reported:

Over the past decade, a who's who of American companies have reaped at least several billion dollars in benefits from investing in refined coal operations.

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Just last year, some 150 million tons of refined coal was burned in the United States, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Producers get a tax credit of $7.30 for each ton burned.

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Beneficiaries include global insurance brokerage Arthur J. Gallagher & Co, Detroit utility DTE Energy Co, Boston-based Fidelity Investments, Goldman Sachs Group Inc, JPMorgan Chase & Co Inc, pharmaceutical giant Mylan NV and Waste Management Inc,according to disclosures reviewed by Reuters.

The Internal Revenue Service, which oversees the tax credit program, allows the companies to qualify by testing relatively small amounts of refined coal in a laboratory once a year, in lieu of real-world emissions measurements at power plants, the Reuters Special Report found.

omg

https://www.texasobserver.org/rick-perry-exports-his-pay-to-play-politics-to-ukraine/

11/13/19

it appears that Rick Perry exported his pay-to-play politics from the Texas governor’s mansion to the notoriously corrupt

Ukrainian oil and gas sector,where, as President Donald Trump’s energy secretary, he has played an outsized role in opening up the industry to private investors.

As the Associated Press reported on Monday, two of Perry’s longtime political patrons won what could be an immensely profitable drilling contract on a sprawling patch of land owned by the Ukrainian government.

Per the AP, Perry traveled to Ukraine to attend the inauguration of President Volodymyr Zelensky in May. During the trip, Perry urged Zelensky to appoint all new members to the advisory board of the country’s massive state-owned natural gas company, Naftogaz,helpfully giving him a list of recommended energy advisors. At the top was Michael Bleyzer, a silver-maned Ukrainian-American who has made a name for himself in Houston as an eccentric oil and gas investor. He also happens to be a longtime benefactor of Perry’s political career.

In the meeting with Zelensky, the energy secretary emphasized his friendship with Bleyzer. A week later, Bleyzer and his business partner Alex Cranberg, also a longtime Perry backer, filed a bid to drill on a government-controlled plot. They were ultimately awarded the contract despite offering several million dollars less than the only other bidder.

The revelations that Perry engaged in what looks to be a classic example of political cronyism should be unsurprising to those familiar with Governor Goodhair’s tenure.

Since 2017, Perry has played the role of international salesman for the American energy industry, particularly as an enthusiastic hawker of liquified natural gas, which he famously dubbed “freedom gas.” But as one of the Trump administration’s so-called “three amigos” who have led the United States’ diplomatic efforts in Ukraine, Perry is now embroiled in the impeachment inquiry into the president. He refused to comply with House Democrats’ subpoenas for documents related to his meetings with the Ukraine president and has declined to testify before committee members leading the impeachment investigation. Reports of his donors’ receiving a lucrative drilling contract in Ukraine now only heightens the scrutiny on Perry.

The revelations that Perry engaged in what looks to be a classic example of political cronyism should be unsurprising to those familiar with Governor Goodhair’s tenure. Over his 12 years running Texas, he developed a reputation as a brazen purveyor of pay-to-play politics, shamelessly installing his biggest political donors in powerful positions of public trust.

Of the 4,000 jobs that he filled during his gubernatorial career, more than a quarter of them went to political donors—many of them woefully unqualified. From 2001 to 2010, those appointees gave Perry more than $17 million, about 20 percent of his total haul, according to Texans for Public Justice.

In turn, those donors were treated kindly by the Perry government. In 2011, Texas billionaire Harold Simmons, who had pumped $1.2 million into Perry’s coffers, got his radioactive waste dump permit greenlit by Perry’s appointees on the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality despite objections from some staffers.

Perry also used massive economic development slush funds to shovel money back to his donors. In 2010, the Observerfound that 20 of the 55 companies that received grant money from Perry’s Texas Enterprise Fund—a state warchest for corporate economic incentives—had contributed to either his campaign or the Republican Governors Association that he helmed. Those companies had a combined $2.2 million in political contributions and received a windfall of $175 million in taxpayer-financed incentives. More than $16 million from his new Emerging Technology Fund was given to Perry’s major donors. These programs have notoriously little accountability when it comes to job-creation metrics, often falling far short of original promises. One $30 million grant went to an energy group that never existed.

In hindsight, it was a small miracle that Perry made it this long without getting stuck in the swamp.

Bleyzer and Cranberg—currently embroiled in Perry’s latest scandal—have deep ties to Texas and Perry. In 2009, then-Governor Perry appointed Bleyzer to the advisory board for the Emerging Technology Fund, his new tax-incentive fund for startup ventures. The following year, Bleyzer cut Perry’s campaign a $30,000 check.

Cranberg—an energy investor, longtime GOP mega-donor, and University of Texas at Austin graduate—was appointed to his alma mater’s board of regents by Perry in 2011.That same year, Perry’s campaign paid $16,000 to Cranberg’s company for use of his private luxury jet. During his controversial tenure on the board of regents, Cranberg was seen as “the ringleader of a bloc of regents” who were influenced by outside interests that aimed to “stage an attack on academic research” and coordinate an ouster of UT’s president, the Texas Tribunereported in 2011. Perry’s former campaign manager Jeff Miller is now a lobbyist for Cranberg’s company and has visited Perry’s Energy Department at least a dozen times, according to the AP.

Perry’s office said he is only doing his job as a booster for American energy interests. “What he did not do is advocate for the business interests of any one individual or company,” Shaylyn Hynes, the Energy Department press secretary, told the AP. Bleyzer and Cranberg also denied any wrongdoing.

In hindsight, it was a small miracle that Perry made it this long without getting stuck in the swamp. He was almost able to slip out the back door while he was still in good standing as a member of the federal civil servantry. Last month, just as the Ukraine heat was turning up, he announced that he was resigning in December.

Helping two political pals secure a massive contract in Ukraine is another example of the pay-to-play approach that served Perry so well in Texas; this time, it’s at a global level. Perry has talked about his aspirations for Ukraine to become “the Texas of Europe.” On the corporate cronyism front, he may just have succeeded.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2011-08-31/perry-s-friends-in-texas-discover-donations-dovetail-with-state-contracts

Business

Perry’s Texas Friends Find Donations Dovetail With Contracts

Alison Fitzgerald

When Texas billionaire Harold Simmons wanted to build a radioactive waste dump, one data point that would loom large in the permitting process wasn’t required on the application: He is a major donor to Governor Rick Perry.

“Everybody was aware that this was an important item for the people that were seeking the license as well as for the governor’s office,” said Larry Soward, a Perry-appointed, Republican member of the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality at the time of Simmons’s permit application.

Simmons, who has donated more than $1.2 million to Perry’s campaigns, was granted the permit over the objections of some TCEQ staffers concerned the site threatened the Ogallala Aquifer, a water source for much of the plains.

At least three commission employees resigned in protest and Soward voted against the permit. Meanwhile, a state employee who advanced the permit became a lobbyist for the company a month after it was approved.

The permit process for the site, run by Simmons’s company Waste Control Specialists LLC, a subsidiary of the publicly traded Valhi Inc., is one example of how Perry’s donors’ close ties to the governor can influence government grants, appointments and permits.

Perry’s Aug. 13 entry into the 2012 Republican presidential primary is casting new light on his record and adversaries are using it to challenge his candidacy....

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According to some estimates, sludge hauling is now an $11 billion a year industry. Sludge haulers — such as Houston-based Synagro Technologies, the largest of the companies involved and the owner of Waste Management, plus numerous subsidiaries — give farmers the sludge for free to apply to agricultural land where crops are grown.

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"Of note, in the 1990s and early 2000s, Corporate Accountability International used the Hall of Shame to not only identify corporate abuse but also launch campaigns to successfully challenge those corporations' behaviors," said Corporate Accountability International's Kara Kaufman. "For instance, Waste Managementsignificantly reduced lobbying and campaign contributions [5] after grassroots efforts following the corporation's induction into the Hall of Shame in 1996.

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Penetrating a citizens group was not a new endeavor for BBI. In 1996 and 1997 in northern California, where Browning-Ferris Industries was engaged in a battle over the future of a garbage dump, BBI conducted what its records labeled "covert monitoring" and "intelligence gathering" on the North Valley Coalition, a citizens group opposed to the Browning-Ferris project. In September 1997, BBI received a payment of $198,881.05 from BFI.

BBI fell apart in 2001 amid arguments over the company's finances. "It was not a happy company," says Phil Giraldi, the ex-CIA man who had worked there, adding, "I have worked for a number of security companies. Some are ethical, some are not. Beckett Brown was not especially so." When the company was collapsing, Dodd says, he heard that document shredding was underway in its offices, and one weekend he went to the offices and carted off scores of cartons stuffed with records.

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Waste Management Inc. (WMI) "is the leading provider of comprehensive waste and environmental services in North America." [1] Peter Montague, Ph.D. provides an alternative perspective:

"Waste Management, Inc. (WMI), the nation's largest waste hauler, owns and operates at least 115 landfills nationwide. The company owns a part interest in many other dumps. At a time when it is univerally recognized that landfills pollute the environment,WMI is our most aggressive and committed landfiller. Many, if not all, WMI landfill sites seem likely to become superfund sites in the future. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency will then hire a contracter to try to clean up these sites at substantial cost to the taxpayer. One major contractor in the superfund cleanup business is Waste Management, Inc., and they have, in the past, won EPA contracts to clean up sites that they themselves contaminated.In the muddied moral environment of official Washington, such arrangements hardly even raise eyebrows anymore.

"On the basis of their landfill operations alone, we believe it is correct to characterize WMI as the nation's largest polluter.A study of the waste hauling industry in 1986 by the Council on Economic Priorities also found that Waste Management is the least law abiding waste hauler in America. They have a record of environmental violations unparalleled among waste haulers.

"For the last five years WMI has been conducting a public relations program to blunt efforts by the environmental community to curb the company's worst excesses. WMI's latest endeavor involves direct payments to environmental organizations. Here is a partial list of the groups that applied for, and received, funding from Waste Management, Inc. during 1987 and 1988: National Audubon Society (New York), $35,000; National Wildlife Federation (Washington, DC), $35,000; Center for Environmental Education (Washington, DC), $25,000; California Environmental Trust, $15,000; Inform, Inc. (New York), $10,000; General Federation of Women's Clubs (Washington, DC), $1,000; The Nature Conservancy (Arlington, VA), $70,000; Sierra Club of California, $1,500; The Wilderness Society (Washington, DC), $5,000; Conservation Foundation (Washington, DC), $10,000; Keystone Center (Keystone, Colorado), $20,000; Natural Resources Defense Council (New York), $10,000; Environmental Law Institute (Washington, DC), $15,000; National Wildlife Federation, $2,500; World Resources Institute (Washington, DC), $5,000; Izaak Walton League (Arlington, VA) $3,000." [2]

In 2010, Waste Management purchased a controlling share in Garick LLC, a company that produces, packages, and transports compost, soils, and mulches, and provides consulting on the composting industry.[1]

Ties to the American Legislative Exchange Council

Waste Management has been a corporate funder of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC).[2] See ALEC Corporations for more.

About ALEC
ALEC is a corporate bill mill. It is not just a lobby or a front group; it is much more powerful than that. Through ALEC, corporations hand state legislators their wishlists to benefit their bottom line. Corporations fund almost all of ALEC's operations. They pay for a seat on ALEC task forces where corporate lobbyists and special interest reps vote with elected officials to approve “model” bills. Learn more at the Center for Media and Democracy's ALECexposed.org, and check out breaking news on our PRWatch.org site.

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References

  1. ��� John Funk, Waste Management Inc. buys majority interest in Garick LLC, maker of organic lawn and garden products, Cleveland.com, September 1, 2010, Accessed April 30, 2011.
  2. ↑ Clearinghouse on Environmental Advocacy and Research, project of the Environmental Working Group, Information of the American Legislative Exchange Council, archived organizational profile, archived by Wayback Machine December 2, 2000, accessed August 19, 2011

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http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Waste_Management

http://www.greens.org/s-r/078/07-48.html

On an earlier occasion I was in charge of writing regulations for the management of hazardous waste landfills, which RCRA required to be issued in 1977. When Gary Dietrich, my boss, issued orders delaying the process, I warned him that we would miss the legal deadline. He laughed. "Nobody ever got thrown into jail for missing a deadline," he said.

He was right. I was taken off the job. Here again I contacted an environmental organization which sued the EPA. The court imposed another deadline. The EPA missed that one, and the judge set another. They missed that one too and many, many more, but nobody was sent to jail for defying the court orders or not implementing the law. On the contrary, many were highly rewarded. Meanwhile, the public was exposed to poisons leaking out of countless unregulated hazardous waste dumps. Dietrich later left the agency to be a consultant for Waste Management, Inc.

This leads us to what I call Dietrich's Law: "No one in the EPA is ever sent to jail, or loses their job, or suffers any career setback for failing to do what the law requires." And the corollary: "Many people ruin their careers in the EPA by trying to do what the law demands."

The landfill regulations were finally issued in 1982, five years after they were due. They were riddled with loopholes, like the one giving politically appointed regional administrators the final say in setting safety levels of toxic materials. Even so, the press hailed the EPA's heroic achievement. The bloom quickly faded, however; when, after hearing testimony from myself and many others, Congress realized that the regulations were too weak, and passed a new law in 1984 requiring tougher standards. This time, it added a "hammer" provision: If the EPA missed the deadline, then all the wastes from a long list of chemicals would be banned from landfills. For the first time I can recall for regulations of this magnitude, the EPA met its deadlines. Why? Because in this case, industry would be hurt by not issuing the rules. The EPA is simply more concerned with protecting the interests of the people it is supposed to regulate than in protecting the public interest.

Does this mean that the EPA has cynically abandoned the environment for the sake of the powerful hazardous waste lobby? Actually, most people in the agency sincerely equate the waste management industry with the protection of the environment, and see the industry's opponents as anti-environmental NIMBYs. But commercial hazardous waste management is a business, and successful businesses maximize income and minimize costs. Income is produced by taking in wastes through the gate; waste is money, and the more the better. Expense is incurred by treating the waste so as to protect human health and the environment. Obviously, these goals are diametrically opposed to what should be those of the EPA: to reduce the production of hazardous wastes and to maximize protection of human health and the environment.

poisoned kettleman city  

[http://www.sfgate.com/science/article/State-cites-waste-dump-for-72-violations-in-spills-4042558.php Kettleman City CA] has toxic waste and now a [http://motherjones.com/blue-marble/2011/04/kettleman-birth-defects-waste-management-power-plant new power plant]. [http://www.capradio.org/news/project/2011/toxic-town UPDATE, EPA sues] 11/12 (text and audio).

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