As the Texas Lege frets over how to redress ex-Governor Bush’s failure to rein in “grandfathered” air polluters, President Bush rewards failure, socially promoting executives of grandfathered-polluter companies to run his government.

At least 13 high-level Bush appointees recently worked for companies that for decades have exploited Texas’ “grandfather” loophole to pollute Texas skies for decades, according to data compiled for a forthcoming Multinational Monitor article on corporate executives in Bush’s cabinet (www.essential.org/monitor/).

The former employers of these 13 appointees released 232,292 tons of grandfathered air pollution in 1997, or 26 percent of all such emissions.

Political failure
A loophole in the 1971 Texas Clean Air Act exempted then-existing industrial plants from new pollution-control rules. With these “grandfathered” plants still polluting 27 years later, then-Governor Bush asked polluters to formulate his response to their filth.

The polluters—who had had three decades to voluntarily clean up their acts—devised a voluntary clean-up plan. Last year, the Texas Natural Resources Conservation Commission found that no major polluters significantly reduced emissions under this failed program.

The program was designed to fail because it did not require volunteers to quantify what emissions they would cut—or to commit themselves to deadlines.

After the filthiest grandfathered plant volunteered in 1999, Lobby Watch called the Alcoa Rockdale facility. A spokesman said that Alcoa could not specify its emission-reduction goals  or provide a compliance deadline. (see “Grandpa Polluters Take Baby Steps,” May 20, 1999).

Social promotion
Two short years later, Bush appointed Alcoa Chair and CEO Paul O’Neill Treasury Secretary of the United States.

O’Neill is not the only senior Bush appointee with major grandfather-polluter credentials. Until 2000, new Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta was a vice president of grandfathered polluter Lockheed Martin. His deputy secretary, Michael Jackson, also is an ex-Lockheed vice president.

Lockheed Martin previously employed three top Bush appointees as lobbyists. These hired guns are now: General Counsel David Aufhauser, Assistant Secretary of State Otto Reich and National Security Council Deputy Director Stephen Hadley.

Hadley’s boss is National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, who had a Chevron oil tanker named after her when she sat on that grandfathered polluter’s board.

The Commerce Department boasts two top appointees recently employed by major grandfathered polluters. Deputy Secretary Samuel Bodman is the former chair and CEO of Cabot Corp. Under Secretary for Economic Affairs Kathleen Cooper cut her teeth as chief economist at ExxonMobil.

U.S. Trade Representative Robert Zoellick was a paid advisor to  Enron Corp., a grandfathered polluter that also employed Army Secretary Thomas White as an executive.

Zoellick’s deputy trade representative, John Huntsman, was vice chair of Huntsman Corp., the grandfathered polluter that covered Odessa, Texas with toxic fumes in 1999. Francis Blake was a senior vice president at grandfathered polluter General Electric when Bush appointed him deputy energy secretary.
Finally, Bush’s top two environmental appointees approach their new jobs with various ties to grandfathered polluters.

At the time that Bush tapped her as EPA Administrator, Christine Todd Whitman held $500,000 worth of  investments in the following grandfathered polluter interests: ExxonMobil ($150,228); Phillips Petroleum ($99,303); Lockheed Martin ($66,375); Alcoa ($36,783); Union Carbide ($34,063); DuPont ($28,987); Chevron ($16,887); and BP Amoco ($15,703). Whitman also has at least a $50,000 interest in grandfathered polluter Hunt Oil.

Interior Secretary Gale Norton has worked for two anti-environmental groups: James Watt’s Mountain States Legal Foundation and—more recently—the Coalition for Republican Environmental Advocates.

Grandfathered polluters that have funded one or the other of these groups include Amoco, Chevron, ExxonMobil, Phillips 66 and ARCO.•
 
 
 

Bush Appointees With
Grandfather-Polluter Credentials

Appointee	New Title	Old Title	Ex-Employer's Grandfathered Emmissions (Tons in '97)
Paul H. O'Neill	Treasury Secretary	Alcoa Chair & CEO	104,304
Kathleen Cooper	Commerce Under Sec. Econ. Afrs.	ExxonMobil Chief Economist	64,921
Samuel Bodman	Deputy Commerce Secretary	Cabot Corp. Chair & CEO	54,052
Jon Huntsman	Deputy U.S. Trade Representative	Huntsman Corp. Vice-Chair	3,677
Thomas White	Secretary of the Army	Enron Executive	3,299
Robert Zoellick	U.S. Trade Representative	Enron Paid Advisor	3,299
Condoleezza Rice	National Security Advisor	Chevron Board Member	1,834
Francis S. Blake	Energy Deputy Secretary	General Electric Senior VP	65
Norman Mineta	Secretary of Transportation	Lockheed Martin VP	43
Michael Jackson	Deputy Transportation Secretary	Lockheed Martin VP	43
David Aufhauser	General Counsel	Lockheed Martin Lobbyist	43
Otto Reich	Assistant Secretary of State	Lockheed Martin Lobbyist	43
Stephen Hadley	Dty Dir. National Security Council	Lockheed Martin Lobbyist	43
		TOTAL:	232,292

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Texans for Public Justice is a non-partisan, non-profit policy & research organization
 which tracks the influence of money in politics.

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