Brothers Sam and Charles Wyly and their vast business empire are Bush’s No. 9 career patron. Their empire has included oil, mining, restaurant and retail holdings. The family sold its computer companies—Sterling Software and Sterling Commerce—for $8 billion in 2000. Soon thereafter, the media learned that “Republicans for Clean Air,” which was running $2.5 million of pro-Bush TV ads attacking John McCain as an environmental  marauder, was really Sam Wyly. Commercial interests may have shaped Wyly’s views of these candidates. A new Wyly venture, GreenMountain.com gets people to pay a premium for purportedly environmentally friendly electricity. The company has lobbied to get “green” certification for power generated from incinerated animal waste. Sen. McCain ostracized a $30-million tax credit for chicken-shit power he discovered in a ’99 tax bill. McCain denounced it as ludicrous pork. In contrast, Bush’s University of Texas Regent appointees gave the Wylys’ Maverick Capital a lucrative contract to invest $96 million of UT’s endowment (see Pioneer R. Steven Hicks). Two of Texas’ wealthiest Pioneer families, the Basses and the Wylys mobilized to kill a ’97 bill that would have taxed investment partnerships in Texas. Wyly hired Pioneer honcho James Francis to get it done.