Energy Industry Cozy with Bush Administration, Says Report
Most of the dirtiest power plants in the country are owned by 30 companies that, along with their trade association, have collectively raised some $6.6 million for President Bush and the Republican National Committee since 1999, says a new report. The companies’ intent, says Frank Clemente of Public Citizen, a consumer-advocacy group that coauthored the report, was to “help elect an industry-friendly president, fill federal regulatory posts with former utility executives and lobbyists, and hire a small army of lobbyists and lawyers connected to the new president to engineer regulatory changes.” Their investment has paid off handsomely, says Eric Schaeffer of the Environmental Integrity Project, which cowrote the report: “It is no coincidence that a wholesale assault on the Clean Air Act is taking place today.” An RNC spokesperson called the charges “partisan politics,” pointing as evidence to the $450 that Public Citizen’s president has donated to John Kerry.
