Burnt Orange Report

There's a very thin line between "contributions" and bribes...

By Andrew Dobbs

Via the Washington Post:

More than three dozen of President Bush's major fundraisers are affiliated with companies that stand to benefit from the passage of two central pieces of the administration's legislative agenda: the energy and Medicare bills.

The energy bill provides billions of dollars in benefits to companies run by at least 22 executives and their spouses who have qualified as either "Pioneers" or "Rangers," as well as to the clients of at least 15 lobbyists and their spouses who have achieved similar status as fundraisers. At least 24 Rangers and Pioneers could benefit from the Medicare bill as executives of companies or lobbyists working for them, including eight who have clients affected by both bills....

The energy and Medicare bills were drafted with the cooperation of representatives from dozens of industries. Power and energy company officials; railroad CEOs; pharmaceutical, hospital association and insurance company executives; and the lobbyists who represent them are among those who have supported the bills and whose companies would benefit from their passage....

The energy bill provides industry tax breaks worth $23.5 billion over 10 years aimed at increasing domestic oil and gas production, and $5.4 billion in subsidies and loan guarantees. The bill also grants legal protections to gas producers using the additive methyl tertiary-butyl ether (MTBE), whose manufacturers face a wave of lawsuits, and it repeals the Public Utility Holding Company Act (PUHCA), a mainstay of consumer protection that limits mergers of utilities....

Public Citizen, which has tracked the legislation and correlated patterns of contributions to members of Congress and to Bush, denounced the bill as "a national energy policy developed in secret by corporate executives and a few members of Congress who are showered in special interest money."

Perhaps the single biggest winner in the energy bill, according to lobbyists and critics, is the Southern Co. One of the nation's largest electricity producers, it serves 120,000 square miles through subsidiaries Alabama Power, Georgia Power, Gulf Power, Mississippi Power and Savannah Electric, along with a natural gas and nuclear plant subsidiary.

The repeal of PUHCA, for example, would create new opportunities to buy or sell facilities; "participation" rules determining how utilities share the costs of new transmission lines that are particularly favorable to Southern; two changes in depreciation schedules for gas pipelines and electricity transmission lines with a 10-year revenue loss to the Treasury of $2.8 billion; and changes in the tax consequences of decommissioning nuclear plants, at a 10-year revenue loss of $1.5 billion, according to the Joint Committee on Taxation.

At least five Bush Pioneers serve as a Southern Co. executive or as its lobbyists: Southern Executive Vice President Dwight H. Evans; Roger Windham Wallace of the lobbying firm Public Strategies; Rob Leebern of the firm Troutman Sanders; Lanny Griffith of the firm Barbour Griffith and Rogers; and Ray Cole, of the firm Van Scoyoc Associates....

In addition to the prescription drugs provision, the Medicare bill is intended to encourage recipients to join preferred-provider organizations (PPOs) and other kinds of private health care, instead of receiving care through the traditional fee-for-service system in which they pick their doctors and generally get whatever care they request. The health industry has provided substantial support to the Bush campaign, and a number of officials whose companies and associations actively support the Medicare bill are Pioneers and Rangers .

So, let's say that I run a business and the local mayor can push through a new city ordinance that would stand to make me tens of thousands of dollars, and to ensure that it goes through, I give him a couple of grand. The mayor and I would probably both end up in jail. But if instead I'm a highpower lobbyist or CEO and the mayor is the president and I stand to make billions and instead of a couple of grand I donate a couple of hundred grand, its called campaign contributions!

These two pieces of legislation are despicable, idiotic pieces of slapdash crap. One seeks to end the system of regulation of fuel and energy companies that was established to end the system of robber barons that milked millions of consumers in the 19th and early 20th century and the other seeks to defund an entitlement that ensures that the elderly will have medical care. Too bad the average consumer or middle class elderly person doesn't have the cash to drop a couple of hundred G's on Bush's campaign, maybe then he wouldn't be so deadset on screwing them out of what little they have.

This man is dangerous and the sooner he's gone, the better.