Energy bill a special-interests triumph Part2

[Guest guest]

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2004/10/04/energy_bill_a_special_inte\

rests_triumph?pg=4

 

Page 4 of 9 -- " They have gotten what they wanted from the first day, "

Noble said. " What all lobbyists know is that it's important to be

there when the policy is being drafted, before the laws are being

written. By the time the bill's written, it's a little late. You're

playing a defensive game. "

 

 

 

The conference committee

 

After Cheney's task force issued its recommendations, the job of

drafting the bill went to House and Senate committees, where members

of the Republican majority kept many of the proposals intact. Then, in

hopes of forging an agreement between the House and Senate,

congressional leaders appointed members to a conference committee.

 

But the conference committee began adding projects that had never

appeared in either version of the bill. And lobbyists peppered members

of the committee with requests to get favored projects, including

Congel's mall, appended to the legislation.

 

The addition of projects like Congel's especially irks

government-waste watchdogs. Even though DestiNY USA had promised to be

a model of energy efficiency, critics wonder what a shopping mall has

to do with forging a national energy policy.

 

The greenbonds initiative wasn't part of the original House or Senate

bills that went through public hearings and floor debate. It was added

by the conference committee, a panel that excluded Democrats for all

but two of the meetings held to craft the bill. The final, massive

bill was released on a Saturday, giving House Democrats and any

Republicans not made privy to the negotiations barely three days to

study it before being asked to vote on it on the House floor.

 

Representative Edward Markey, a Malden Democrat who is a veteran

member of the Energy and Commerce Committee, said he was forced to

follow developments in his own committee's bill by talking to

Washington lobbyists.

 

" We could not keep track of what was going on, " Markey said. " All we

had were leaks. What they did on this energy bill was unprecedented.

It was disrespectful of the Democrats, but more importantly of the

environmental and consumer groups of the country. "

 

Congel himself is a successful, if controversial, developer who Forbes

magazine estimates is worth some $700 million. Congel and his company,

Pyramid Management, were sued by dissident partners in 2000 for fraud;

the case is still pending. Pyramid ultimately paid more than $800,000

back to a tenant company, The Limited, which claimed the developer had

overcharged it by submitting phony tax bills. State and federal

prosecutors took no action against the company.

 

Congel and DestiNY USA failed to respond to repeated requests for comment.

 

Three other shopping mall projects -- one in Georgia, one in Louisiana

(home of the former chairman of the House Energy and Commerce

Committee, Republican Representative Billy Tauzin), and one in

Colorado -- would also benefit from the greenbonds proposal, although

it takes some sleuthing to figure that out from the language in the

bill.

 

Page 5 of 9 -- Called the " brownfields demonstration program for

qualified green building and sustainable design projects, " the

greenbonds section in the bill makes no mention of the specific

projects or states. But the guidelines conform to no other projects,

according to both congressmen and watchdog groups who have studied the

bill.

 

 

 

" They weren't named, but everyone knew who they were, based on the

language, " said Keith Ashdown, vice president for policy at Taxpayers

for Common Sense. A Republican senator joked that the bill might as

well have required that one of the projects be located in a venue

" whose nickname is the 'Cajun State,' " to underscore that one of the

projects would be in Shreveport.

 

Congel has been an aggressive advocate for government financing of his

project. He set up a political action committee, the Green Worlds

Coalition Fund, which has raised $82,897, much of which has been

contributed to Bush's campaign and the campaigns of congressmen key to

the energy bill. In addition, Congel, his family, and employees of

DestiNY USA and Pyramid contributed an additional $69,084 to

congressional campaigns and to Bush, according to filings analyzed by

the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics.

 

The project's proponents also have made a big investment in lobbying,

spending $140,000 last year and $60,000 this year to convince Congress

-- which already gave DestiNY USA $1.7 million last year for

construction around the development site -- to approve the greenbonds

proposal.

 

Meanwhile, Congel labored to help key lawmakers. Congel, his family,

and business associates gave heavily to Representative Bob Beauprez, a

Colorado freshman who also wants financing assistance for a

development project in his district. Congel also hosted a fund-raiser

attended by Cheney.

 

While most of Congel's and DestiNY USA's campaign contributions went

to Republicans, the project's advocates have also looked out for New

York's Democratic senators, Hillary Rodham Clinton and Charles

Schumer, both of whom received contributions from the Green Worlds PAC

and from Congel himself.

 

Schumer, in a seemingly contradictory tactic common in Washington,

fought mightily to get the greenbonds provision included in the energy

bill, even as he was also battling to defeat the entire bill.

 

" I thought it was a good project, " Schumer said of the $2.2 billion

DestiNY USA, which developers claim will bring more than 100,000

long-term, tourism-related jobs to economically troubled upstate New York.

 

Schumer said he nonetheless opposed the energy bill because it gave

relief from liability to producers of a gasoline additive that has

poisoned groundwater in New York and other states.

 

On the House side, Representative James Walsh, a Syracuse Republican,

has been championing the DestiNY project, which would be located in

his district. Walsh, who said he went to high school with Congel,

defended the project as a valuable prototype of how a mall can be

powered with renewable energy such as solar power.

 

Page 6 of 9 -- And he said the jobs would be important to his district.

 

 

 

" This is the only guy knocking on my door willing to spend $2

billion, " Walsh said.

 

But congressional waste-watchers and environmentalists wonder why the

federal government should be helping a multimillionaire developer

build a shopping mall and resort.

 

" It's apparent that the only green Bob Congel has ever been interested

in is the green in his back pocket, " said Chuck Porcari,

communications director of the League of Conservation Voters.

 

When the energy bill stalled in December, Senator Pete Domenici, the

New Mexico Republican who heads the Senate Energy and Natural

Resources Committee, pared it down to make it more palatable to an

unconvinced Senate. A newer version, which has not officially replaced

the original bill, does not include the greenbonds provision.

 

But with Schumer's help, DestiNY USA may get another shot at the

federal money pie. Schumer and Senator Zell Miller, a Democrat whose

home state of Georgia is also vying for a greenbonds project,

introduced an amendment to add the projects onto a corporate tax bill

with a higher likelihood of gaining congressional approval. A

conference committee will begin writing that bill today.

 

" It's like multiple warheads: Let's try the energy bill, let's try the

transportation bill, let's try the appropriations bill. If we fire all

these warheads, we'll be able to hit something, " said David Williams

of the nonpartisan Coalition Against Government Waste.

 

Fattening the bill

 

Congel's project wasn't the only one to find a new vehicle for

funding, despite the hold-up of the entire bill.

 

Senator Charles Grassley, an Iowa Republican who heads the Senate

Finance Committee, and whose support for the energy bill was critical

because of its tax provisions, wanted $50 million for a simulated rain

forest in his corn-country state. Supporters said the project would be

educational, but it was deleted before the energy bill went to the

House floor.

 

But Grassley got what he wanted in January, when the project was

slipped onto an omnibus spending bill meant to fund federal agency

operations for 2004. " Most egregious projects, if they are backed by a

powerful politician, have nine lives, " Ashdown said.

 

Backers of the energy bill acknowledged that it was fattened with

local projects, but said such inclusions were often needed to cobble

together a voting coalition. " That's a function of the legislative

process, " said Frank Maisano, an energy industry lobbyist with the

firm of Brace and Patterson.

 

And the battle over the energy package surely has a philosophical

dimension. Those who support it argue that the nation must produce

more of its own energy to wean the country from reliance on foreign

oil. Companies must be offered tax credits and subsidies to encourage

that production, say industry officials and some lawmakers and

analysts, because energy exploration and development are pricey

undertakings. Continued...