Lobbyist, Fed Lawyer Share Vacation Home
Plutocrat, meet protectionist!
Lobbyist, Fed Lawyer Share Vacation Home | World Latest | Guardian Unlimited
Nine months before agreeing to let ConocoPhillips delay a half-billion-dollar pollution cleanup, the government’s top environmental prosecutor bought a $1 million vacation home with the company’s top lobbyist.
Also in on the Kiawah Island, S.C., house deal was former Deputy Interior Secretary J. Steven Griles, the highest-ranking Bush administration official targeted for criminal prosecution in the Jack Abramoff corruption probe.
Just before resigning last month, Assistant Attorney General Sue Ellen Wooldridge signed two proposed consent decrees with ConocoPhillips: one giving the company as much as two to three more years to install $525 million in pollution controls at nine refineries and the other dealing with a Superfund toxic waste cleanup.
I am slowly coming to the realization that the words democracy and accountability have no meaning whatsoever in the good ol’ US of A. Remember this the next time you hear a lecture from your usual American diplomat/administration lackey about democracy and corruption in other countries.