Antother Organiation who us suing Cheney for the release of these records, is also suing Dean for the release of similar records as Governor. This is not the first time that Dean's secrecy with energy interests has been look at with suspicion as previously posted:
CLF seeks details of Dean administration’s talks with utilities
March 11, 2002
(from the State section)
By SUSAN SMALLHEER Southern Vermont Bureau
MONTPELIER — The Conservation Law Foundation will file a freedom of information request with the Dean administration today to find out how many contacts it has had with Vermont utility executives over the pending sale of the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant.
Mark Sinclair, senior attorney with the environmental group, said Monday that recent news reports about the financial contributions made by Vermont utility executives or board members to Gov. Howard Dean’s presidential campaign political action committee were “too much of a coincidence.”
Sinclair said the new offer from Entergy Nuclear of Jackson, Miss., last week wasn’t substantially better than the original bid, and doesn’t really address the serious concerns raised by the state earlier this winter about local control and other economic issues.
“The department didn’t get anything,” he said.
Sinclair compared it to the negotiations with Vice President Dick Cheney by energy companies that are now subject to an investigation by the General Accounting Office
http://rutlandherald.nybor.com/Archive/Articles/Article/43924Mark Sinclair was a Dean appointee to the Vermont Environmental Board, who along with four other people Dean appointed was purged from the board by Dean when they began to question his relations with big Energy and other environmentally unfriendly decisions Dena made that favored large energy utilities...
The Man from Vermont is Not Green (He's Not Even a Liberal)
by MICHAEL COLBY
Under Dean the Act 250 process (Vermont's primary development review law) and the Agency of Natural Resources (ANR) have lost their way," contends Kaplan. "Dean created the myth that environmental laws hurt the economy and set the tone to allow Act 250 and the ANR to simply be permit mills for developers."
Kaplan points to the "Environmental Board purge" in the mid-90s that allowed Dean to set the pro-development tone. In 1993, the Board issued an Act 250 permit to C&S Grocers in Brattleboro with conditions that restricted the diesel emissions from its heavy truck traffic. After C&S execs cried foul and threatened to move to New Hampshire, Dean broke gubernatorial precedent by publicly criticizing the Environmental Board for issuing what he called a "non-permit."
A year after receiving their public rebuke from Dean, four of the Environmental Board members including the chair were up for reappointment. With the not-so-subtle clues from Dean that he didn't approve of the Board's political direction, the Republican majority in the state senate shot down each and every one of their appointments, thus dramatically changing both the structure and climate of the Board.
"After the post-C&S purge," says Kaplan, "the burden of proof for Act 250 permits switched from being on the applicants -- where it's supposed to be -- to being on the environmentalists. That's why 98% of the permit requests are approved and only 20% ever have hearings."
http://www.counterpunch.org/colby02222003.htmlAnother one of the Dean appointees was actually a re-appointment of a board member originally appointed by Republican Richard Snelling.She tood was among the members Dean purged for questioning his suggestion to use coal fired plants to Generate electicity. While she praises Dean Champion Land Deal , she states that Dean left the state of Vermont far behind environmentally in a number of areas:
QUESTION: How about the flip side, areas where he could have done better?
COURTNEY: Well I think the area where in retrospect where we could have seen better performance is in water quality and the compliance with the Clean Water Act. The State of Vermont is ten years delinquent in meeting the requirements of the Clean Water Act to have basin watershed plans in place.
QUESTION: Is that unusual as you look across the nation?
COURTNEY: I think we are not a leader. We have high expectations in Vermont to be environmental leaders and in this case we are not even remotely getting close to being a leader in terms of complying with the Clean Water Act.
QUESTION: And does this have to do with Lake Champlain and the storm water runoff?
COURTNEY: Yes. It's the nonpoint source pollutants that are the concern. As far as point source goes we are adequately providing for wastewater treatment plants and cleaning up point source. But that next sort of horizon of issues to tackle in the Clean Water Act haven't been. It can't be laid entirely at the feet of the governor. It's largely an issue that the legislature hasn't funded the agency adequately to do the job. So it's a combination of leadership on the one hand and the funding on the other and it's disappointing to see that Vermont is as far behind as it is.
http://www.gwu.edu/~action/2004/dean/dean0702/courtint.htmlDean replaced the purged environmetalists with ski resort area executives.
A Sierra Club Member and Activist has summed up Dean's Environmmental Record in this manner:
Although he developed a fairly strong record on land conservation, in spite of failing to support some key land programs, he made himself a dismal record on other environmental issues. He strongly supported everything the utilities and ski areas ever asked him to
do. He supported mega-purchase from Hydro Quebec, refusing to even consider any alternative or the adverse impacts on our state’s economy. (Both he and the utilities spent the next decade complaining about the high prices and trying to get out of the contracts, as though they were someone else’s evil doings.) During a major battle over stormwater/sprawl legislation, he claimed that water from those polluted streams was clean
enough to drink. I wouldn’t want this guy as my doctor, thank you. He did offer nominal, initial support to a renewables bill two years ago, but when push came to shove he refused to lift a finger in support. He repeatedly had his secretaries and commissioners run
various collaborative policy-making groups, only to have the facts emerge later that the “fix was in” from the start with his road-building, air polluting, power producing campaign donors. His record is one of opposing just about everything the environmental
lobby supported. He was always there with the lip service as long as there was actually nothing on the table. He has developed a reputation for saying what his audience wants to hear, then doing whatever suits him later.
http://www.thomasleavitt.org/personal/blog/index.php?p=311&c=1Deans own relations with Hydro Quebec cost the taxpayers hundreds of millions (which they will be passsing on to generations to come for decades)...
Dean raises money from energy sources
February 27, 2002
By David Gram
ASSOCIATED PRESS
MONTPELIER — When Gov. Howard Dean wanted to raise money for a possible presidential bid, he followed the example of a former governor of Texas and called on his friends in the energy industry...
— After years of pushing for the companies to absorb the excess costs of their expensive contract with Hydro-Quebec, Dean’s Department of Public Service agreed to let ratepayers be billed for more than 90 percent of what those excess costs are expected to be in the coming years. The extra costs will be in the hundreds of millions of dollars.
— The department also agreed to allow the utilities to sell Vermont Yankee to a Pennsylvania company for a price that was expected to be $23.8 million by the time the deal closed. Shortly before the Public Service Board was to make a final decision on that sale, another company stepped in and offered more than seven times as much. That sale to Entergy Nuclear Corp. is currently before the board.
— After it became clear in the late 1990s that selling Vermont Yankee was a top goal of the utilities, the administration failed to heed warnings for more than two years that the money the nuclear plant was paying for emergency planning was much less than was needed. An administration official said there was concern about interfering with the sale.
“The Dean administration knew explicitly (about the worries about emergency preparedness) and deliberately didn’t do anything about it in order to help CV and GMP sell the plant,” said James Dumont, a lawyer for the New England Coalition On Nuclear Pollution. “They didn’t bite the hand that fed them.”
http://timesargus.nybor.com/Legislature/Story/43125.htmlA list of the Governor’s Council of Economic Advisers includes Green Mountain Power Corp.’s chairman, two company board members and a vice president, all of whom made donations to the Fund For A Healthy America. It also includes two longtime utility lobbyists.
"Over the years, the governor has sided with the utilities on many of the most pressing issues, including the push for deregulation of the electric industry, and later backing away from that as a goal.
Among other major decisions:
— After years of pushing for the companies to absorb the excess costs of their expensive contract with Hydro-Quebec, Dean’s Department of Public Service agreed to let ratepayers be billed for more than 90 percent of what those excess costs are expected to be in the coming years. The extra costs will be in the hundreds of millions of dollars.
— The department also agreed to allow the utilities to sell Vermont Yankee to a Pennsylvania company for a price that was expected to be $23.8 million by the time the deal closed. Shortly before the Public Service Board was to make a final decision on that sale, another company stepped in and offered more than seven times as much. That sale to Entergy Nuclear Corp. is currently before the board.
— After it became clear in the late 1990s that selling Vermont Yankee was a top goal of the utilities, the administration failed to heed warnings for more than two years that the money the nuclear plant was paying for emergency planning was much less than was needed. An administration official said there was concern about interfering with the sale."(98)
http://home.san.rr.com/crocuta/The_Dean_Dossier.htmAt virtually every turn, everytime the utilities and energy corporations wanted something done they turned to Howard Dean. They always got everything they wanted. Regardless of how much more it would cost the state and the taxpayers over time.
And always for corporations that were headed by Deans top campaign contributors.
Which is exactly how Enron gots its foot in the White House door, privately meeting with the executive department of the U.S. Government and advising it on its policies.
There is essentially no difference between what Dean did as Governor. allowing those who gave big to his campaign's as Governor and starting his presidentail fundraising benefited finacially from those contributions.
The fact that Dean does not own an oil business is irrelevant. He is doctor, and while he was a doctor, he took considerable sums from the pharmaceutical industry, in one case, vetoing legislation they wanted killed within days of his receiving a nice big check for his re-election campaign fund as Governor in the mid 90's. IN other cases actively blocking other legislation that the pharmeceutical and health care industries wanted killed.
Dean claims to not be engaging in politics as usual, but he is the candidate with the most obscured and least transparant relations with large corporate interests. Money changed hands. Dean did what they wanted. With more than the energy industry.
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