Bloomberg reports that the Interior Department inspector general "concluded that the Bush administration offered in 2002 to overpay a prominent Florida family for oil and gas rights on Everglades land." President Bush announced in May 2002 that the government would spend $120 million plus additional tax deductions to prevent Collier Resources Co. from drilling for oil and gas in the Everglades. Two previous government assessments valued the rights between $5 million and $68 million. The announcement generated suspicions when, just two weeks later, Florida Gov. Jeb Bush said he would run for re-election. "Members of the Collier family contributed more than $121,000 to Republican candidates in the last election cycle, including at least $5,000 to Jeb Bush."
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http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=washingtonstory&sid=IHQZDL076GHTBush Administration Overvalued Florida Land Rights, Report Says
By Ryan J. Donmoyer
June 8 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. Interior Department inspector general concluded that the Bush administration offered in 2002 to overpay a prominent Florida family for oil and gas rights on Everglades land, according to people familiar with the matter. In a report to the Senate Finance Committee to be made public today, Inspector General Earl Devaney says the department nearly tripled earlier estimates of the value of the mineral rights, the three people said. The agreement wasn't completed and the people familiar with the situation said Devaney's findings would scuttle it.
President George W. Bush announced in May 2002 that the federal government would pay $120 million in cash plus an undetermined amount in tax deductions to prevent the Collier family's privately held Collier Resources Co. from drilling for oil and gas on 400,000 acres of land it owns in what he called ``critical parts of the Everglades.'' Two previous government assessments valued the rights between $5 million and $68 million. The report says that Ann Klee, a Bush administration political appointee, led the effort to reach an agreement with the Collier family shortly after she was named in January 2001 to administer the transition at the Interior Department between presidential administrations. Klee, and two Interior Department lawyers, Barry Roth and Peter Schaumberg, relied on a private sector estimate that recommended the $120 million payment after soliciting several appraisals, all of which were lower, Devaney's report says. It also says at least one career Interior Department official contested the high estimate.
Tina Kreisher, communications director at the Interior Department, declined to comment on Devaney's findings, except to say, ``We were trying very hard to protect the Everglades.'' White House spokesman Taylor Gross said he was unaware of the report and that ``the issue is best addressed by Interior.'' The report also says the government may have already owned the mineral rights because the Colliers sold the government surface rights for the same land in 1988. It also finds little evidence the rights had significant value. ``This is a sweetheart deal for one of the richest landowners in America'' that would have been financed by taxpayers, said Keith Ashdown, who has tracked the case for three years as vice president of tax policy at Taxpayers for Common Sense, a Washington-based advocacy group that opposes government waste.
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The cash- and tax-break deal announced by Bush in May 2002 is more generous than any of those earlier arrangements, Devaney's investigation found, according to the three people who have read the 51-page report, which is accompanied by about 500 pages of supporting documents. When Bush took office in January 2001, Klee, Roth and Schaumberg began reviewing Clinton-era appraisals of the Everglades rights, which ranged from a 1996 estimate of $154 million by the Minerals Management Service to $68 million by the same agency in 2000, the report says. The Colliers own about two-thirds of the mineral rights in the Everglades. The officials ordered a new appraisal in 2001 from the Minerals Management Service, which again valued the cumulative rights at $68 million. They then turned to the National Parks Service, which asked the U.S. Geological Survey for an estimate. The Geological Survey said the rights were worth between $5 million and $20 million.
more......
To contact the reporters on this story:
Ryan J. Donmoyer in Washington at rdonmoyer@bloomberg.net;
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