HOUSE RESOURCES CMTE. ON (RUINOUS) ROAD

Contact:  Josh Geise  

Republican Reps Scandal Ridden, Lacking Credibility

[Rio Rancho, NM] – The House Resources Committee, chaired by Representative Richard Pombo (R-CA), is holding a task force hearing today in Rio Rancho, which Representative Steve Pearce, a member of the committee, is apparently too busy to attend.  Pombo and Pearce are not actually expected to “hear” the public’s concerns, but their meeting could cost you your say in whether the environment is protected for future generations or sold to the highest bidder.

The Committee is holding a taxpayer-funded meeting concerning the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), the primary federal law that gives the citizenry a chance to be heard on, and informed about, federal projects and actions that may harm public air, water and lands, before – not after – a final decision is made. [http://www.sierraclub.org/lookbeforeyouleap/]

Democratic Party of New Mexico Chairman John Wertheim said: “Raging partisan warfare with taxpayer dollars, turning ones’ back to – or worse, embracing – ethical misconduct, while our precious natural resources are exchanged for polluted air and water are the polluting byproducts of Republican corporate cronyism.  Chairman Pombo and Representative Pearce have tapped out their credibility and now they’re trying to poison our well water.  The public needs to seize control of our government away from the corrupting influence of industry and elect new stewards of the environment.”

Rep. Pombo may have earned a degree in dodging controversy and accountability for serious scandals – scandals which include sending tens of thousands of dollars in taxpayer-financed partisan political mailings (including to Steve Pearce’s congressional district), violating House rules regarding the pre-primary blackout on mass mailings, allowing organizations with business before the Committee to host campaign fundraisers for him, sending staff on industry-funded junkets worth $152,000, pressuring Interior Department officials to suspend ESA guidelines which would have impacted his parents’ wind energy company, and funneling over 25 percent of his campaign cash to his wife and brother.  A detailed accounting of Pombo’s scandals is attached.

“Letting Steve Pearce or Dick Pombo set policy to balance our energy needs and the protection of our natural resources is like letting the town drunk drive the school bus,” said Wertheim. “They just do not realize how out-of-touch, incoherent, and downright dangerous they are to our environment and our children’s futures.”

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Editor’s note: The information below is almost entirely verbatim material from the articles footnoted.  Representative Steve Pearce not only benefited from Pombo’s unethical conduct, he his culpable for his silence.

***[Associated Press, Werner, 7/12/05], [High Country News; “Pombo's power grows — and so do the scandals”; Weiser; 7/25/05], [Los Angeles Times, Tempest, 4/7/05], [High Country News; “Will the real Mr. Pombo please stand up?”; Weiser; 7/25/05], [Roll Call, Yachnin, 7/21/05]

THE PEARCE/POMBO RECORD

"There’s just issue after issue that really brings his ethics into question, and he will never admit to making a mistake. He’s part of the typical Republican leadership that thinks they’re beyond question; that thinks it’s OK because they do it." -- Melanie Sloan, executive director of Citizens for Ethics in Washington, a nonprofit political watchdog group (emphasis added).

A CRASS CORPORATE CRONY

• “Pombo also runs his own "environmental" group, called the International Foundation for the Conservation of Natural Resources. The group, funded by large corporations, challenges mainstream environmental groups and crusades for more lenient environmental laws worldwide. Between 2001 and 2003 the foundation collected donations totaling $130,000 from food giants Sysco Corp., Monsanto and General Mills” and “almost $430,000 from restaurant chains, corporate fishing concerns, whaling organizations and fur-trapping associations. The foundation then launched a barrage of counterattacks against animal-rights groups that had organized boycotts of those industries.”

• “In the campaign cycle that ended in 2004, nearly two-thirds of his $1.1 million in gifts came from energy, agribusiness and developers.”

• In April, Pombo secretly wrote an amendment to the House energy bill, exempting many energy projects from the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). NEPA requires an environmental impact review for major projects on federal land, and if Pombo’s amendment survives to see the president’s signature, it will be a godsend for oil and gas companies.
• [Chairman Pombo] was raising money during baseball's All-Star game and its surrounding festivities. His committee will hold a hearing on land claims involving an Indian tribe bankrolled by his baseball hosts.  Donors were paying $5,000 each for a place in the owner's box at Detroit's Comerica Park and access to two days of batting practice, team photos, the "John Hancock All-Star FanFest" and the game itself, according to invitation details released by the National Republican Congressional Committee.  Proceeds were going to Pombo's political action committee, Rich PAC. The co-hosts for the event were Christopher Ilitch and Mike Malik, according to the NRCC. Ilitch is president and chief executive of Ilitch Holdings, his family's business that includes baseball's Detroit Tigers, hockey's Detroit Red Wings, Little Caesar pizza and other ventures. Mike Malik and Ilitch's mother, Marian Ilitch, are partners in Gateway Funding Associates, which is bankrolling a New York Indian tribe that is trying to build a casino in Southampton. The Shinnecocks are among a half-dozen New York tribes trying to persuade federal courts to compensate them for land they say is rightfully theirs or was taken from them in illegal treaties. How to resolve such disputes is the focus of [an upcoming] Resources Committee hearing: "Status of Settling Recognized Tribes' Land Claims in the state of New York." Pombo scheduled the hearing after a federal court last month threw out a $250 million award given to one of the tribes to settle a claim, Kennedy said. The hearing will look at where the claims stand and what role Congress should play in resolving them.

TOM DELAY/JACK ABRAMOFF/SUPPORTING SWEATSHOPS

• Pombo is also wrapped up in a larger travel scandal that involves two longtime friends: House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Tex., and lobbyist Jack Abramoff.  Lobbyists are not allowed to pay directly for congressional travel, but news reports suggest Abramoff paid to send a number of elected officials, including DeLay, to the Mariana Islands, a U.S. territory. Abramoff was working for the Marianas government to protect it from U.S. labor laws; garment manufacturers can now produce clothing in the Mariana Islands under sweatshop conditions and legally label it "Made in USA."  Pombo’s committee has jurisdiction to investigate the Marianas scandal, and other House members have asked him to do so, but so far he has refused. Instead, it looks like he’s working to protect his old friends. Abramoff gave Pombo’s political action committee, Rich PAC, $5,000, last year, and the PAC then contributed the same amount to DeLay’s legal defense fund. Rich PAC also received donations totaling $9,500 from another member of Abramoff’s firm, and more money from interests in the Marianas, including the current governor. The Marianas trips were among many that DeLay allegedly took on the lobbyist’s dime. As a result, he was at risk of losing his leadership position, until House Republicans changed House ethics rules last year to protect him. Pombo played a key role in the rule change.

USING TAXPAYER-FINANCED MAILINGS FOR PARTISAN PURPOSES

• Pombo’s committee spent more than $105,000 on mailings in his first two years as chairman. That’s almost seven times more than any other House committee spent in the same period. Many of them were partisan tirades against environmental laws.  For example, 166,000 fliers were sent to Minnesota and Wisconsin residents, weeks before the November election, touting Bush’s push to keep Yellowstone and Grand Teton national parks open to snowmobiling. That’s also 25 times more than his predecessor, and more than three times greater than the next highest spending committee. In response, the House adopted a new rule to limit mailings to $5,000 per session.
• House Democrats have criticized the literature, which cost $68,000 in taxpayer money for printing and postage. They argue that Pombo violated franking rules by including partisan content. Two complaints filed with the Franking Commission — one from the liberal watchdog group Public Citizen, the other from two Minnesota environmental lawyers — echoed those allegations.

FAMILY BONUSES/STAFF PERKS

• Pombo paid his wife and his brother, Randall, $465,000 out of his campaign treasury between 2001 and 2004 for work described as "bookkeeping," "clerical" and "fundraising." While it is not unusual for politicians to employ family members, critics say the amount of money involved in Pombo’s case is staggering, amounting to 25 percent of all the money Pombo’s campaign raised during one period. In the first quarter of this year, he paid them an additional $18,000, amounting, again, to more than one-fourth of all income for the period.
• House travel records show that Pombo’s committee staff enjoyed a travel bonanza in 2003 and 2004, going on industry-funded junkets worth $152,000. That’s more than twice as much as was spent on staffers employed in the previous two years.
• Prior to the Nov. 4, 2004, election, Pombo gave his entire committee staff a month of paid leave, well beyond their usual two to three weeks of vacation time. The government reimbursed some for their travel during this time. Critics said the leave was designed so the staffers could work on election campaigns at government expense, which is illegal. Pombo and his staff have said there was nothing improper about the time off or the reimbursements.

ABUSING POWER FOR PARENT’S PROFIT

• Aides to California Rep. Richard W. Pombo pressed officials of the U.S. Department of the Interior last year to suspend environmental guidelines opposed by the wind-power industry without disclosing that Pombo's family had a substantial financial stake in wind energy. The guidelines, issued in 2003, seek to reduce the number of birds killed by the spinning blades of wind turbines, such as those that flank the Altamont Pass east of Oakland.  Pombo (R-Tracy), heads the House committee that oversees the Interior Department. His parents own a 300-acre ranch in the Altamont Pass and have received hundreds of thousands of dollars in royalties from wind-power turbines on their land over the last 17 years -- much more than the family gets from cattle on that land. Last October, Pombo's aides wrote to Interior Secretary Gale A. Norton asking her to suspend the guidelines. A few days later on Oct. 8, staff members of the House Resources Committee, which Pombo heads, confronted Fish and Wildlife Service officials about the guidelines and regulatory actions taken by the agency's Sacramento field office at Altamont. In both cases, they did not mention the Pombo family holdings. Pombo told The Times he was unaware of the letter to Norton when it went out under his signature.