Green Crony Capitalism: Oregon’s Governor and the Grifter(s)

- by Michael Don­nel­ly, Feb­ru­ary 13, 2015, Salem News

Oregon’s Gov­er­nor-for-Life John Kitzhaber, 68, resigned Fri­day the 13th. His res­ig­na­tion let­ter was the usu­al lawyer­ly-parsed, blame-the-medi­a/­take no respon­si­bil­i­ty sham we’re used to seeing. 

He had been gov­er­nor from 1995–2003 and again from 2011 until now. 

The basic alle­ga­tions which forced the rest of the state’s Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty elite – Sen­ate Pres­i­dent, House Speak­er, State Trea­sur­er and oth­ers to join the state’s largest news­pa­per and call for his res­ig­na­tion — involve influ­ence-ped­dling by his ten-year girlfriend/fiancée Cylvia Hayes. 

Hayes, 48, — a woman with a grifter’s his­to­ry — pret­ty much pub­licly adver­tised that her clout with the gov­er­nor was for sale and cashed in for over $200,000 at the same time she was his advi­sor on ener­gy pol­i­cy, work­ing out of the governor’s man­sion and using gov­ern­ment employ­ees as subordinates. 

The most damn­ing alle­ga­tion? She took over $118,000 from a sham non-prof­it that went defunct with­out ever fil­ing a report with the IRS. She her­self nev­er report­ed her pay­ments. The entire pur­pose was to shake loose tens of mil­lions of state sub­si­dies for “Green” Ener­gy projects. 

The Ener­gy Foun­da­tion — Banksters for the “Green” “Move­ment.”

It’s all because of some­thing called the 25 by 25 Renew­able Ener­gy Port­fo­lio stan­dards that were qui­et­ly adopt­ed in Ore­gon (and many oth­er states). It requires that 25% of the ener­gy mix in Oregon’s grid to come from Renew­able sources by 2025. 

A shad­owy non-prof­it called The Apol­lo Alliance went state to state push­ing the con­cept. Sud­den­ly, there was a huge pool of tax mon­ey to be tapped by pri­vate enti­ties with ties to renew­able ener­gy. Mis­sion Accomplished!

In 2013, Cylvia Hayes was hired by the Ener­gy Foun­da­tion. This San Fran­cis­co group, tied to bil­lion­aire Demo­c­rat sug­ar dad­dy and poten­tial Cal­i­for­nia US Sen­ate can­di­date Tom Stey­er, paid her $40,000 dol­lars and fund­ed part of her fel­low­ship with Clean Econ­o­my Devel­op­ment Cen­ter (CEDC), a clean ener­gy group based in Wash­ing­ton, D.C, though Hayes seems to have been their only paid fel­low. Anoth­er top green pay­mas­ter, the Rock­e­feller Bros. Fund also contributed. 

Jes­si­ca Bai­ley, of 1sky/350.org and a for­mer pro­gram offi­cer for sus­tain­able devel­op­ment at the Rock­e­feller Bros. Fund also was a strate­gic advis­er to CEDC. Hayes’ fel­low­ship salary was the $118,000 she did not report. The CEDC was stripped of its tax sta­tus in 2014 for fail­ing to file IRS returns for three con­sec­u­tive years. 

The most damn­ing thing for Kitzhaber is that he then hired the guy, Dan Car­ol who arranged for Hayes’ Fel­low­ship as his own high­est-paid aide — at a $162,720 annu­al salary; near­ly twic Kitzhaber’s own $98,600 salary. Some­how, they thought no one would notice!

The “Green” Biomassacre

Num­ber of years the Unit­ed States could meet its ener­gy needs by burn­ing all its trees: 1 — Harpers List, Jan­u­ary 2006

The Apol­lo Alliance and allies have also been trav­el­ing around push­ing Bio­mass projects, green­wash­ing the for­est habi­tat, species and huge car­bon cost of burn­ing trees (let alone trash which they also con­sid­er “renew­able”) — a process 1.5 times dirt­i­er than burn­ing coal — for small amounts of electrons. 

There’s a rea­son for it. After all the tens of mil­lions in wind farm sub­si­dies and oth­er renew­ables, they make up about 4.7% of the pow­er in Oregon’s grid – pow­er that is use­less on its own with­out coal-pow­ered, steam-gen­er­at­ed base­load ener­gy reg­u­lat­ing the grid from the Board­man Coal Plant, Oregon’s largest car­bon polluter.

That 4.7% bare­ly keeps up with the increas­es in con­sump­tion. And, now the Board­man Plant is being forced to go off coal and — you guessed it — switch over to Bio­mass. Burn­ing our forests is the only way they can pos­si­bly meet the 25% tar­get (Though some are try­ing to get Nukes declared renew­ables for port­fo­lio purposes!)

Since the Democ­rats can­not call for the nec­es­sary reduced ener­gy con­sump­tion in our grow-or-die econ­o­my (they’ve proven that time and again in their reg­u­lar endorse­ments of oil wars), they have ful­ly embraced for­est liq­ui­da­tion for Biomass. 

Green groups fund­ed by the same cabal of foun­da­tions (who col­lec­tive­ly oper­ate as the Envi­ron­men­tal Grant­mak­ers Asso­ci­a­tion – EGA) have also come on board plans to strip forests for Bio­mass under the guise of fire-proof­ing them. 

That part of the equa­tion has cor­rupt­ed elect­ed offi­cials at the fed­er­al lev­el with Democ­rats Sen. Ron Wyden and Rep. Peter DeFazio echo­ing John Kitzhaber and the two oth­er Democ­rats on the State Land Board in call­ing for mas­sive increas­es in log­ging on pub­lic forests – state and fed­er­al — and suc­cess­ful plans to sell off parts of our state forests.

The qui­et­ly adopt­ed 25 by 25 Renew­able Ener­gy Port­fo­lio cor­rupt­ed Ore­gon Democrats…as a whole, not just Kitzhaber. It’s also one of those tip of the ice­berg things. 

Green Crony Cap­i­tal­ism is also a nation­al phe­nom­e­non, not just Ore­gon. And it’s been exposed here and hit here in Ore­gon hard because it’s part­ly a one-par­ty state thing, the fact that the Ore­gon GOP is cer­ti­fi­able is a sad part of the equa­tion. Flat Earth­ers would be a kind way of describ­ing them. 

The fact that a lot of this was known before the elec­tion and Ore­go­ni­ans still vot­ed for Kitzhaber is telling. His oppo­nent was atro­cious. There are no more Tom McCalls, Vic Atiyehs or even Bob Pack­woods in the Ore­gon GOP. They’d be drummed out in a sec­ond these days. 

From For­est Cham­pi­on to Hen­ry Stam­per reincarnated

The first time I met John Kitzhaber was in 1984, when I caught the then State Sen­a­tor, two oth­er sen­a­tors, a State Rep and some aides sneak­ing into Bre­it­en­bush Hot Springs one night -“our” sen­a­tor and rep­re­sen­ta­tive among them. Instead of kick­ing them out, I joined them in the tubs and lob­bied them about the Ancient For­est log­ging that was encroach­ing on us; and, for their sup­port in stop­ping it.

In those days, Kitzhaber was a young, hand­some emer­gency room doc­tor turned up-and-ris­ing polit­i­cal star. To this day, he dress­es in cow­boy boots, hat, blue jeans and blaz­er, mus­tache and shock of grey hair — look­ing like a cross between the Marl­boro man and Bud­dy Ebsen. He was known for dri­ving to favorite Ore­gon fly-fish­ing spots sport­ing a “Hay­duke Lives” bumper­stick­er. Green Cred galore.

By 1989, I was deeply involved in the Ancient For­est Cam­paign as vice-pres­i­dent of the statewide grass­roots’ group the Ore­gon Nat­ur­al Resources Coun­cil (ONRC) and as a co-founder of the Friends of Opal Creek. Sen­ate Pres­i­dent Kitzhaber cham­pi­oned Sen­ate Bill 500. 

The Bill was one of the many genius schemes of George Atiyeh that even­tu­al­ly led to the pro­tect­ed sta­tus of Opal Creek. The Bill would have the Unit­ed States For­est Ser­vice lease 35,000 acres, includ­ing the entire Opal Creek basin as a Wild State Park for $1 a year. There were prece­dents. Oth­er State Parks are leased this way.

The day of the hear­ing on the Bill in the State Capi­tol, Big Tim­ber gave their work­ers the day off. They descend­ed on Salem, sur­round­ing the Capi­tol with log trucks caus­ing a mon­u­men­tal traf­fic tie-up, very loud­ly, in force. Women from a group called Women for Tim­ber accost­ed George on the Capi­tol steps. It was tense. 

Every one of the rooms in the build­ing that were hooked up to TVs had the pro­ceed­ings show­ing to full hous­es. The hall­ways were crowd­ed. We showed our mul­ti-media slideshow of spec­tac­u­lar forests jux­ta­posed with shots of bar­ren clearcut waste­lands, erod­ed hill­sides and mud­died water­ways. It end­ed to a hushed Capi­tol. We knew then and there that no mat­ter what, Opal Creek would not be cut.

Things changed. By 1995, Kitzhaber was elect­ed Gov­er­nor. Demo­c­rat Bar­bara Roberts was the gov­er­nor at the time and she was also car­ing for her dying hus­band — long-time State Sen­a­tor Frank Roberts. Before, she could announce for reelec­tion; Kitzhaber cut her off at the knees and let her know he was out to oust her in a Pri­ma­ry. Roberts is, by far, the green­est Demo­c­rat gov­er­nor in Ore­gon his­to­ry. (Top hon­or goes to GOP Gov. Tom McCall.)

At the time, Roberts had sur­vived not one, but two Recalls fund­ed by Aaron Jones of Seneca Tim­ber. (Recent­ly, Kitzhaber sold off 1500 acres of the Elliott State For­est to …Seneca Tim­ber, oper­a­tors of Seneca Sus­tain­able Ener­gy in Eugene – a Bio­mass Plant!)

Roberts was also Oregon’s only woman gov­er­nor, until Wednes­day, when open­ly-bisex­u­al Ore­gon Sec­re­tary of State Kate Brown is sworn in as Kitzhaber’s successor.

Com­cast Kate comes in com­plete with her own scan­dal, hav­ing used her posi­tion as Sec­re­tary of State to pro­mote Comcast’s inter­ests, even hav­ing Com­cast write pro-Com­cast endorse­ment let­ters signed by her as a state offi­cial- “I know that Com­cast is com­mit­ted to pro­mot­ing pos­i­tive social change, decreas­ing the dig­i­tal divide, and expand­ing access to broad­band for low income families.”

And, she has been a rub­ber­stamp for Kitzhaber’s raids on state forests in her posi­tion of one of three votes on the State Lands Board – she’ll retain her vote on the Board as Governor.

All along, Big Tim­ber has enjoyed a next-to-noth­ing tax rate on their vast pri­vate holdings.

On top of that, vir­tu­al­ly ALL trees cut on those pri­vate tim­ber­lands are export­ed as a raw prod­uct – log or chip. Kitzhaber has done noth­ing to bring about tax equi­ty regard­ing the indus­try. Nor, has he even chal­lenged the export/resource colony issue – the real cause of the loss of tim­ber jobs. But, he blithe­ly talks about rur­al jobs and increas­ing log­ging to help with poor rur­al coun­ties – the very coun­ties that give Big Tim­ber the free tax ride. 

Like for­mer Demo­c­rat Rep. Les AuCoin who suc­ceed­ed in get­ting the laws sus­pend­ed 9 times to facil­i­tate Ancient For­est liq­ui­da­tion on North­west Nation­al Forests and cur­rent ones like Wyden and DeFazio, Kitzhaber would rather the larg­er pool of tax­pay­ers – state or fed­er­al – shoul­der the bur­den for these coun­ties; iron­i­cal­ly — cultish­ly GOP counties!

Man of the People?

While Kitzhaber has been good on plac­ing a mora­to­ri­um on Cap­i­tal Pun­ish­ment in the state, he has been very bad on Cannabis Pro­hi­bi­tion. Vast num­bers of Ore­go­ni­ans have been arrest­ed, fined and jailed for cannabis pos­ses­sion in his terms in office.

In 1997, he backed and signed leg­is­la­tion recrim­i­nal­iz­ing mar­i­jua­na. Ore­gon vot­ers exer­cised our rights to a Ref­er­en­dum and vot­ed it down 9–1. Just about the sole thing he has done since his recent Inau­gu­ra­tion – oth­er than dodge incom­ing rev­e­la­tions — is push changes in the recent­ly passed law that end­ed Pro­hi­bi­tion and set rules for legal cannabis in the state.

He seeks to low­er the pos­ses­sion lim­it and how much one can grow on one’s own. Of course, he would – forc­ing peo­ple to buy from the state-licensed stores leads to more tax revenue.

Ore­gon’s Mea­sure 91 which end­ed Pro­hi­bi­tion passed 56 – 44%. Kitzba­her was reelect­ed with just few­er than 50%. He may well have not even been reelect­ed with­out those anti-Pro­hi­bi­tion voters.

Two major cost­ly pet project fias­coes have occurred on his recent watch: over $300,000,000 was blown on Cov­er Ore­gon – a state Health Care mar­ket­place. It nev­er worked and was final­ly ditched and Ore­gon joined the fed­er­al Healthcare.gov exchange.

There was a pro­pos­al for a new Inter­state bridge over the Colum­bia Riv­er. Over $175,000,000 was spent on prepa­ra­tion for the $10 bil­lion project before it was moth-balled. 

He also called the Leg­is­la­ture into Spe­cial Ses­sion to give NIKE a $500,000,000 tax break and cut the State work­ers’ Pen­sion Fund by $5 billion.

Ulti­mate­ly, Kitzhaber was undone by hubris. He always thought he was the smartest guy in the room. He was nev­er warm and approach­able. He clear­ly feels the rules nev­er apply to him. He was vin­dic­tive. With Kitzhaber, it was always “my way or the highway.” 

He fired his spokes­woman for ask­ing ques­tions about Hayes’ role in the admin­is­tra­tion. He recent­ly fired his own appointee to the state Trans­porta­tion Board because she vot­ed against a $2 mil­lion sub­sidy for a coal export facil­i­ty — said facil­i­ties are some­thing Kitzhaber has pub­licly stat­ed he oppos­es and has got­ten praise from Green Cen­tral for!

The Nation­al Ramifications

While crony cap­i­tal­ism is gen­er­al­ly the GOP’s bread and but­ter; “green” crony cap­i­tal­ism is a gluten-free crois­sant and almond but­ter con­coc­tion that has tak­en down one nar­cis­sis­tic Demo­c­rat in back­wa­ter Oregon.

The virus, how­ev­er, has set­tled in across the coun­try. Not only would it be hyp­o­crit­i­cal not to oppose both ver­sions; both, whether the tra­di­tion­al GOP regres­sive, coal-oil-gas/De­fense or the Neo-libs’ “Green” and high-tech are part of the Grow-or-Die econ­o­my that is dam­ag­ing the life sup­port system. 

The Bio­mass part of it alone is Eco­cide. Bio­mass plants are spring­ing up like Starbuck’s near every for­est car­bon sink we have. Sub­si­dized “green” ener­gy projects abound. Kitzhaber and the DC Dems arranged financ­ing for a new Bio­mass plant in East­ern Ore­gon and huge Google and Face­book serv­er farms that will eat up the ener­gy produced.

The 25 x 25 Port­fo­lio or var­i­ous ver­sions of it con­tin­ue in Ore­gon and else­where. The Demo­c­rat-con­nect­ed unac­count­able big foun­da­tions ful­ly own the paid pro­fes­sion­al “green” movement. 

Like any­thing else that is con­stant­ly over­sold, Green Ener­gy is no sav­ior …nei­ther are the Democ­rats – no politi­cians from our Two-faced Par­ty Sys­tem will call for the nec­es­sary sac­ri­fices to stop ram­pant car­bon pollution. 

We must get rid of this par­a­sitic “green” ver­sion of the “growth” econ­o­my just as we must dras­ti­cal­ly low­er our car­bon addic­tion… and Pow­er Down and Peo­ple Down if we and far too many inno­cent species are to have any chance. 

We could pow­er the grid on uni­corn farts; but if we con­tin­ue to con­sume at the same (or like­ly high­er) rates, we still eat the planet.

MICHAEL DONNELLY lives in Salem, Ore­gon He is a long-time envi­ron­men­tal activist. He can be reached at: pahtoo@aol.com