B and B

Republicans for Environmental Protection, all 70 of them, meet in San Antonio

A group called Republicans for Environmental Protection (REP) just had their national conference in our fair town.   Given the nature of GOP policies over the last, say, 27 years, the name sounds oxymoronic, perhaps an intentional obfuscation.  But I've followed this group for many years, and they do appear to be legitimate--pathetically ineffective, perhaps, but legitimate. 

The REP website proclaims that this conference is "Truly... our most exciting conference ever!"

The Express-News reports that at this most exciting conference, the keynote speaker, GOP pollster Whit Ayres, spoke to "crowd of about 70, including about a dozen Texans."

That reveals a lot about the current standing of conservation in the party of Theodore Roosevelt.

REP's website lists the awards they have given out since their founding in 1996.  Amongst these awards in one called the "Environmental Legislator of the Year," presumably limited to Republicans.  Here are the winners:

1996 - Rep. Christopher Shays, CT
1998 - Rep. Sherwood Boehlert, NY (now retired)
2000 - Sen. Jim Jeffords, VT (later become an Independent allied with Democrats; now retired)
2002 - Rep. Nancy Johnson, CT (defeated by a Democrat in 2006
2004 - Rep. Jim Greenwood, PA (now retired)

I guess they gave up after 2004, because I don't see any such award since then.  Rep. Shays is the lone survivor, and he is hanging by a thread.

"Conservation, stewardship, those are very bedrock conservative issues," said David Jenkins, the group's governmental affairs director. "The party has gotten away from that some."

Some, indeed.

Bonilla got the OAS job

Following up on a post from a few weeks ago, it turns out that our defeated former Congressman Henry Bonilla's potential new gig with the Bushies has come through, as reported by the Houston Chronicle today:

President Bush has nominated former Rep. Henry Bonilla, a Texas Republican, to be the U.S. representative to the Organization of American States, the White House announced Thursday.

...

Bonilla said his responsibilities would include work on policies such as trade, immigration and energy sales. Bonilla dealt with those issues while in Congress.

His nomination must be approved by the Senate. The previous U.S. ambassador to the OAS, John Maisto, has resigned.

DeLay surprises me and quits

I must admit that I did not see this coming. One thing I didn't figure Tom DeLay for was a quitter. Yet it turns out he is.

Rep. Tom DeLay will announce on Tuesday that he will not seek re-election and will leave Congress within months, according to congressional aides.

The aides said that Mr. DeLay, who has been swept into an election-year lobbying scandal, was calling congressional leaders Monday night to inform them of his plans.

...

The news of Mr. DeLay's decision broke on television stations about 10 p.m. Monday night. An article on the Time magazine Web site, based on an interview with Mr. DeLay, earlier in the day, said that Mr. DeLay "vowed to pursue an aggressive speaking and organizing campaign aimed at promoting foster care, Republican candidates and a closer connection between religion and government."

Good riddance.

Now, what about all the rest of the GOP politicians who have modelled their behavior after his corrupt example?

Lobbyist Loeffler, near the center of the GOP universe

My last two non-birding posts were about two seemingly unrelated subjects: the attempt by Texas billionaire Red McCombs to install Mark Rey at the helm the U.S. Forest Service so that he can build a huge ski resort in Colorado, and the attempt by Texas elected officials to quietly build a huge system of toll roads that may not be either wanted or needed by the population of this state.

But it turns out there is a connection after all. And it's right on the surface. His name is Tom Loeffler.

Loeffler was the fellow McCombs turned to for help in getting Bush to appoint Mark Rey to his current position overseeing our national forests. And Loeffler's law firm—lobbying firm more like it—is the first private industry board of directors representative listed on the San Antonio Mobility Coalition's web site. (The San Antonio Mobility Coalition is one of the state-government-created organizations responsible for driving the toll road plans to completion.)

Loeffler is described in the Denver Post article on McCombs and Rey as a former Republican Congressman from Texas, a current lobbyist, and "a top fundraiser for Bush." According to Texans for Public Justice, he has a long and sordid history in Texas politics, much of it closely connected with that former governor who now resides in the White House.

Amidst the circle of GOP powerbrokers, lobbyist Loeffler clearly is near the very center. And guess who he is getting behind now, according to Time magazine last week:

None of [Senator John] McCain's new allies are more impressive than former Congressman Tom Loeffler of Texas, a mega--fund raiser for Bush. Loeffler says he has told McCain he is willing "to be your bottle washer, or I'll fix the flat on the Straight Talk Express bus." While Loeffler notes that he has been "very, very, very close friends" with McCain since the 1970s, he says McCain is finding new chums among the same Republicans who invested so much to keep him out of the White House six years ago. "The battle of 2000 is far behind," Loeffler says, "and they are looking for a winner in 2008."

Keep this in mind come the next Presidential election.

From Lake Teshekpuk to the Calverts to Abramoff, with an aside to DeLay

A couple weeks ago, the Bush administration unilaterally opened up an area of prime wildlife habitat in northern Alaska, Lake Teshekpuk, for oil leasing—an area that had previously been protected even while the vast majority of surrounding lands had been opened.

Little did I know when I first wrote about this, but this event serves as yet another illustration of how the corrupt lobbyist Jack Abramoff and his friends and associates are such an integral part of the GOP power structure that runs the federal government these days.

The beaurocrat who gave the final sign off on the giveaway of Lake Teshekpuk to the oil industry? Deputy Assistant Interior Secretary Chad Calvert. His wife? Jennifer Calvert, co-founder of the lobbying firm Washington Strategies. Their former boss? Jack Abramoff. Her partner at Washington Strategies? William P. Jarrell, former top staffer for none other than Tom DeLay.

Jennifer Calvert has achieved some recent notoriety via Josh Marshall's Talking Points Memo. Seems that back in the year 2000, while working for Abramoff's lobbying firm, her job included acting as a liason between politicians and aides looking for special event tickets and Abramoff, who was handing them out like candy.

Just a few days ago, she felt compelled to issue this statement:

I certainly do not have any involvement with the illegal acts of Jack Abramoff, and have not been questioned in the wrongdoing surrounding him or his associates. In fact, from what I’ve read, the offenses at the heart of the Abramoff investigation occurred when he was at the Greenberg Traurig firm – well after I ever worked with him at Preston Gates.

About Chad Calvert, the Village Voice published an article nearly two years ago that includes a brief passage suggesting that he used his position at the Interior Department to gain access for his wife, and her new lobbying firm, to Wayne Smith, then the assistant deputy secretary in charge of the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

... Bill Jarrell and Jennifer Calvert, two lobbyists who'd worked with Abramoff prior to 2001, left him within days of the [2000] election to form their own company, Washington Strategies, immediately attracting tribal clients. Jarrell, like Scanlon, was once a top DeLay staffer. Smith says Jennifer's husband, Chad Calvert, while he was Interior's deputy director of legislative affairs, introduced her to him, left documents from her in his office, and joined the two of them at lobbying lunches—recollections the Calverts only partially deny.

The GOP congressional leadership, Abramoff-connected lobbyists, and flunkies in the Bush administration are all one big happy, ethically challenged, family.

Cleaning up the Republican's house

Via Mike Thomas, I found this San Antonio Express-News editorial on the twenty-first century CCC—the Congressional Culture of Corruption.

The editorial completely misses the source of the scandal:

Because lobbyists by definition seek to influence those in power, the names of a Republican-controlled Congress dominate the list of those linked to the Abramoff scandal.

But lobbyists such as Abramoff aren't the root of the problem. Rather, the root is the GOP congress as led by Tom DeLay. It is exemplified by efforts of theirs such as the "K Street Project," whereby they have sought, for years, to cement their grasp on power by melding the operations of lobbying outfits and their own offices.

But the editorial writers do have one excellent point:

The peddling of power is not a partisan issue ... . Nor is a political money machine that allows a criminal enterprise such as Abramoff's to insinuate itself into the halls of Congress.

But, they don't quite take this far enough. Indeed, this should not be a partisan issue. And it would not be if more Republicans would speak out and fight against those who have taken over their party. It is time to call out rank-and-file Republicans and back-bench representatives to stand up and take back their party from the forces of corruption—both the legal and the illegal versions.

As Mike points out, David Brooks makes a nice start of this in the New York Times today (alas, it is a Times Select article and thus only available to subscribers, so I have not read the entire article). Who will join Brooks? Only Republicans can clean up the Republican's house.