“Goldman Sachs doesn’t care if you are raising chickens” ~~~ Jodi Dean
Big industries like oil play Washington as a long game, exhibiting a persistence too often lacking in the people in charge of safeguarding the public good. And to win the long game, to push ahead on frontiers like Greater Mooses Tooth, you need someone who is a real player. …
Lobbyists familiar with the inner workings of the bureaucracy were highly desirable. From 2000 to 2010, money spent on federal lobbying more than doubled, to $3.52 billion, and most of this growth could be attributed to the expanding ranks of revolving-door lobbyists. ~~~ ProPublica
Not all revolving door lobbyists are bad – and apparently, not all are “highly desirable”. I guess it depends on which way the door revolves.
I choked on the above excerpts, as someone who could be described as a “revolving-door lobbyist” who has aggressively “exhibited a persistence” – over 30 years – and am “familiar with the inner workings of the bureaucracy“, yet can’t rub two nickels together and am marginalized and virtually shunned by NJ’s environmental groups and Foundations.
But I’m getting way ahead of myself – so let’s start over.
When I first heard about the deal last week, I thought it was a huge strategic mistake – or perhaps just simple incompetence – that energy, climate and environmental groups failed to mount a serious effort to block the lifting of the oil export ban – and have remained mostly silent about just how significant a step backwards that was.
I found it absurd that the day after that debacle, I got an email from Bill McKibben whining about the failure of ABC TV journalists to ask a climate change question during the Democratic candidates debate. He found that to be a priority, instead of blasting and protesting the Republican climate terrorist in Congress and Obama for signing the bill he said he would veto that did that deal.
Today, again I was upset but not surprised to read ProPublica report the blow by blow saga of how the oil industry reversed regulatory policy and got access to drill in previously off limits parts of Alaska, see:
Why don’t environmental groups and their Foundations play the long game?
It’s hard to tell what game they are playing at all lately in NJ, that’s for sure.
The ProPublica story on Alaska not only exposes the inside dirty political games played by the oil industry and the corruption of government and politics, it also shows how lame the conservation groups’ opposition was.
Compare that lameness with the oil industry’s approach and junk yard dog tactics:
Again and again, ConocoPhillips’s representative in Alaska, a blunt engineer named Lynn DeGeorge, demanded meetings with the agencies that had a say. She resisted the agencies’ request to project costs for all the options, not just the one the company preferred. She ordered them not to share designs the company was submitting, and warned them not to meet without her. She asked for early looks at BLM’s assessments. She demanded to know if BLM received public records requests. She told BLM’s project manager, Bridget Psarianos, that her inability to offer a firm approval schedule was “pitiful.”
Compare that aggressive style with the conservationists request for “Alternative B” (pretty please!)
Is there any similar “blunt” advocate representing NJ’s public interest in Trenton that you know of?
Let it be a case study.