Shameful fucking behavior.
From the Dallas Morning News. Wayne Slater is the same political reporter that all of you knuckledraggers were applauding for his expose on Wendy Davis earlier this year so let's not hear any sort of whining about a liberal and biased media, eh dumbfucks?
http://www.dallasnews.com/news/polit...reg-abbott.ece
>>>>>>
Money from Koch interests flows to governor candidate Greg Abbott
File/Staff Photo
Attorney General Greg Abbott was on hand in April 2013 as Texas Department of Public Safety Sgt. Jason Reyes briefed the media about the explosion that rocked West.
By WAYNE SLATER
WAYNE SLATER The Dallas Morning News Senior Political Writer
wslater@dallasnews.com
Published: 01 July 2014 11:05 PM
Updated: 02 July 2014 07:42 AM
Related
AUSTIN — Five months after an ammonium nitrate explosion that killed 15 people in West, Attorney General Greg Abbott received a $25,000 contribution from a first-time donor to his political campaigns — the head of Koch Industries’ fertilizer division.
The donor, Chase Koch, is the son of one of the billionaire brothers atop Koch Industries’ politically influential business empire.
Abbott, who has since been criticized for allowing Texas chemical facilities to keep secret the contents of their plants, received more than $75,000 from Koch interests after the April 2013 explosion at the West Fertilizer Co. storage and distribution facility, campaign finance records filed with the state showed.
The West accident focused public attention on the storage of potentially dangerous chemicals across Texas and regulatory gaps in prevention, data-gathering, enforcement and disclosure to prevent explosions in the future. In addition to the 15 deaths, scores of people were injured, and homes and businesses were leveled.
The issue has re-emerged for Abbott in his run for governor. The Republican nominee recently declared that records on what chemicals the facilities stored could remain hidden, citing state laws meant to deter potential terrorist threats.
The campaign of his Democratic opponent, Wendy Davis, has charged Abbott with protecting campaign donors. On Tuesday, Abbott struggled to explain how Texans might learn of dangerous chemicals in their midst.
“You know where they are if you drive around,” Abbott told reporters at an event in Austin. “You can ask every facility whether or not they have chemicals or not. You can ask them if they do and they can tell you, ‘Well, we do have chemicals or we don’t have chemicals.’ And if they do, they tell which ones they have.”
After the West disaster, The Dallas Morning News identified 74 facilities in Texas as having at least 10,000 pounds of ammonium nitrate or ammonium-related material, including a Koch subsidiary, the Georgia-Pacific Gypsum plant in Sweetwater. The subsidiary now makes a nitrogen fertilizer, not the same product as the one that exploded in West.
Industrialists Charles and David Koch have created sprawling political and fund-raising networks that bankroll Republican candidates and business-friendly causes. Their groups are poised to spend millions of dollars to help Republicans win the Senate this fall, and the brothers, who are largely quiet about their political activities, have emerged as the Democrats' biggest-spending political bogeymen. Opponents warn the Kochs are trying to undo health and safety regulations to benefit their conservative agenda.
Opinion from May
For decades, Texans wanting to know about companies keeping such chemicals could find out from the state.
But Abbott has said that those records are closed. And the state agency that collects and maintains information on large chemical supplies has stopped sharing it with the public.
Abbott contends his opinion, issued in May, strikes a balance. On Tuesday, he called it a “win-win” that keeps information about large chemical inventories off the website of the Department of State Health Services but doesn’t forbid homeowners from asking companies in their neighborhoods what they store.
He said companies should respond within 10 days, but it’s not clear what penalties, if any, private companies face if they decline to tell a member of the public what chemicals are on site.
In blocking public access to the information, Abbott cited a state security statute passed after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
A Davis aide rebuked Abbott for the remarks.
“The only thing more outrageous than Greg Abbott keeping the location of chemical facilities secret is telling Texas parents they literally need to go door to door in order to find out if their child’s school is in the blast radius of dangerous explosives,” said spokesman Zac Petkanas. “Parents have a right to know whether their kids are playing hopscotch next door to the type of facility that exploded in West.”
An attorney general’s opinion carries the weight of law unless modified or overturned by a court or lawmakers.
Abbott campaign spokesman Matt Hirsch did not respond to requests for comment about the Koch donations.
Chemical interests
As attorney general, Abbott has issued several opinions instructing agencies, including the Department of State Health Services and the state environmental quality agency, to withhold information about facilities storing so-called Tier II chemicals.
Chemical interests have donated thousands of dollars to Abbott’s political campaigns, according to state records. He has received more than $50,000 from political committees for Chevron, Dow Chemical, Lyondell and DuPont and thousands more from chemical company executives. Abbott has raised a total of tens of millions of dollars for several statewide campaigns.
As for Koch, much of its money to Abbott came within a few weeks last year. The company did not respond to a request for comment.
Chase Koch donated $25,000 in September, shortly after his father, Koch board chairman Charles Koch, also gave $25,000. The Koch Industries political committee sent Abbott $25,000 in November.
In addition, the company flew Abbott on a company jet in August to an invitation-only gathering in New Mexico that offered wealthy donors an opportunity to meet and mingle with GOP elected officials and leaders of conservative groups supporting the Koch agenda of less government regulation and disclosure.
In the Texas Legislature, Koch lobbyists are on record advocating repeal of notification requirements regarding company pipeline construction and discontinuing the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality’s compliance history program.
On Twitter: @wayneslater
