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

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

[[{"type":"media","view_mode":"media_large","fid":"394","attributes":{"alt":"","class":"media-image","height":"300","style":"color: rgb(73, 73, 73); font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 20.671998977661133px; width: 200px; height: 300px; margin: 3px 10px; float: left;","title":"Tillamookcountypioneer.net","width":"200"}}]]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.