State Attorneys General are in collusion with polluting industries

An article in today’s New York Times online describes an investigation of state attorneys general which disclosed that the attorneys are frequently fighting on the side of large corporations in their states that are resisting anti-pollution regulations promulgated by the federal government.

This collusion is so extensive that in many cases, the attorneys are simply copying draft letters supplied to them by the corporations, making a few slight changes in wording, and sending them on to the feds as complaints about supposedly excessive regulation or mismeasurement of pollution emitted.  The vast majority of these attorneys are, of course, Republicans.  In return for their cooperation, the corporations supply the attorneys with huge quantities of money for their re-election campaigns.

For example, the attorney general of Oklahoma has gotten over $215,000 from energy companies in “campaign contributions” since 2010, even though he ran unopposed in the last election.  The attorney general of Texas, the top recipient of contributions, has had over $2.5 million in contributions since 2006.

In return for lavish contributions, the attorneys general have sided with regulated companies in aggressively opposing attempts by the federal Environmental Protection Agency to cut down on air pollution caused by such things as coal-burning power plants.

This team-up of energy-extracting corporations (oil, coal, and natural gas producers) and state attorneys general has impaired efforts to clean up the pollution produced by these corporations.  What is more, it is undermining the traditional role of attorneys general, which is to encourage corporations to comply with state and federal laws that attempt to limit pollution.

If this process of collaboration continues, there will be no distinction between law enforcement agencies and the large companies that they are supposed to regulate.  When these companies corrupt state attorneys general, the people lose and the ideal of republican government is subverted.

The article can be found here: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/07/us/politics/energy-firms-in-secretive-alliance-with-attorneys-general.html