|
| John Snow: Secretary of Treasury |
 |
Appointed by Bush as Secretary of the
treasury after firing Paul O'neil: John Snow recently stepped down as
CEO of CSX. Under Snow's watch, despite raking in close to a billion dollars in
pretax profits since 1998, CSX paid no federal income taxes in three of the past
four years – magically making all of its profits "pretax." What's
more, thanks to a combination of accounting gimmicks and tax shelters, the
company was even able to score a hefty $164 million in tax rebates during that
time. Tax rebates on taxes that CSX NEVER PAID. After looting the treasury of
our tax dollars, Bush has appointed him Secretary of that same treasury. more on Snow
and CSX |
|
| Mike Leavitt:
former EPA administrator current Secretary of Health and Human Services |
 |
Environmental groups across the nation have expressed
serious concerns over, former Utah governor, Leavitt's nomination.
On September 22, 2003 the Utah Rivers Council,
Families Against Incinerator Risk, and the Southern Utah Wilderness
Alliance announced their opposition to Leavitt's nomination pointing to
his anti-environmental
record, specifically his record of lax enforcement of environmental
laws against major polluters, controversial deals that shut the public
out of the environmental decision-making process, and the state's poor
environmental performance overall |
| As Utah governor he allowed US
Magnesium to emit over 42 million tons of Chlorine per year-nine
times the Chlorine emissions from all other states. Despite intense local
pressure from citizen groups, Leavitt's Department of Environmental
Quality failed to bring the polluter under control. The EPA was forced to
step in, filing a $900 million lawsuit against MagCorp for alleged
environmental violations. He is now head of that very same EPA source
1 source
2 (.pdf formet) |
| Leavitt downplayed the toxic
releases of the mining industry - including the releases of the potent
neurotoxin Mercury -by saying "in reality it is not pollution." |
| Leavitt sponsored policy
resolutions of the Western Governors' Association in 2000 and 2002 to
oppose environmental regulation of the mining industry and to limit public
access to information about the industry's toxic pollution. |
| Kennecott, Utah has one of
the world's largest ground water contamination problems as a result of its
mining operations and Leavitt's refuals to do anything about it |
| Tried to get away with passing
on a fine of $35,000 to the grossly negligent radioactive waste
disposal company Envirocare. However, the EPA was not satisfied with this
settlement, so the DEQ raised the fine to $79,000. The EPA, still
unsatisfied with the settlement, eventually issued its own Notice of
Violation and fined Envirocare over $600,000. He is now head of
that same EPA. |
| Under his watch, the Phillips
Refinery emitted excess amounts of sulfur more than 1000 times between
September 1994 and November 1997. The EPA stepped in once again, taking
enforcement action against the refinery in November 1997.
According to the Salt Lake Tribune, an official from the EPA said
that his office may not have had to take action had the Utah DEQ done its
job. |
| Back Room Deals
(Information from Earthjustice unless otherwise noted.)
Leavitt has been involved in several back room deals
that lock the public out of the environmental decision-making process. |
| In the first case, Leavitt
struck a back room deal with the bush administration to open six million
acres of wild lands in Utah to mining, clearcutting, oil and gas drilling,
and bulldozing. |
| In the second case, the Leavitt
administration threatened to sue the federal government in an attempt to
make it possible for Utah to bulldoze highways over tens of thousands of
miles of cow paths and hiking trails through national parks, wildlife
refuges, national monuments, and wilderness areas. |
| In the third case, citizen
groups sued the federal government to enforce off-road vehicle use
restrictions in Utah's designated wilderness areas. The Leavitt
administration intervened, arguing that neither the court nor the federal
government could limit off-road vehicle use in these areas because Utah
should have rights-of-way in these areas. |
|
| Linda Fisher: Deputy administrator at EPA |
| Former Mocnsanto V.P. Second in ranking only to
EPA Administrator Christine Todd Whitman. Her appointment was opposed by
critics of genetically modified (GM) foods who raised concerns about
industry's ability to influence Fisher. Fisher lobbied on behalf of
Monsanto from 1995 until 2000 and was a proponent of the decision not to
mandate GM foods labeling. More
on Linda Fisher |
|
| Gale A. Norton: Secretary of the
Interior (retired) |
 |
Appointed Gale A. Norton, former mining industry lobbyist and current secretary
of the interior: She is a proponent of "self-audit" laws, which allow
industries to decide on their own whether or not they comply with environmental
regulations. In her writings, she actually suggested that there is a
"homesteading right to pollute". Among many proposals of
note:
abolishing the Bureau of Land Management, selling off fish and wildlife refuges
"the transfer to private ownership of federally held, so-called public
lands." In her current position at Brownstein, Hyatt, Norton has been
working as a registered lobbyist for NL Industries. NL Industries is a defendant
in approximately 75 governmental and private actions associated with waste
disposal sites, mining locations and facilities.
|
|
| J. Steven Griles: Deputy Secretary of the
Interior: |
 |
A former oil and coal lobbyist, J. Steven
Griles violated
recusal agreements in order to lobby on behalf of a company he formerly
owned and from which he is not fully divested. A longtime lobbyist for
the energy industry, Griles has met regularly with clients of his former
employer, National Environmental Strategies (NES), during his tenure at
Interior while receiving $284,000 per year from NES as part of a $1.1
million payout for his "client base." Griles has played a key
role in decisions affecting the Clean Air Act, oil and gas leasing on the
Outer Continental Shelf, coal bed methane development in Wyoming's Powder
River Basin, and wetland permit rules. While a lobbyist, Griles
represented oil, gas and coal clients with interests in these same issues.
Lawsuit Filed to
Obtain Information about Payments from Previous Employer and Meetings with
Former Mining, Oil and Gas Industry Clients Griles eventually pleaded guilty
to obstructing Congress, becoming the
highest-ranking Bush administration official convicted in the Jack
Abramoff lobbying scandal. |
|
| Lynn Scarlett: Undersecretary of the
Interior |
 |
Recycling foe Lynn Scarlett, one of the
architects of Bush's "new environmentalism". Scarlett began
working for the libertarian Reason
Foundation, becoming its president and CEO in 2001. The Reason
Foundation is funded by industry groups such as the American Forest and
Paper Association, the American Petroleum Institute, American Plastics
Council, Chevron Corporation, Dow Chemical, etc. The author of "A
Consumer's Guide to Environmental Myths and Realities," Scarlett
cites the following as common myths about the environment: Disposables Are
Bad; We Are Running Out of Resources; Americans Are Especially Wasteful;
etc. Scarlett was a board member of The Thoreau Institute which
"seeks ways to protect the environment without regulation,
bureaucracy, or central control." Source |
|
| David Lauriski: Assistant Secretary of Labor for Mine Safety |
 |
David
Lauriski, is a long-time coal industry executive and lobbyist. Shortly
after taking office, Lauriski bragged to a group of coal industry
executives that his regulatory agenda "is quite a bit shorter than
some past agendas." Indeed, death warrants usually tend towards
brevity. Part of Lauriski's abbreviated agenda is to reduce the number of
times a mining company has to sample coal dust levels inside the tunnels,
a move that is certain to increase incidence of black lung disease. And
yes, Lauriski wants to get rid of the chest X-ray program that tests
miners for black lung disease. Lauriski also wants to slash the number of
mine inspectors by 25 percent. |
|
| Michael Brown:
FEMA Director (former) |
 |
The former head of an Arabian horse
Association, he was appointed by Bush in January 2003. A TIME
magazine investigation revealed discrepancies discrepancies in his online legal profile and official bio, including a description of Brown released by the White House at the time of his nomination in 2001 to the job as deputy chief of
FEMA. The White House press release from 2001 stated that Brown worked for the city of Edmond, Okla., from 1975 to 1978 "overseeing the emergency services division." In fact, according to Claudia Deakins, head of public relations for the city of Edmond, Brown was an "assistant to the city manager" from 1977 to 1980, not a manager himself, and had no authority over other employees. "The assistant is more like an intern," she told TIME. "Department heads did not report to him." |
|
| Under the
"honors and awards" section of his profile at FindLaw.com —
which is information on the legal website provided by lawyers or their
offices—he lists "Outstanding Political Science Professor, Central
State University". However, Brown "wasn't a professor here, he
was only a student here," says Charles Johnson, News Bureau Director
in the University Relations office at the University of Central Oklahoma
(formerly named Central State University). "He may have been an
adjunct instructor," says Johnson, but that title is very different
from that of "professor." |
|
Mike
Brown committed perjury while
testifying under oath regarding the handling of the hurricane Katrina
response, claiming that Louisiana Gov.
Blanco’s August 27th request to the President for a federal emergency
declaration excluded Orleans, Jefferson and Plaquerines parishes.
In fact, Blanco requested the President to declare a
disaster in “all
the southeastern parishes,” which
includes Orleans, Jefferson and Plaquemines.
See the request for
yourself on the
Project for the OLD American Century website on the “downloads”
page.
|
|
| Patrick Rhode: Acting Deputy Director Federal Emergency Management Agency |
| Former TV anchor for local network affiliates in Alabama and Arkansas,
36-year-old Patrick Rhode entered federal government in 2001 as deputy director of advance operations for the Bush White House, a job he had also held for Bush's 2000 campaign.
He recently said that FEMA's response to Katrina was "probably one of the most efficient and effective responses in the country's history." |
|
|
| John Pennington: Director, Region Ten, Federal Emergency Management Agency |
 |
A former state representative who ran a coffee business with his wife in rural Washington, Pennington served as Cowlitz County co-chairman of the Bush campaign in 2000.
Washington Representative Jennifer Dunn, who had been the Bush campaign's state chairperson, approached Pennington about the
FEMA post, to which he was appointed in 2001. In September 2005, The Seattle Times reported that, just before he was appointed to his fema post, Pennington received his bachelor's degree from an unaccredited California correspondence school that federal investigators later described as a "diploma mill." |
|
|
| Stewart Simonson:
Assistant Secretary for Public Health and Emergency Preparedness, Department of Health and Human Services |
| According to his official biography, Stewart Simonson is the Health and Human Services Department's point man "on matters related to bioterrorism and other public health emergencies."
Prior to joining HHS in 2001, Simonson's background was not in public health, but ... public transit. He'd previously been a top official at the passenger rail company Amtrak.
Before that, he was an adviser to Wisconsin Governor Tommy Thompson, specializing in crime and prison policy. When Thompson became HHS secretary in 2001, he hired Simonson as a legal adviser and promoted him to his current post shortly before leaving the Department last year. |
|
| Rear Admiral Cristina Beato:
Acting Assistant Secretary for Health, Department of Health and Human Services |
 |
In June 2004, Cristina Beato admitted to her hometown newspaper that she hadn't paid much attention to the details of her resumé. That's too bad, because those silly little details seem to have stalled her confirmation for assistant secretary for health for over two years now. Beato said she earned a master's of public health in occupational medicine from the University of Wisconsin (but the university doesn't even offer that degree). She claimed to be "one of the principal leaders who revolutionized medical education in American universities by implementing the Problem Based learning curriculum" (but the curriculum was developed while Beato was still a medical student). She listed "medical attaché" to the American Embassy in Turkey as a job she held in 1986 (but that position didn't exist until 1995). She also boasted that she had "established" the University of New Mexico's occupational health clinic (but the clinic existed before she was hired, and there was even another medical director before her) |
|
|
| Scott Gottlieb:
Deputy Commissioner for Medical and Scientific Affairs |
 |
In July2004, Scott Gottlieb was named deputy commissioner for medical and scientific affairs, one of three deputies in the agency's second-ranked post at FDA.
His official FDA biography notes that Gottlieb, 33, who got his medical degree at Mount Sinai School of Medicine, did a previous stint providing policy advice at the agency, as well as at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, and was a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank.
What the bio omits is that his most recent job was as editor of a popular Wall Street newsletter, the Forbes/Gottlieb Medical Technology Investor, in which he offered such tips as "Three Biotech Stocks to Buy Now." |
|
| In declaring Gottlieb a "noted authority" who had written more than 300 policy and medical articles, the biography neglects the fact that many of those articles criticized the FDA for being too slow to approve new drugs and too quick to issue warning letters when it suspects ones already on the market might be unsafe.
Carter-era FDA Commissioner Donald Kennedy, a former Stanford University president and now executive editor-in-chief of the journal Science, say Gottlieb breaks the mold of appointees at that level who are generally career FDA scientists or experts well known in their field. |
|
| Stan Suboleski: Mine Safety and Health
Review Commission |
| Suboleski
is an executive with the A.C. Massey Coal Company which, according to
the United Mineworkers, has one of the worst safety records in the
industry. Massey is also the company responsible for the annihilation of
more than 70 miles of streams in eastern Kentucky when 300 million gallons
of coal sludge spilled from one of its mines. It was the worst ecological
disaster in the US since the Exxon Valdez oil spill. Stan's appointment
was a recess appointment, meaning that his appointment was made during a
senate recess, freeing him from requiring senate confirmation hearings. |
|
| Paul Hoffman: Deputy Assistant Secretary for Fish and Wildlife and Parks, Department of the Interior |
| Interior Secretary Gale Norton today appointed Paul Hoffman.
Former chief of the Chamber of Commerce in Cody, Wyoming, (population 9,000).
Hoffman had no parks experience other than recreating in them and, as head of the Cody Chamber,
pushed for more snowmobiles in nearby Yellowstone National Park. But he had spent four years in the 1980s working as the state director for then-Wyoming Representative Dick Cheney. |
|
| In April 2003, he went against the wishes of the staff of Yellowstone and asked the U.N. World Heritage Committee to remove the park from its "In Danger List."
In 2004, he instructed the Grand Canyon National Park's visitor centers to stock a creationist book that explained how God made the canyon 6,000 years ago, ordering up a flood to wipe out "the wickedness of man."
This year, Hoffman pushed for wholesale revisions to the Park Service's management policies. Instead of giving priority to protecting natural resources, Hoffman proposed that managers emphasize multiple uses for their parks--including
snowmobiling, Jet-Skiing, grazing, drilling, and mining. |
|
| Hector Barreto: Administrator, Small Business Administration |
 |
His Los Angeles firm, Barreto Insurance & Financial Services Company, had only ten employees. Alas, now that he is in charge of a bigger operation--the Small Business Administration (SBA) has over 3,000 employees, a budget of about $600 million, and a portfolio of loans totaling $45 billion--Barreto is struggling. Last year, the SBA failed to notify Congress that it needed additional funding for its largest and most popular loan program and was forced to temporarily shutter it because, as Barreto's spokesperson explained, it was "out of money." Meanwhile, the SBA was doing such a poor job managing the $5 billion in loans the government set aside to help small businesses recover from September 11 that, according to an Associated Press investigation, the vast majority of the money went to businesses not affected by the terrorist attacks--including a South Dakota country radio station, a Utah dog boutique, and more than 100 Dunkin' Donuts and Subway sandwich shops. |
|
| In September
of 2005, the Senate Small Business Committee, prompted by complaints from Gulf Coast small-business owners, held hearings on the SBA's response to Hurricane Katrina. Barreto pledged that his agency would approve Katrina-related loans in days, not months, but a SBA deputy conceded in late September that, out of 12,000 loan applications from small businesses affected by the hurricane, the SBA had so far approved only 76. |
|
| Andrew Maner:
Chief Financial Officer, Department of Homeland Security |
 |
Andrew Maner was appointed by President George W. Bush in January 2004 as the Chief Financial Officer (CFO) for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). As the CFO, Mr. Maner is responsible for all budget, finance and accounting, strategic planning and evaluation, GAO liaison, bankcard programs, and financial systems for the Department. He is also responsible for the on-going integration of all those functions within the new Department.
In the first Bush administration, Maner helped to plan presidential travel and served as a junior press aide. Later, he followed the defeated George
H.W. Bush back to Texas to be a spokesman for the ex-president. After several private sector years working in information technology and procurement, he took over the U.S. Customs Office of Trade Relations, whose mission is to foster "positive relationships with the international trade community." |
|
| Maner called the Customs
job a "logical next step in [my] career." Less logical, however, was his leap (after a short stint as chief of staff to the Customs commissioner) to managing DHS's sprawling $40 billion budget. Given his slim management background, it's convenient that Maner landed the only Cabinet department CFO slot that doesn't require Senate confirmation.
When DHS officials recently unveiled a revamped organizational chart, Maner's office was accidentally omitted. |
|
 |
Steven Law:
Deputy Secretary, Department of Labor |
| Starting out as a lowly Capitol Hill legislative aide. In 1990, Law's boss, Kentucky Senator Mitch McConnell, tapped him to serve as campaign manager for his reelection race. Law
ran a campaign that insinuated McConnell's Democratic opponent was both mentally ill and a drug addict. Law returned to Washington as McConnell's chief of staff, and, six years later, when McConnell was chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, he made Law the group's executive director, relying on him for help in thwarting campaign finance reform legislation. |
|
|
| Hal Stratton:
Chairman, Consumer Product Safety Commission |
 |
Former former state representative and attorney general in New Mexico
who co-chaired the local Lawyers for Bush during the 2000 campaign
initially wanted a job in the Interior Department. "That didn't
work out," he told the Albuquerque Journal, "but I told
them, 'Don't count me out' ... and they came up with this."
"This" being the position of heading the federal agency responsible for protecting the public against unreasonable risks of injuries and deaths associated with
5,000 types of consumer products. |
|
|
| Jim Nicholson: Secretary, Department of Veterans Affairs |
 |
In contrast to the four most recent VA heads--who had previously held leadership positions with Disabled American Veterans, the Department of Defense, a state-level VA department, and VA itself--Jim Nicholson brings a
resume devoid of experience to veterans' advocacy. After Vietnam, he
went into real-estate law and development in Colorado.
He chaired the Republican National Committee from 1997 to 2000, raising close to $380 million for the 2000 cycle. In Bush's first term, Nicholson was rewarded with the ambassadorship to the Holy See.
In February 2005, he joined his brother John , who was already head of the National Cemetery
Administration, in working for the VA. |
|
| Nicholson had written on April 5: "I can assure you that VA does not need [additional money] to continue to provide timely, quality service."
Two months later, he admitted that VA had underestimated the number of veterans who would be seeking medical treatment this year by nearly 80,000 because it had failed to take into account the surge in enrollment by veterans of the Afghanistan and Iraq
conflicts. |
| Republican House Appropriations Committee Chair Jerry Lewis said VA's failure to identify the problem and notify Congress earlier "borders on stupidity." |
|
| Claire Buchan: Chief of Staff, Department of Commerce |
 |
Former deputy press secretary at the White House,
Buchan was promoted to chief of staff at the Commerce Department, where she now helps the secretary oversee a $6.3 billion budget and some 38,000 employees.
Some of Buchan's colleagues in the White House press corps were left speechless when her new assignment was announced in February. One White House reporter who worked closely with Buchan for five years called her "the most useless in a Bush universe of enforced uselessness. She took empty banality to a new low." |
|
|
| David Safavian, U.S. procurement czar
(Busted) |
 |
A law-school internship helping the Pentagon buy helicopters
appears to be about the extent of his experience in the field. Safavian spent the bulk of hiscareer as a lobbyist,
previous to his nomination to a top oversight position As administrator of the Office of Federal Procurement Policy, Safavian, 38, was placed in charge of the $300 billion the government spends each year on everything from paper clips to nuclear submarines, as well as the $62 billion already earmarked for Hurricane Katrina recovery efforts.
It was his job to ensure that the government got the most for its money and that competition for federal contracts -- among companies as well as between government workers and private contractors--was fair. It was his job until he resigned on September 16,
2005 and was subsequently arrested and charged with lying and obstructing a criminal investigation into Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff's dealings with the Federal Government. |
|
| Safavian's April 2004 confirmation hearing before the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee (attended by only five of the panel's 17 members) lasted just 67 minutes, and not a single question was asked about his qualifications.
His political clout, federal procurement experts say privately, came from his late-1990s lobbying partnership with Grover Norquist, now head of Americans for Tax Reform and a close ally of the Bush Administration.
Norquist is an antitax advocate who once famously declared that his goal was to shrink the Federal Government so he could "drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub." |
|
 |
David Wilkins: American Ambassador to Canada |
| David Wilkins--a former South Carolina legislator whose chief contribution to world affairs before this year was raising $200,000 for President Bush's 2004 campaign
had only been to Canada once (Niagara Falls). Wilkins promptly escalated the two countries' dispute over softwood lumber by accusing Canadians of being overly emotional and by threatening an all-out trade war that would have affected multiple industries, from broadcasting to eggs.
-Wilkins eventually admitted his approach to the lumber dispute had been flawed. "My attempt to bring the emotion down increased the emotion," he said. |
|
|
| Harriett Miers:
Supreme Court Justice (Confirmation pending) |
| Bush's personal lawyer. You know you
may be expecting trouble when your President appoints his personal
lawyer to the Supreme Court sans any judicial experience. |
|
|
| Mark McKinnon:
Democratic slot, Broadcasting Board of Governors (confirmation pending) |
| The Broadcasting Board of Governors oversees Voice of America and other U.S. media beamed to the Middle East; and, in the spirit of accurately representing the United States, it reserves seats for members of both major political parties. For one of the four Democratic slots, President Bush recently nominated Mark McKinnon, or "M-Cat" as he
calls him. |
| M-Cat's
career highlights include overseeing media strategy for Bush's two presidential bids, in which capacity he masterminded a spot predicting that John Kerry would "Weaken [the] Fight Against Terrorists." And, in last year's campaign, his company, Maverick Media, accepted over $177 million in fees from Bush and the Republican National Committee. |
|
| Israel Hernandez:
Assistant Secretary for Trade Promotion and Director General of the United States and Foreign Commercial Service, Department of Commerce (confirmation pending) |
|
|
 |
Amb. Ellen Sauerbrey as Assistant Secretary of State for Population, Refugees and Migration
(Nomination pending) |
Sauerbrey ran unsuccessfully for governor of Maryland twice during the 1990s, has served in relatively low-profile State Department positions since Bush took office in 2001, most recently as U.S. representative to the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) of the U.N.'s Commission on the Status of Women.
In 2000, she served as state chairman of Bush's presidential campaign.
While such ambassadorial posts are often awarded to political appointees with little or no background in the relevant substantive areas, an assistant secretary's post with major operational responsibilities and an annual budget of more than 700 million dollars usually goes to either a senior career officer or a political appointee with major relevant experience. A coalition of 10 women's health and rights groups
has urged Bush to withdraw the nomination of Amb. Ellen Sauerbrey, calling it "yet another in a long string of crony nominations of unqualified individuals for critical positions". |
|
| The groups' statement followed editorials denouncing Sauerbrey's appointment by two of the country's most important newspapers, the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times, which called her unqualified and too ideological, as well as criticism by prominent emergency relief groups. |
| Groups that called for Bush to withdraw the nomination included the Feminist Majority Foundation, Americans for UNFPA, the Western Hemisphere section of the International Planned Parenthood Federation, and Planned Parenthood Federation of
America, and the Women's Environment and Development Organisation. Source |
|
| William DeWitt: President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board |
Wife, Katharine, was appointed by Bush to the National Council on the Arts
President of the Reynolds DeWitt & Company (financing)
Lead owner of the St. Louis
Cardinals.
DeWitt has, for many years, been a major contributor for the advancement of G. W. Bush. Starting early in Bush’s career, DeWitt was a major investor Bush’s bid to buy the Texas Rangers baseball team and partner in Spectrum 7.
(link) Spectrum 7 was an oil company started by William DeWitt and Mercer Reynolds. In 1984, Spectrum 7 merged with George W. Bush's Arbusto Energy. After the merger, Bush became the Chairman and CEO of Spectrum 7.
(Link)
Bush’s 2000 election campaign reimbursed Reynolds DeWitt & Co. $55,668 for flights that Bush took in its corporate jets. DeWitt raised $40M for the Bush-Cheney Inaugural committee, by chairing the event. DeWitt raised over $1M in 1999 with a fundraiser for Bush and more than $2M in 2000 with yet another fundraiser. DeWitt also headed Bush’s 2004 re-election fundraising efforts in Ohio. DeWitt and his wife, Katharine, have both been richly rewarded.
(Link) |
|
| Don Evans: Commerce Secretary from 2001-2005 |
Evans has been friends with G. W. Bush since he was in the oil business. Spent 25 years at an oil and gas company in Denver called Tom Brown, Inc. as the chairman and CEO. He sat on the board of directors for TMBR/Sharp Drilling.
(Link)
Member of the BOD for the Scleroderma Research Foundation for 8 years.
Worked for Bush’s gubernatorial campaigns in 1994 & 1998. (In 1995, then Governor Bush appointed him to the Board of Regents to the University of Texas system, where he served for 4 years.)
Served as chairman of the 2000 Bush/Cheney campaign.
During President Bush's 2004 State of the Union he was the designated survivor and spent the night in a secure undisclosed location. In the event of an attack on the Capitol he would have become Acting President.
(Link) |
|
| Ray L. Hunt:
appointed by President George W. Bush to the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board in October 2001 |
Owner, Hunt Oil Co.
Member, BOD for EDS
CEO and chairman of board of Hunt Conslidated, Inc.
Member of the National Petroleum Council (an industry advisory organization to the Secretary of Energy) and served as its chairman from 1991-1994.
BOD: Halliburton Co., King Ranch, Inc., PepsiCo, Inc., The Cooper Institute, The Deadman Foundation, Dallas Medical Resource, North Texas Commission, Inter-American Development Bank, chairman of Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, American Petroleum Institute and serves on its policy committee., Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington DC, Southwestern Medical Foundations, Southern Methodist University.
(Link)
Member of advisory committee for Seven Futures, a part of the Global Strategy Institute. Their goal is to “provide world leaders with strategic insights on - and policy solutions to - current and emerging global challenges”.
(Link)
Hunt has been on the PFIAB since 2001. Presumably, months ahead of everyone else, he had access to intelligence indicating that the Bush administration was going to invade Iraq -- information that could have been of value to certain oil service companies with operations in the Middle East. Hunt can use what he learns at PFIAB to help Halliburton. Or he can help his own company, Hunt Oil, one of the world's largest privately owned energy companies. "Even without taking advantage of any particular intelligence report, the PFIAB affiliation is gold," says Steven Aftergood, who heads the Project on Government Secrecy at the Federation of American Scientists. "It lends itself to exploitation for commercial and other interests."
(Link)
|
|
| Primary sources: |
| New
Republic Online |
| Time
Magazine online |
|
| Related articles: |
| A scorching internal review of the Bush administration's billion-dollar-a-year reading program says the Education Department ignored the law and ethical standards to steer money
to cronies. 9-23 |
| Bush
taps DOD environmental official to serve as EPA inspector . 8-9 |
| Prior
to serving in the Bush Administration "environmental protection"
efforts, Beehler was at Koch Industries who faced a 93 count indictment
for toxic dumping and coverup in Texas. 8-9 |
| Douglas
Hoelscher, a 29-year-old former White House staffer with no management
experience was recently tapped to run the Homeland Security Advisory
Council. 3-11 |
| Senate
committee approves Bush's crony nominee to head mine safety 3-9 |
| President
Bush appoints nine campaign contributors, including three longtime
fund-raisers, to his Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board. 11-4 |
| The
U.S. chose Ziad Cattan to oversee military buying because he could get
things done. He did, but now he faces corruption charges: He had no prior
arms experience, but was well-versed in selling used cars and shoes 11-7 |
| Bush
rewarded one of his loyalists with the ambassadorship to Italy -- even
though he speaks no Italian and despite his past as the founder of an
cult-like teen rehab clinic 11-9 |
| Another
awful Bush appointment 11-28 |
| Bush
Recess-Appoints Crony Julie Myers + 16 Others 1-5 |
| Bush
cronies don't have time to answer your questions about mine safety.
They're too busy. 1-26 |
