U.S. Senator Reid, Son Combine For China Firm's Desert Plant
Apr 13, 2014 03:22:11 #
U.S. Senator Reid, son combine for China firm's desert plant
BY MARCUS STERN
WASHINGTON Fri Aug 31, 2012 5:06am EDT
U.S. Senator Harry Reid recognized nine years ago that connections between his official duties and the lobbying activities of his relatives could lead to ethical questions.
In 2003, the Nevada Democrat publicly banned relatives from lobbying him or his staff after newspaper reports showed that Nevada industries and institutions routinely turned to Reid's sons or son-in-law for representation.
Now, questions surrounding family ties are flaring again in Nevada around the Senate majority leader. He and his oldest son, Rory, are both involved in an effort by a Chinese energy giant, ENN Energy Group, to build a $5 billion solar farm and panel manufacturing plant in the southern Nevada desert.
Reid has been one of the project's most prominent advocates, helping recruit the company during a 2011 trip to China and applying his political muscle on behalf of the project in Nevada. His son, a lawyer with a prominent Las Vegas firm that is representing ENN, helped it locate a 9,000-acre (3,600-hectare) desert site that it is buying well below appraised value from Clark County, where Rory Reid formerly chaired the county commission.
Craig Holman, a lobbyist for the non-partisan advocacy group Public Citizen, said the senator is dealing with "an iffy ethical landscape" because of the family connections and should recuse himself from the project. "Is this just happening because ... it benefits the Reid family, or did Harry Reid actually believe in this?" Holman said.
The senator has supported numerous clean energy projects in Nevada. Rory Reid cites energy as one of his specialty areas at the law firm.
The two Reids deny discussing the ENN project.
"I have never discussed the project with my father or his staff," said Rory Reid. Kristen Orthman, a spokeswoman for the senator, said he had not discussed the project with his son.
The Langfang, China-based ENN Energy Group hopes to build what would be the largest solar energy complex in America. The site chosen with Rory Reid's guidance is in tiny Laughlin, Nevada, a gambling town of 7,300 along the Colorado River, 90 miles south of Las Vegas.
County officials have said that they were so thrilled to recruit a company to the area, with the prospect of thousands of new local jobs, that they were eager to negotiate.
ENN is headed by Chinese energy tycoon Wang Yusuo, who made a fortune estimated by Forbes at $2.2 billion distributing natural gas in China. Wang escorted Reid and a delegation of nine other U.S. senators on a tour of the company's clean energy operations in Langfang, and Reid featured Wang as a speaker at his 4th annual National Clean Energy Summit in Las Vegas last year.
NEVADA'S LARGEST LAW FIRM
To advance the Nevada project, ENN retained the state's largest and most prestigious law firm - Lionel Sawyer & Collins, where Rory Reid works. It is headed by Richard Bryan, a former Nevada attorney general, governor and member of the U.S. Senate.
Rory Reid faced a one-year cooling off period from lobbying the Clark County commission after leaving his post in January 2011, and Bryan took the lead on ENN's negotiations with the county.
Since the one-year ban expired, Rory Reid has been ENN's primary representative before the county, according to Steve Sisolak, the board's vice chairman.
Rory Reid acknowledged representing ENN at both the county and state levels since January. He declined to discuss the project otherwise.
Two months after Harry Reid's China trip, Lionel Sawyer registered ENN Mohave Energy LLC as an American subsidiary of the Chinese company. The firm negotiated with the county to buy the land rather than lease it, as the county's staff had recommended.
In December, Clark County commissioners voted unanimously to sell up to 9,000 acres of public land to the subsidiary at pennies on the dollar.
The deal spurred local controversy. Separate appraisals valued the land at $29.6 million and $38.6 million. The commission agreed to sell it to ENN for $4.5 million.
The county did build in certain conditions before the project could begin, including milestones for jobs creation and investment. ENN also must assure the county that it has a power company willing to commit to buying energy from the solar farm. But in the eight months since the commissioners approved the deal, no utility has signed a power purchase agreement.
However, Harry Reid stepped up again.
The Democrat recently used an online discussion related to his annual energy summit for an as-yet unsuccessful effort to pressure Nevada's largest power company, NV Energy, to sign up as ENN's first customer.
In the July 30 discussion, Reid said the project "would start tomorrow if NV Energy would purchase the power." The utility controls "95 percent of all of the electricity that is produced in Nevada and they should go along with this." Reid's online comments were first reported by the Las Vegas Review Journal.
The power company responded by saying it had exceeded its minimum renewable energy requirements both last year and this year, though it would consider buying power from ENN in the future. A spokesman for NV Energy declined to discuss the matter further.
Bryan, the head of the law firm, did not return repeated phone calls and emails.
An official with ENN in Langfang did not respond to emails.
In 2007, after a controversy over the number of lawmaker relatives engaged in lobbying, Congress passed the Honest Leadership and Open Government Act, sharply restricting the lobbying activities of close relatives of members of Congress.
The law only applies to registered lobbyists and Rory Reid is not registered as a federal lobbyist in Washington or a state lobbyist in Nevada, according to records in both jurisdictions.
End of Article
Comments;
Well, if you were wondering what all of the ruckus is about in the Nevada desert about a rancher's cows grazing on BLM land, this new story pretty well explains it.
The first "story" out of Washington was, it's about "rare desert tortoises" and the "endangered species act"; that story was "shot down" pretty quickly; the next story was, "a rancher whose family has been grazing cows on this land for over 150 years, is supposed to pay "grazing fees" to the Federal Government, and he hasn't paid them in the last 20 years.
Now, we hear the REAL story! Some rich Chinese billionaire wants to BUY 9,000 acres of land in the Nevada desert to build a gigantic "solar farm", (which, IMO, would probably be much more dangerous for the rare, endangered desert tortoises than a few cows standing around, munching......whatever it is that cows "munch" in the Nevada desert!
I'm sure this is just a "coincidence", but it seems that U.S. Senator, Dingy Harry Greed, and his lawyer son, Rory Greed, have already been "wined & dined" in Langfang, China, by Chinese energy tycoon Wang Yusuo, the aforementioned rich Chinese billionaire.
All of this raises many questions; such as........How many American citizens are there who think selling 9,000 acres of BLM land to a "rich Chinese Billionaire" is a "good idea? (And "for pennies on the dollar"? )
The next question is, "how much is Senator Dingy Harry Greed and his son, Rory Greed going to "GET" out of this FIVE BILLION dollar "deal"?
And a really tricky question is; how much do YOU really "know" about so called "BLM" land ?
Here's what I know; about 25 or 30 years ago, my oldest son was still working for Motorola in Chandler, Arizona; we went out to Phoenix for several visits; my son was really "into" flying hang-gliders at the time; the best place to fly hang gliders at the time, was about 20 miles east of Flagstaff, Ariz. where there are dozens of cinder-cone volcanos, all of which are on BLM land; (Bureau of Land Management, which is part of the Dept. of the Interior ) My son had these wonderful maps of all the BLM land in almost all of the far western states; (they're also known as "topo maps", as they show the exact elevation of every "hill", "crater", "mountain", etc etc etc. The significant thing about these maps that immediately "catches your eye", is that they are divided into a "checkerboard", with each perfectly square space being 1 mile square; every other
mile there's a slightly darker green square; these dark squares are all privately owned land; then every privately own "square mile" is bounded on all four sides by lighter green squares, and these are all "BLM" land; and the owners of the privately owned "squares" lease all four of the "squares" surrounding them, for....."not much"! $20 a year maybe? Much of this land looks like......it's hard to explain really; you see an occasional mule deer, a few jack rabbits, an occasional rattle snake, and a LOT of small holes in the ground, (which isn't really "dirt", but "part dirt, and part cinders" from all, of the many hundreds of small, cinder-cone volcanos. ) You also see a LOT of birds of prey, (raptors ) flying around overhead; as soon as it gets dark, (9:30-10:00 PM in summer ), you can turn on your headlights, and all of the "residents" of all of the holes are out, hopping about! Every Friday, the minute my son got home from work, we were "off to Flagstaff", about 175 miles due north from Phoenix, to fly hang gliders all day Sat. & Sun.
So.....who really "owns" all of that BLM land? the Federal Government? The U.S. Taxpayers? This is something that has been kicked around now for the last 150 or 200 years;
I can tell you exactly what Dingy Harry Greed would tell you; ( "It's none of YOUR damned business, you "peon", so go mind your own business! ) (While me and my son, Rory Greed make a cool couple of hundred million selling "your" land to these Chinese guys, who not only are buying up our land for "pennies on the dollar", and are ALSO building up their military, (while we're "down-sizing" ours )
The last question is......."what's wrong with this picture"?
BY MARCUS STERN
WASHINGTON Fri Aug 31, 2012 5:06am EDT
U.S. Senator Harry Reid recognized nine years ago that connections between his official duties and the lobbying activities of his relatives could lead to ethical questions.
In 2003, the Nevada Democrat publicly banned relatives from lobbying him or his staff after newspaper reports showed that Nevada industries and institutions routinely turned to Reid's sons or son-in-law for representation.
Now, questions surrounding family ties are flaring again in Nevada around the Senate majority leader. He and his oldest son, Rory, are both involved in an effort by a Chinese energy giant, ENN Energy Group, to build a $5 billion solar farm and panel manufacturing plant in the southern Nevada desert.
Reid has been one of the project's most prominent advocates, helping recruit the company during a 2011 trip to China and applying his political muscle on behalf of the project in Nevada. His son, a lawyer with a prominent Las Vegas firm that is representing ENN, helped it locate a 9,000-acre (3,600-hectare) desert site that it is buying well below appraised value from Clark County, where Rory Reid formerly chaired the county commission.
Craig Holman, a lobbyist for the non-partisan advocacy group Public Citizen, said the senator is dealing with "an iffy ethical landscape" because of the family connections and should recuse himself from the project. "Is this just happening because ... it benefits the Reid family, or did Harry Reid actually believe in this?" Holman said.
The senator has supported numerous clean energy projects in Nevada. Rory Reid cites energy as one of his specialty areas at the law firm.
The two Reids deny discussing the ENN project.
"I have never discussed the project with my father or his staff," said Rory Reid. Kristen Orthman, a spokeswoman for the senator, said he had not discussed the project with his son.
The Langfang, China-based ENN Energy Group hopes to build what would be the largest solar energy complex in America. The site chosen with Rory Reid's guidance is in tiny Laughlin, Nevada, a gambling town of 7,300 along the Colorado River, 90 miles south of Las Vegas.
County officials have said that they were so thrilled to recruit a company to the area, with the prospect of thousands of new local jobs, that they were eager to negotiate.
ENN is headed by Chinese energy tycoon Wang Yusuo, who made a fortune estimated by Forbes at $2.2 billion distributing natural gas in China. Wang escorted Reid and a delegation of nine other U.S. senators on a tour of the company's clean energy operations in Langfang, and Reid featured Wang as a speaker at his 4th annual National Clean Energy Summit in Las Vegas last year.
NEVADA'S LARGEST LAW FIRM
To advance the Nevada project, ENN retained the state's largest and most prestigious law firm - Lionel Sawyer & Collins, where Rory Reid works. It is headed by Richard Bryan, a former Nevada attorney general, governor and member of the U.S. Senate.
Rory Reid faced a one-year cooling off period from lobbying the Clark County commission after leaving his post in January 2011, and Bryan took the lead on ENN's negotiations with the county.
Since the one-year ban expired, Rory Reid has been ENN's primary representative before the county, according to Steve Sisolak, the board's vice chairman.
Rory Reid acknowledged representing ENN at both the county and state levels since January. He declined to discuss the project otherwise.
Two months after Harry Reid's China trip, Lionel Sawyer registered ENN Mohave Energy LLC as an American subsidiary of the Chinese company. The firm negotiated with the county to buy the land rather than lease it, as the county's staff had recommended.
In December, Clark County commissioners voted unanimously to sell up to 9,000 acres of public land to the subsidiary at pennies on the dollar.
The deal spurred local controversy. Separate appraisals valued the land at $29.6 million and $38.6 million. The commission agreed to sell it to ENN for $4.5 million.
The county did build in certain conditions before the project could begin, including milestones for jobs creation and investment. ENN also must assure the county that it has a power company willing to commit to buying energy from the solar farm. But in the eight months since the commissioners approved the deal, no utility has signed a power purchase agreement.
However, Harry Reid stepped up again.
The Democrat recently used an online discussion related to his annual energy summit for an as-yet unsuccessful effort to pressure Nevada's largest power company, NV Energy, to sign up as ENN's first customer.
In the July 30 discussion, Reid said the project "would start tomorrow if NV Energy would purchase the power." The utility controls "95 percent of all of the electricity that is produced in Nevada and they should go along with this." Reid's online comments were first reported by the Las Vegas Review Journal.
The power company responded by saying it had exceeded its minimum renewable energy requirements both last year and this year, though it would consider buying power from ENN in the future. A spokesman for NV Energy declined to discuss the matter further.
Bryan, the head of the law firm, did not return repeated phone calls and emails.
An official with ENN in Langfang did not respond to emails.
In 2007, after a controversy over the number of lawmaker relatives engaged in lobbying, Congress passed the Honest Leadership and Open Government Act, sharply restricting the lobbying activities of close relatives of members of Congress.
The law only applies to registered lobbyists and Rory Reid is not registered as a federal lobbyist in Washington or a state lobbyist in Nevada, according to records in both jurisdictions.
End of Article
Comments;
Well, if you were wondering what all of the ruckus is about in the Nevada desert about a rancher's cows grazing on BLM land, this new story pretty well explains it.
The first "story" out of Washington was, it's about "rare desert tortoises" and the "endangered species act"; that story was "shot down" pretty quickly; the next story was, "a rancher whose family has been grazing cows on this land for over 150 years, is supposed to pay "grazing fees" to the Federal Government, and he hasn't paid them in the last 20 years.
Now, we hear the REAL story! Some rich Chinese billionaire wants to BUY 9,000 acres of land in the Nevada desert to build a gigantic "solar farm", (which, IMO, would probably be much more dangerous for the rare, endangered desert tortoises than a few cows standing around, munching......whatever it is that cows "munch" in the Nevada desert!
I'm sure this is just a "coincidence", but it seems that U.S. Senator, Dingy Harry Greed, and his lawyer son, Rory Greed, have already been "wined & dined" in Langfang, China, by Chinese energy tycoon Wang Yusuo, the aforementioned rich Chinese billionaire.
All of this raises many questions; such as........How many American citizens are there who think selling 9,000 acres of BLM land to a "rich Chinese Billionaire" is a "good idea? (And "for pennies on the dollar"? )
The next question is, "how much is Senator Dingy Harry Greed and his son, Rory Greed going to "GET" out of this FIVE BILLION dollar "deal"?
And a really tricky question is; how much do YOU really "know" about so called "BLM" land ?
Here's what I know; about 25 or 30 years ago, my oldest son was still working for Motorola in Chandler, Arizona; we went out to Phoenix for several visits; my son was really "into" flying hang-gliders at the time; the best place to fly hang gliders at the time, was about 20 miles east of Flagstaff, Ariz. where there are dozens of cinder-cone volcanos, all of which are on BLM land; (Bureau of Land Management, which is part of the Dept. of the Interior ) My son had these wonderful maps of all the BLM land in almost all of the far western states; (they're also known as "topo maps", as they show the exact elevation of every "hill", "crater", "mountain", etc etc etc. The significant thing about these maps that immediately "catches your eye", is that they are divided into a "checkerboard", with each perfectly square space being 1 mile square; every other
mile there's a slightly darker green square; these dark squares are all privately owned land; then every privately own "square mile" is bounded on all four sides by lighter green squares, and these are all "BLM" land; and the owners of the privately owned "squares" lease all four of the "squares" surrounding them, for....."not much"! $20 a year maybe? Much of this land looks like......it's hard to explain really; you see an occasional mule deer, a few jack rabbits, an occasional rattle snake, and a LOT of small holes in the ground, (which isn't really "dirt", but "part dirt, and part cinders" from all, of the many hundreds of small, cinder-cone volcanos. ) You also see a LOT of birds of prey, (raptors ) flying around overhead; as soon as it gets dark, (9:30-10:00 PM in summer ), you can turn on your headlights, and all of the "residents" of all of the holes are out, hopping about! Every Friday, the minute my son got home from work, we were "off to Flagstaff", about 175 miles due north from Phoenix, to fly hang gliders all day Sat. & Sun.
So.....who really "owns" all of that BLM land? the Federal Government? The U.S. Taxpayers? This is something that has been kicked around now for the last 150 or 200 years;
I can tell you exactly what Dingy Harry Greed would tell you; ( "It's none of YOUR damned business, you "peon", so go mind your own business! ) (While me and my son, Rory Greed make a cool couple of hundred million selling "your" land to these Chinese guys, who not only are buying up our land for "pennies on the dollar", and are ALSO building up their military, (while we're "down-sizing" ours )
The last question is......."what's wrong with this picture"?
Apr 14, 2014 08:49:05 #
Gitzo wrote:
U.S. Senator Reid, son combine for China firm's de... (show quote)
Great post. Who knows, maybe this will become the tipping point where Dingy Harry finally gets his just due. Probably one of the most corrupt politicians to serve in "higher" office in this country's history. That is saying something. If "all" of the media will do their job we might finally see him held to account.
Apr 14, 2014 08:59:16 #
SBW wrote:
Great post. Who knows, maybe this will become the tipping point where Dingy Harry finally gets his just due. Probably one of the most corrupt politicians to serve in "higher" office in this country's history. That is saying something. If "all" of the media will do their job we might finally see him held to account.
An interesting thought, and one that should come to fruition. But the cynical me thinks that the ultimate ass-clown Harry Reid is bullet proof and Teflon coated. He'll roll in this shit and come out without a stain.
Apr 14, 2014 09:32:52 #
charlie wrote:
An interesting thought, and one that should come to fruition. But the cynical me thinks that the ultimate ass-clown Harry Reid is bullet proof and Teflon coated. He'll roll in this shit and come out without a stain.
Sadly, you are probably correct.
Apr 14, 2014 09:45:56 #
Apr 15, 2014 00:54:06 #
travelwp wrote:
Reid is dirt. I'm glad Bundy and his friends won this one !
As much as I agree about Dingy Harry being a crook, the "gubmint's" fight with Bundy isn't my main concern; selling 9,000 acres of the Nevada desert to Red China IS my main concern.
I have no idea what the Chinese have in mind to do with the 9,000 acres, but I think it's a foregone conclusion that "making a profit" is very unlikely to have anything to do with it. (This is even worse than Jimmy Carter's scheme to allow the Red Chicoms to take over the Panama Canal Zone, and is even closer to home! )
Apr 15, 2014 02:10:30 #
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