This is a "check this out" diary.
http://nyti.ms/...
In the NY Times there's a product of the get-your-hands-dirty and do-the-grunt-work school of journalism.Turns out that bunches of those Republican Attorneys General that have been popping up like poisonous mushrooms have been feeding on an especially potent fertilizer - Energy Industry Money.
The featured shroomanoid is Attorney General Scott Pruitt of Oklahoma. Yes, OklaHoma. Where the State Beverage is milk, the State Dance is the square dance and the State Rock Song was once by the Flaming Lips(!?).
Attorneys general in at least a dozen states are working with energy companies and other corporate interests, which in turn are providing them with record amounts of money for their political campaigns, including at least $16 million this year.
...never before have attorneys general joined on this scale with corporate interests to challenge Washington and file lawsuits in federal court.
Scott, president for two years of the Republican Attorneys General Association, put together a campaign they call "The Rule of Law". It should come as no surprise the new chair of this group os
Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi. Yes the one that postponed an execution so she could siphon money from donors.
That campaign, in which attorneys general band together to operate like a large national law firm, has been used to back lawsuits and other challenges against the Obama administration on environmental issues, the Affordable Care Act and securities regulation. The most recent target is the president’s executive action on immigration.
Goes on to detail a couple of the puppeteers pulling Scott's strings.
Harold G. Hamm, the billionaire chief executive of Continental Resources, which is among the biggest oil and gas drilling companies in both Oklahoma and North Dakota.
Andrew P. Miller, a patrician 81-year-old former Virginia attorney general whose client list includes TransCanada, the backer of the Keystone XL pipeline; the Southern Company, the Georgia-based electric utility, which has a large number of coal-burning power plants; and the investor group behind the proposed Pebble Mine in Alaska.
The article has a strong beginning:
The letter to the Environmental Protection Agency from Attorney General Scott Pruitt of Oklahoma carried a blunt accusation: Federal regulators were grossly overestimating the amount of air pollution caused by energy companies drilling new natural gas wells in his state.
However, according to the times, the three-page letter was written by lawyers for Devon Energy, one of Oklahoma’s biggest oil and gas companies, and was delivered to Scott by Devon’s chief of lobbying.
Seems like a pretty good article to me. I hope some here will find it as interesting as I did.