Illinois Coal Campaign Cash Scandal Reveals Culture of Corruption

The Chris Cline coal campaign contribution scandal has grown bigger than I ever expected. CoalGate is getting wide press coverage and resulted in a second acting director of Mines & Minerals being removed for the same actions as Tony Mayville. Here's a rundown of the press coverage and expanding consequences since I first wrote about a former mine regulator taking campaign contributions from a coal industry billionaire.

Patrick Yeagle at Illinois Times was the first reporter to give the story the full journalism treatment. IT reported that Tony Mayville was placed on unpaid leave and an investigation is underway.

Jim Tenuto, spokesman for the Illinois State Board of Elections, says a state law on official misconduct may make the contributions a criminal act, though that’s up to a state’s attorney or the attorney general to decide. Under the state law, if Mayville solicited the contributions, it would be a class A misdemeanor, punishable by up to a year in prison and a $2,500 fine.
Chris McCloud, spokesman for DNR, said the contributions to the committee controlled by Mayville came to light when Mayville sought permission from DNR director Marc Miller to run for elected office. 

The trouble is that Mayville was already taking contributions from the coal industry to his Washington County Democratic political fund when he was made acting director of the Office of Mines & Minerals in 2012. It was public information easily accessible by a simple web search. It was no secret that Mayville was chair of a county political party. Did no one bother checking at the time or did no one care? Or both.

WSIL TV news interviewed Mayville for their story. He tried to keep the focus on a contribution to his State Representative campaign fund instead of the additional contributions he was taking to his political party fund since 2008.


His defense says it all. He argues that the contributions are no big deal because the company representative is a good friend he used to work with anyway. Think about that for a minute. The guy who was in charge of mine safety for Illinois, and the entire Mines & Minerals Office for a time, is saying that campaign contributions from the industry he regulates can't influence him because he's already such good buddies with industry officials. He actually argued that!

That shows exactly the problem I set out to highlight. There's a cozy good ol' boy network among DNR regulatory staff and their friends and former co-workers in the industries they regulate. A top Illinois regulator just said so!

In case it wasn't obvious enough that this is part of a broader problem within the agency, the current acting director of Mines & Minerals was jut caught doing the exact same thing. I first read at Capitol Fax, and then the News-Gazette that Douglas County Democratic Party Chairman Michael Woods Sr. was removed from his position for accepting political contributions from Foresight Energy, a company owned by the Cline Group.

Within a few days of Foresight's $10,000 donation to the Douglas County Democrats, officials disbursed much of it to Democratic candidates and other party organizations outside of Douglas County.
The largest sum — $5,000 — went to Gov. Pat Quinn's re-election campaign. Another $1,200 went to the Illinois Democratic County Chairmen's Association. And $250 went to the campaign fund of state Sen. Mike Frerichs, D-Champaign.
The Douglas County Democrats also gave $1,000 to the campaign fund of Tony Mayville, a Democratic candidate for the Illinois House in the 115th District in southern Illinois. 

Douglas county Democrats had a sleepy little campaign fund until Wood got his promotion at IDNR. Then, what do you know, Foresight Energy gave them a $10,000 political contribution. It's a pattern.

Chris Cline is not an insignificant donor. He massively expanded his Illinois coal holdings in recent years to make him one of the top energy players in the state. His companies have had many issues pending before DNR and will have many more. He's making ginormous contributions through multiple subsidiaries to Illinois politicians. Billionaire Chris Cline is attempting to purchase control of the state's political and regulatory systems.

An excellent video about a recent hearing on a Cline mine near Hillsboro reveals the dysfunction of the current system.



Pat Quinn and Mike Frerichs donated the campaign funds they received from the Douglas County Democrats to charity. But, they're keeping hundreds of thousands they've taken directly from Chris Cline and his coal empire. It's a nice attempt to avoid controversy, but keeping their other Cline donations sends the message that they're still available for purchase.

It would be a disservice if Governor Quinn is allowed to deflect attention from this scandal after two personnel changes at IDNR. This is a systemic problem about the culture of a crucial regulatory agency full of political hires leftover from the Blagojevich administration. People deserve to know whether Chris Cline companies were regulated to the full extent of the law in both the permitting process and with mine safety. Fatal mine accidents and cancer-causing pollutants make this literally a life and death issue.

Illinois Mine Safety Head Took Thousands in Campaign Contributions from Coal Baron Chris Cline

My latest piece is at EcoNews. This is an outrageous scandal that I hope will be picked up by major news outlets. I was at public hearings on Illinois coal mines without knowing that the companies asking for permits had given political contributions to a top IDNR official. And this is the agency Governor Quinn trusts to making fracking safe?

Illinois Mine Safety Head Took Thousands in Campaign Contributions from Coal Baron Chris Cline

Washington County Democratic Party. He has also supervised the Mine Safety division and served as acting director of Mines and Minerals at the Illinois Department of Natural Resources. Over several years, including time while Mayville was responsible for regulating Illinois coal mines, he collected thousands of dollars in campaign contributions from companies owned by billionaire coal mine operator Chris Cline. In November 2013 a fatal accident occurred at a coal mine owned by Chris Cline and regulated by Tony Mayville. 

Mayville chairs the political fund of the Washington County Democratic Party Central Committee. Their campaign finance reports show the committee raising thousands of dollars from multiple companies owned by the Cline Group at least since 2008 through 2013.

Illinois Geological Survey Called Out and Hillbilly Resistance to Fracking

The comment period for Illinois' draft fracking regulation is over but there's more must-see video and text from the public hearings I haven't posted yet. 

Brent Ritzel is in one of the videos on my last Huffington Post blog. He ran out of time before finishing his full comment so I asked him to send me his notes which are posted below.

The Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity and the Illinois State Geological Survey have long seen promoting extraction industries as part of their mission. ISGS is involved in carbon sequestration projects to show it's viable. Just to be clear, they're not engaging in unbiased research to determine whether or not carbon capture and sequestration for coal plants is economically realistic and safe for the public. They're granted funding to work with corporate partners on projects with the predetermined outcome to show it's viable. That part of their work is why they participated in public hearings over the failed coal carbon capture and sequestration plant proposed in Taylorville.

Now, they're taking the same approach with fracking by giving industry talking points the credibility of a state agency the public would expect to be unbiased. Brent does a good job of holding ISGS accountable for misleading the public. He references his study "Fracking Industrialization & Induced Earthquakes" that you can read here. Here's his comment to IDNR:

Thank you very much for your time. I do NOT envy y’all. You have been given the impossible task of regulating a technology that has already been exempted from 7 different major and essential environmental and public health protection laws…
Clean Water Act,
Safe Drinking Water Act,
Resource Conservation and Recovery Act,
Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act
National Environmental Policy Act
Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act.
The Superfund Law

Fracking was obviously never really supposed to be regulated, but it seems to me that if you were tasked with such a project, the FIRST STEP would be put all those protections back in that the Halliburton Loophole removed.

A couple of weeks ago completed a research study entitled “Fracking Industrialization and Induced Earthquakes,” which took a comprehensive look at more than fifty years of studies regarding the known connection between disposal of wastewater in deep-injection wells and induced earthquakes.

What propelled me into researching and writing “Fracking Industrialization and Induced Earthquakes” was my attendance at the July 18, 2013 Fracking Conference at Rend Lake College, which was sponsored by Illinois DCEO, and witnessing a presentation by Robert Bauer of the Illinois State Geological Survey. For the event the presentation had the straightforward title “Hydraulic Fracturing, Horizontal Wells & Unconventional Oil/Gas Resources,” however in its YouTube treatment it was given the title “Are Environmentalists’s [sic] Concerns Over Fracking Valid?”

Now instead of addressing the real and substantive concern of damaging wastewater induced earthquakes as large as magnitude 5.7, Bauer tells the audience that fracking process does not induce felt earthquakes.
Bauer Completely avoided the fact that Fracking Wastewater Disposal has led to 6 to 9-fold increase in felt earthquakes in Midcontinent region,
WHILE mocking any concern over earthquakes as fracking only creates earthquakes that are the equivalent to the force of an apple hitting the ground from a 3-foot drop.

In reality, what seismologists and geophysicists have learned is the following…
Midcontinent 3.0+ earthquakes:
            1970-2000:             21 /yr
            2001-2008:             29 /yr
            2009:                      50
            2010:                      87
            2011:                      134-188

But they’ve known about this phenomena, and the mechanisms underlying it, since 1966…
Another one of Bauer’s Slides Reads: “Induced Seismicity Potential in Energy Technologies - National Research Council report 2012: Current process of hydraulic fracturing a well does not pose a high risk for inducing FELT seismic events…”
Bauer got this quote from page 85 of the 265 page report. Just three pages later, starting on page 88, is an in-depth analysis of felt earthquakes induced by fracking wastewater disposal in injection wells.

The problem here, once again, is that we have Government pretending right along with industry that there is not a single negative consequence of fracking industrialization…
What are we supposed to do when our government misinforms us, misleads us, so that we are less equipped to protect ourselves from obvious risks to public health and safety?

The level of mass industrialization of rural American due to fracking is truly unprecedented in American history. Regulating fracking is an absurd notion, and that has been demonstrated by the practice of other states, due to both staffing issues and the lethargic enforcement activity of states. While Texas had over 13,000 wells drilled in 2012, oil & gas companies were caught in 55,000 violations of state fracking laws, with only 2% of those violations actually being enforced.

The only way extraction industries exist at all is by leveraging risk. Corporations much prefer leveraging the risk of others, rather than taking that risk on themselves. That is standard operating procedure for extraction companies like oil & gas, because their real and actual costs of doing business is always far greater than any revenues that can be generated from such activities.
EXAMPLE OF COAL:
            Harvard Medical School Study
            State of Illinois’s deal with coal

However, they are open for business if they can find someone to take on that risk for them. This is where the government comes in and provides them with the perfect solution: we won’t make you clean up after yourselves, and you pass those exorbitant costs onto the unsuspecting public in the form of degradation of their environment and compromising their personal health.

We are not just merely the collateral damage of the toxin-laden extraction processes of fossil fuel industries, we are THE COLLATERAL ITSELF that allows this transaction to take place between the state and the industry.
We are human bargaining chips, and our value to the industry is in our declining health, our increasing hospital bills, our rising insurance premiums, and of funerals for the most vulnerable among us. As long as the oil & gas industry does not have to clean up after itself, those are the costs that we, THE PEOPLE, will be paying.

The strongest regulations would result in none of us dying from fracking, and the only way to achieve that end is to ban fracking, which is not only the only rational choice to make, but it is also the only constitutional and moral choice to make. Let us never forget that Article XI of the Illinois Constitution guarantees our “right to a healthful environment for the benefit of this and future generations.” That would make fracking an epic fail.

The video of Brent posted by Christopher Oliver:





I don't have video of Tabitha Tripp at the hearing but her inspiring comment is essential reading if you weren't there.

I live another 45 minutes south of here. When I took the time to drive all the way to Springfield last spring, to talk to legislators (who were always too busy to make time to talk,) it was a long trip and I am dedicated to protecting our communities.

I have been in this campaign to stop fracking for 22 months working with SAFE, IPA, Heartwood Forest Council, Vineyard Indian Settlement, RACE and the Shawnee Chapter of the IL Sierra Club.

You have seen me at each one of the hearings. Why? Because it is that important to us down here. It’s not enough to get a news report- we want to know exactly what happened.

Activist Don West says, “The abuse of the land has always gone hand in hand with the abuse of the people, It’s easy to take and frack or mine someone’s land if we have convinced the world- through news--that it’s inhabitants are disposable, poor white trash or in essence a Bunch of hillbillies”

I am native of southern Illinois, I am a graduate of SIU. I am a mother and a poet and we live on a 5th generation family farm with a deep well for water. I live in the boonies and often I don’t even have internet.
But that does not make us expendable to Oil and Gas industry. I might be a hillbilly, but I am proud of it.

It does not make us any less significant. This department and the state have done exactly that- deemed us disposable.

Sacrifice Zones have been determined throughout Southern IL as economically depressed and in need of stimulation via fracked wells and hydrocarbon extraction. Leaving us with ruined water, worthless land and health effects as far as the eye can see into the future, we will be no better off than when we started extraction technology 200+ years ago.

Not the stimulation my children were hoping for!

Officials and agencies entrusted to protect public health and the environment, have gutted laws and created industry loopholes. You’ve sold us out, just like our legislators did.

These rules do NOTHING to uphold the already lax safety guarantees set forth in Public Act 98-0022. That LAW states Section 1-75.2 All phases of HVHF shall be conducted in a manner that shall not pose a significant risk to public health, life, property, aquatic life or wildlife. There is NO part of regulation that will successfully allow safe fracking.

At the very least- if I am going to be reading the rules again, comparing them to the law passed in May and then substantiating my comments to prove the incompetency of these rules during this joyous holiday season, then the least I could do is bring you a partial list of scientific research as a my gift to you.
This compilation of papers includes:
-Radioactivity in Shale Deposits
USGS maps 100 year flood plain and Liquefaction maps due to Earthquakes
Several research papers on Fracking induced Seismicity
OSHA regulations on Exposure to Silica Dust and Toxic Chemicals
American Journal of Nursing Research on Fracking and Public Health
Research on Waterless Fracking
Peer Reviewed Publication Research on Air Quality near Fracking operations
FWW: The New Global Water Crisis and water demands and Climate Change scenarios
NRDC’s research on disposal of radioactive liquified oil field waste

By light of the yule log, I will be reading the ACLU guide on civil liberties to my children, because I am pretty sure at this point, the only way to maintain our right to a healthy environment, Article XI of the Illinois constitution, will be to defend those rights by force against our government and the corporations who have hijacked our democracy.

Quoting Don West: “In a hungry world the struggle between oppressor and oppressed is unending. The inevitable question “which side are you on?” To be content with things as they are, to be “neutral” is to take side with the oppressor who wants to keep status quo. To challenge the power of the oppression is the poet’s responsibility. Such action will preserve and build faith and hope in humanity. Nothing-NOTHING raises the spirit of the people more.”

Both comments show they understand the political dynamics of Illinois that causes them to be viewed as expendable people and collateral damage. Their own state legislators are taking six figures in campaign contributions from the industry and their actions reflect it. Too many Chicago legislators who normally protect the environment find it easy to shrug their shoulders and accept a little more damage to southern Illinois because the region has always suffered the consequences of energy consumption. Hillbillies are easy subjects for compromise.

But, the dynamics are rapidly changing. Too many people are drawing a line against fracking.

The Statehouse Bubble Bursts: Illinois Revolts Against Fracking

I have a new piece at Huffington Post about the incredible public response at the fracking hearings. It includes must see video from the Carbondale, Decatur and Effingham hearings.

The Chicago hearing had a raucous crowd, but the two southernmost hearings took a more ardent tone. In Carbondale and Ina, calls for nonviolent civil disobedience to resist fracking outnumbered those who merely asked for better rules to make it safe.

The defiant tone reached a crescendo with a fired up crowd of over 200 at the final hearing in Carbondale. Politicians and interested businessmen who believe fracking in Illinois is "inevitable" should watch video of the Carbondale hearing for a reality check about the stiff opposition they'll face.

Please share! You have one last day to submit comments on the proposed regulation to IDNR before the January 3 deadline.

Fracking Comments from Effingham. Even a Monkey Wouldn't Allow Fracking.

On a dark and foggy night, the Illinois Department of Natural Resources held a public hearing in Effingham to take comments on proposed fracking regulation. It was less well attended than other hearings after being quickly rescheduled to December 16 due to a snowstorm. I'm not kidding about the fog. The deer hanging out along the side of the highway didn't make the drive more fun either.

Despite the dangerous driving conditions and late rescheduling, citizens still came to speak out against fracking and weak regulation proposed in Illinois. Only three people spoke in favor of fracking and two of them admitted to working in the oil extraction industry.



In this first video, Nancy spoke about the restrictive rules on who has standing to request a public hearing for fracking permits. Since fracking fluids travel far, her water well could be poisoned by a fracking site for which she has no right to request a public hearing. "Of course Illinoisans can expect the oil and gas industry to badger the hearing officers tasked with deciding whether or not individuals have standing to request public hearings."

Bob, a Bond county resident, is worried about how much water fracking companies will use and where it will come from. The regulations place no limits on water usage and won't protect the depletion of streams and drinking water supplies, as happened in Texas fracked towns. "I have to haul water. Will I go to town and will there be 20 tanker trucks in front of me? I don't know."

Girwana spoke about the failure of the rules to regulate fracking operations that use water below specified levels. She also pointed out that DNR doesn't have to answer questions at public hearings. "How is the public to be assured that their concerns will be addressed if IDNR only has to sit and listen to them without responding."

Then a monkey owned by Gene from Makanda, Illinois made some of the most thoughtful comments of the evening about how extraction economies target and harm poor people. "We're between two major seismic zones. There's scientific evidence to show that fracking causes earthquakes and we are between two major seismic zones. It is scandalous that you would even consider doing this here. You all wear ties and I wear a monkey suit. I look like the weirdo, but no, look, you are the irresponsible ones here that are even considering doing this. ...This can't be made safe and it has to stop in Illinois."



Vito Mastrangelo spoke about his concern that, despite owning the mineral rights to his property in southern Illinois, horizontal fracking could happen underneath his land without his consent. Noise, light and other pollution from large scale fracking could dramatically change the region. "We're not talking about a few wells. This could look like a large city."

Jessica Fujan spoke for Food and Water Watch about Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs) and toxic open pits of fracking waste fluids. "DNR should disallow all permits until fracking is proven safe and risk free."

I'll post more video from the Effingham hearing tomorrow. Comments can still be submitted to DNR through January 3.

The impossible task of making fracking safe

The hearing on Illinois' proposed fracking rules at Rend Lake Community College featured two speakers who support fracking and an evening full of residents determined to stop fracking from coming to their communities. I'll post video and a summary soon, but for now, here are the comments I delivered at Tuesday's hearing.

Fracking regulation comments to IDNR made by Will Reynolds, December 3, 2013

I'm going to comment on several sections, including 310 on permit denial, section 1120 on penalties and 240 and 260 on public participation.

First, I’d like to say that I have sympathy for DNR today because you've been charged with an impossible task. You've been asked to make fracking safe, as Governor Quinn promised his inadequate fracking law would do, but we all know there's no evidence that fracking can be made reliably safe. You truly have an impossible task because the best practice is to not frack at all.

We also know that fracking causes more frequent earthquakes, as several studies have shown. An earthquake doesn't care what regulations you pass. We don't know what happens when you frack in major seismic zones like the Wabash and New Madrid fault lines. That means Illinois is being subjected to a massive science experiment with hundreds of thousands of area residents being used as human subjects.

Fines
Many citizens have expressed outrage at the puny fines proposed in these rules. But, there’s more cause for alarm. The section on penalties makes frequent use of the word “may.” The director of DNR or his designee may revoke permits and may impose fines. The words “shall” or “must” are conspicuously absent. This means companies with multiple violations may face little or no penalty at all.

That would not be unusual for this agency. Based on DNR’s cozy relationship with industry, and history of waiving penalties, there's no assurance that meaningful fines will be collected. Even when a fine is recommended, companies will have another chance to have it reduced or waived for a long list of easy excuses. What you're telling the public is that a multi-billion dollar industry that loses $1,000 in change between the seat cushions may not be punished at all.

Public Process
Section 240 says notices of public hearings for well permits will be posted in newspapers near the hearing site. There’s no requirement to post hearing notices online. I'd like to let the agency know that Nirvana’s first album was released over 20 years ago and that means it’s way past time to put everything on the internet.

Section 260 states the public comment period will only last 30 days, even though there’s a 60 day window to approve a permit. After a public hearing, comments can only be given on evidence presented at the hearing. That means people who find out about a proposed well after news coverage of a hearing, or after the 30 day time limit, will have no opportunity to present comments on new issues. Those restrictions needlessly make participation more difficult for the average citizen who doesn’t spend every day watching for permit filings.

In order for a public process to be meaningful, there must be a reasonable chance that the public can change the outcome of a decision. I don't see that in the rules. I see a hamster wheel that keeps people running in place, going through the motions while getting nowhere.

Reasons for denying a permit
Section 310 lists only four reasons to deny a permit. It does not list previous violations of Illinois regulation as a reason to deny a permit.

Some of us have seen how this game works before. For example, when members of the public point out that a company applying for a mine permit has a long list of violations, we’re told that old violations from other sites can’t be considered during the permitting process. There’s no accountability for past bad behavior when companies seek new permits.

The scenario we’re facing is that, at DNR’s discretion, a company may rack up hundreds of environmental violations, pay zero penalties, and still receive new permits to do even more damage. If these regulations are going to be meaningful then DNR will have to put on your big boy pants, finally stand up to industry and start saying "no" to permits for bad actors.

Fracking v. Cougars

These are two unrelated actions by two separate divisions of the agency. But, does it reflect misplaced priorities toward nature and resources?

Five public hearings on the proposed fracking regulations are coming up over the next month and you can comment online.

Illinois Fracking Hearings Added in Decatur, Effingham, Carbondale

Illinois Department of Natural Resources added three public hearings on proposed fracking rules in Effingham December 5, Decatur December 17, and Carbondale December 19. They're in addition to hearings already announced in Chicago on November 26, and Rend Lake College December 3.

The hearings are an opportunity for anyone to make comments on the fracking rules, or simply show opposition to the massive assault planned on Illinois' environment. More details are at IDNR's website.