Southern Company, the parent firm of Alabama Power, has been named one of the world's top producers of global-warming pollution. Interestingly, the company has close financial ties to President George W. Bush.
British journalist Leonard Doyle, of The Independent, says Southern Company has contributed an extraordinary $6.2 million to Republican campaigns since 1990. The company's employees contributed more than $217,000 to help Bush get elected twice.
A single Southern Company plant in Juliette, Georgia emits more carbon dioxide annually than Brazil's entire power sector. And Southern Company ranks among the top two of America's dirtiest utility polluters, the sixth worst in the world. The information comes from the first-ever worldwide database of global-warming pollution.
"The link between massive cash contributions by America's power companies and political arm-twisting in Washington has rarely been put into such sharp relief," Doyle writes. "Environmentalists have long suspected that President Bush's dogged refusal to sign up to international agreements to control global warming was linked to campaign contributions."
Doyle reports that Haley Barbour, one of Southern Company's primary lobbyists when Bush took office, played a key role in persuading him to back away from campaign promises to reduce CO2 emissions when he first ran for president in 2000. Barbour recently was re-elected governor of Mississippi.
We have focused heavily here at Legal Schnauzer on the notion that Republicans have put our justice system up for sale. Now it looks like they have put the environment up for sale, too.
The Southern Company has also (since 1966) contributed heavily to BOTH PARTIES before and while they were in office.
ReplyDeleteIt's the same as most major corporations.....they want to be sure that have some influence with the ruling administration.