Just a little look at your money

Just a little look at three stories today about corporations and industry groups who have milked the legislative process to make billions.

The first and most obvious is the Pentagon's decision to reimburse Halliburton for almost all of its billings that were in dispute in Iraq on its no bid contracts. This story is being blogged everywhere so I'm not going to detail it.

Next, and far more interesting to me, is this Time magazine article about how the synfuel "industry" managed a small change in the massive budget bill which will net them billions in tax breaks. What they've done is increase their tax break subsidy, which was originally intended to help develop oil alternatives, by getting an artificially low oil price established, which determines the baseline for their subsidy, through lobbying and legislation.

I don't know if you remember the details on the synfuel "industry," but all that's required to gain this tax break is to "chemically alter" coal so that it qualifies. In some cases, the coal is simply sprayed with diesel before being transferred to the coal power plant next door. According to the legislation, this qualifies as an alternative energy program. Time estimates that from 2003-2005, before this new artificial price floor, this program cost $9 billion dollars.

Well worth a read.

Last, and certainly not least, is this WaPo article about the Bush administration once again disclaiming science for industry. Short version, after a fire in a national forest, "the Bush administration believes loggers should move in quickly, cut marketable trees that remain and replant a healthy forest."

The science is against this, but what grabbed me was this little bit down in the article. "Logging after fires is becoming more and more important to the bottom line of timber companies. It generates about 40 percent of timber volume on the nation's public lands, according to Forest Service data."

Hmmmm. I wonder which party the logging industry donates to.....

(This is my first entry lily's Corruptco blogfest, a week highlighting corrupt and questionable business practices. I'll do a couple more throughout the week.)