Global Warming Hysteria....It's all about money and politics. The latest proclamation that the next 10 years are critical is transparently political. Hmmm...let's see....2 more years of Bush plus 8 years of Gore (or Hillary?) = 10. What an amazing coincidence!
They can't model what has happened or accurately predict what will happen, but they're certain about the next 10 years.
They're already lining up at the government trough. The socialists and their proxy, the environmental movement, want to play kingmaker again, as they always do. In return for which the money will flow once again.
Some interesting information about our would be world savior, Al Gore;
GORE & MOLTEN METAL TECHNOLOGY, INC.
Inventors of a new process to convert campaign contributions into government contracts.
Timeline
1989 Molten Metal Technology, Inc. (MMT) founded by William Haney. The company seeks to develop a process by which hazardous and nuclear wastes can be melted down and recycled into useful products. (The Village Voice, 4/1/97)
1993 MMT was one of 18 firms to obtain research grants to find ways to rid the nation of nuclear waste. The grant was $1.2 million. "Department of Energy (DOE) consultants warned that Haney’s process offered ‘no significant advantage’ to ‘justify its preferred development’ over rivals’." (Time, 6/9/97)
February 1993 Molten becomes a publicly-traded company. (Forbes, 1/22/96)
September 1993 MMT opens its Fall River, Mass. plant. Peter Knight arranged for Assistant Energy Secretary Thomas Grumbly to be a guest speaker at the plant’s opening. "Grumbly suggested that the firm could receive as much as $200 million in federal work, which sent the stock soaring." (Time, 6/9/97)
January 1994 The Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory reports that Molten’s new process was probably inappropriate for the kind of waste at most nuclear weapons sites. (Time, 6/9/97)
March 1994 The General Accounting Office states that Molten’s technology was at least 13 years from full development. (Forbes, 1/22/96)
March 24, 1994 Molten contributes $15,000 to the Democrat National Committee (DNC). (Federal Election Commission [FEC] reports)
The same day, Molten receives a $9 million federal contract extension from the DOE. (Time, 6/9/97)
August 1994 MMT forms a limited partnership with Lockheed Martin Corporation, M4 Environmental L.P. (MMT press release, 10/23/95)
April 1995 Al Gore travels to the Molten plant in Fall River, Mass., calling Haney a "shining example of American ingenuity." (Time, 6/9/97)
June 14, 1995 Molten executives and employees contribute $10,000 to the Clinton/Gore ’96 campaign. (Time, 6/9/97)
The same day, Molten receives a $10 million federal contract extension from DOE. (Time, 6/9/97)
Late 1995 A technical peer-review panel says the DOE should cease funding Molten at the end of the fiscal year (November 1995). (Time, 6/9/97)
May 7, 1996 Molten contributes $10,000 to the DNC. (Time, 6/9/97)
May 10, 1996 Molten receives an $8 million contract extension from DOE. (Time, 6/9/97)
June 27, 1996 Lockheed Martin contributes $100,000 to the DNC. (Time, 6/9/97)
September 25, 1996 The Molten/Lockheed partnership receives a $27 million federal contract. (Time, 6/9/97)
October 1996 DOE announces it would grant Molten an $8 million research contract through March 1997, $12 million less than investors expected. Within a day, Molten’s stock sinks 49 percent in value. (Forbes, 4/21/97)
October 23, 1996 DOE issues statement expressing enthusiasm for Molten’s process. (MMT press release, 10/24/96)
December 1996 A DOE panel concludes that Molten’s technology poses environmental and safety risks and might not be cost-effective. (Time, 6/9/97)
February 12, 1997 San Diego-based law firm Milberg Weiss files class action suit in U.S. District Court (Mass.). (The Village Voice, 4/1/97) The stockholder’s class action suit charged that Haney and other company officials gave unrealistically rosy projections about Molten’s prospects to investors in 1995 and 1996. (Forbes, 4/21/97)
The Players
Peter Knight is "the hub of Gore’s political circle. He ran Gore’s House and Senate office for years, helped finance his campaigns and chaired the Clinton-Gore re-election effort in 1996. … From where he stood between Haney and Grumbly, Knight came up with a fruitful arrangement: he began lobbying the Gore appointee [Grumbly] on behalf of the businessman he was soliciting for Gore campaign cash." (Time, 6/9/97)
William Haney is a "former Gore campaign staffer," according to The Washington Times, 5/31/97, and a former fundraiser for Gore, according to Forbes, 1/22/96. Haney founded MMT in 1989 and sought to mine lucrative government contracts for environmental clean-up.
Thomas Grumbly is a "Gore protégé." (Time, 6/9/97) He "was staff director of the Subcommittee on Investigations and Oversight of the House Science and Technology Committee from 1981 to 1982." (PR Newswire, 7/22/87) Until recently, he was the Clinton/Gore-appointed Assistant Energy Secretary in charge of the government’s nuclear waste clean-up program.
Eugene Berman, who was MMT’s Vice President of Governmental and External Affairs, has had a long relationship with Grumbly. They both worked together at Clean Sites Inc. "NONPROFIT Clean Sites Inc. appointed Thomas P. Grumbly president and Eugene Berman executive vice president. Clean Sites is a nonprofit organization that encourages the cleanup of hazardous waste sites." (The Washington Post, 8/17/87)
The Quid-Pro-Quo
All told, MMT, its employees and Lockheed Martin contributed just over $218,000 to Clinton/Gore and the Democrats and received over $60 million in government contracts over a four-year span. If the $218,000 were a business investment, and the $60 million worth of contracts the payoff, it would be the equivalent of a 27,423 percent return. The booming Dow Jones Industrial Average, by comparison, only grew by 69 percent between March 1994, when MMT made its first contribution, and December 1996.
MMT, its officers and employees contributed a total of over $118,000 to the Clinton/Gore campaign, the Democrat Party and other Democrat candidates for office between 1993 and 1996. (FEC reports)
"Knight arranged extraordinary access for a small contractor like Haney. He got him or his top executives into 10 meetings with Grumbly over two years. Haney and Grumbly dined together three times at such Washington haunts as Sam and Harry’s and the Prime Rib. Haney also accompanied Knight to a select dinner party at the Vice President’s residence." (Time, 6/9/97)
The DOE office which oversaw the awarding of government nuclear waste clean-up contracts, until recently headed by Grumbly, "has awarded Haney’s Molten Metal Technology $33 million to test its process on the poisoned remains of nuclear-weapons proving grounds – more money than 17 other companies have received collectively to do the same job." (Time, 6/9/97)
On three occasions, MMT’s quid fell within three days of the DOE’s quo. On March 24, 1994, MMT gave the DNC $15,000 and received a $9 million contract extension on the same day. On June 14, 1995, MMT executives gave Clinton/Gore ’96 $10,000 and received a $10 million extension the same day. On May 7, 1996, MMT gave $10,000 to the Democrat Party and got an $8 million extension three days later.
Haney formed a partnership with another lobbying client of Knight’s, the Lockheed Martin corporation. Lockheed’s $100,000 donation to the DNC on June 27, 1996 netted a $27 million contract on Sept. 25, 1996, to develop a clean-up plan for a site in Richland, Wash. (Time, 6/9/97)
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