Politics/Policy
Name That LLC Can you identify the companies that made these donations to super PACs and other outside groups? 1.
$50k
TO THE PRO-JEB BUSH SUPER PAC RIGHT TO RISE. ITS ONLY IDENTIFYING INFORMATION IS THE ADDRESS OF A SERVICE COMPANY IN DELAWARE THAT SERVES AS ITS REGISTERED AGENT.
2.
$100k
TO RIGHT TO RISE. THIS LLC SHARES A MAILING ADDRESS WITH PIVOTAL GROUP, AN ARIZONA REAL ESTATE INVESTMENT FIRM RUN BY FRANCIS NAJAFI, WHO ALSO GAVE $100,000 IN HIS OWN NAME TO A PRO-RAND PAUL SUPER PAC.
3.
$1m
TO RIGHT TO RISE. IN EARLY AUGUST, A BILLIONAIRE COAL BARON NAMED CHRISTOPHER CLINE CONFIRMED HE’S BEHIND THE LLC, REGISTERED IN CHARLESTON, W.VA.
groups—known as 501(c)4s, after the section of the tax code that defines them—which don’t have to disclose the source of their funding at all. But, unlike super PACs, these groups aren’t supposed to spend all their money influencing elections. The biggest LLC donation of the presidential race has been a $1 million check to Right to Rise, a super PAC aligned with Jeb Bush, from Jasper Reserves. A Florida billionaire named Christopher Cline identified himself to Bloomberg as the source of the money. Cline is a coal baron whose 164-foot yacht, Mine Games, has its own two-person submarine. Then there’s MMWP12, one of the biggest donors to an independent advocacy group supporting John Kasich’s presidential run. In early August, the Center for Public Integrity traced the LLC’s $500,000 donation to Mark Kvamme, a venture capitalist and offroad-truck enthusiast who used to work in the Ohio governor’s administration. Reached by phone, Kvamme is happy to share his opinion of Kasich. “I worked for the guy,” he says. “I saw him do what he did in Ohio. The guy is spectacular.” But Kvamme won’t talk about any connection to MMWP12. “Let them report whatever they want to report,” he says. “I’m not confirming or denying. It is what it is.” —Zachary R. Mider The bottom line Individuals with LLCs, not just major corporations, are making use of looser rules governing election contributions.
4.
$500k
TO AN INDEPENDENT ADVOCACY GROUP BACKING OHIO GOVERNOR JOHN KASICH. ITS PARENT COMPANY LISTS MARK KVAMME, A VENTURE CAPITALIST WHO WORKED IN KASICH’S ADMINISTRATION, AS ONE OF ITS TWO OFFICERS.
5.
$150k
TO RIGHT TO RISE. THIS COMPANY WAS FORMED IN DELAWARE LAST APRIL. RIGHT TO RISE SAYS IT DOESN’T HAVE A MAILING ADDRESS FOR IT AND IS SEEKING THAT INFORMATION.
Environment
What a Load of (Pig) Crap! The EPA delays promised rules to control 300 million tons of effluent “Are the creeks and streams showing the effects … ? Yes”
Rene Miller grew up on a seven-acre slip of Duplin County, N.C., where her mother, Daisy, raised corn, chickens, and hogs. Now, what was a neighbor’s tobacco farm across the narrow twolane road is a field where a giant sprinkler sprays waste from an industrial hog-raising operation onto whatever happens to be planted there—corn, hay, soybeans. The force of the liquefied manure is so strong it splatters
the street sign Miller installed to mark Daisy Miller Lane. “I can’t go out in my yard to watch the cars go by. I can’t put my clothes out on the line,” she says. “It stinks.” Duplin County has the nation’s highest concentration of industrial hog farms, with about 2 million pigs and 60,000 people. Environmental groups estimate the state’s 8 million hogs produce about 14 billion gallons of waste a year. Nationally, according to the most recent report by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, feedlots for cattle, dairy cows, hogs, and poultry produce 300 million tons of manure a year. The problem is how to dispose of it. In the swine facilities, hogs in groups of more than 20 are put into stalls with slats in the floor. Their feces and urine go through the openings and out pipes into open-air lagoons that can hold 180 days worth of waste. The industry says the holdings allow bacteria to break down the waste and gobble up pathogens. In its ideal state, the wastewater becomes free fertilizer for adjoining crop fields. “The application of waste is something that’s become more and more popular because it’s recycling,” says Kraig Westerbeek, who oversees environmental compliance at Smithfield Foods, the world’s largest hog producer and pork processor, which has contract farms and packing operations in North Carolina. Yet nutrient-rich runoff from spray fields like the one across from Miller’s farm also nurtures algae blooms that choke rivers by depleting them of oxygen. North Carolina has seen blooms in the Cape Fear River and fish kills in the Neuse River since hog feedlots moved in 30 years ago. The farms “are inarguably the biggest source of nutrients to the coastal region,” says Larry Cahoon, a University of North Carolina at Wilmington professor who studies water quality in the Cape Fear River. “Are the creeks and streams showing the effects of nutrient loading? Yes.” In 2010, after being sued by the Waterkeeper Alliance and other environmental groups, the EPA pledged to reconsider a rule issued during the George W. Bush administration exempting feedlots from having to disclose hazardous emissions to the agency and the public. Five years later, the EPA hasn’t done anything about it. On July 13 agency lawyers went back to court
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1. Fulton Street 2. DFX 3. Jasper Reserves 4. MMWP12 5. Tread Standard
