It only LOOKS like bribery

[mburbank]

Energy firms paying tab for GOP trip
USA TODAY


By Jim Drinkard, USA TODAY

A dozen or more congressional Republicans will gather at a resort in balmy Phoenix this week to hear the legislative wish lists of Western coal, power and mining companies - and raise money from them.

The four-day conference begins today with a $1,500-per-person round of golf and private dinner, dubbed "Mulligans and Margaritas." The money raised from industry officials will be divided among the re-election campaigns of the lawmakers, most of whom serve on committees that oversee the mining and energy industries.

Members of Congress often take privately sponsored trips. Such trips are allowed under ethics rules if they are primarily for fact-finding or other official business.

But guidelines issued by the House ethics committee warn the chamber's members "to avoid even the appearance that solicitations of campaign contributions are connected in any way with an action taken or to be taken in their official capacity."

The conference includes panel discussions with policymakers interspersed with cocktail receptions, dinners and two other golf tournaments. One agenda item: drawing up a "Top Ten To-Do List" for Congress for 2004.

"It is a festival of access-buying," says Frank O'Donnell of the Clean Air Trust, an environmental group often at odds with the conference's industry sponsors.

The event was organized by the Western Business Roundtable, which lobbies for reduced government regulation and other pro-business policies. Its members include utilities, mining companies, railroads and energy companies.

On its Web site, the group claims credit for a long list of lobbying successes. Among them: getting the Environmental Protection Agency (news - web sites) to loosen rules governing toxic mercury emissions from power plants.

Jim Sims, the group's executive director, said industry sponsors will pay the food and lodging tab for members of Congress and other government participants. Rooms at the Arizona Biltmore Resort & Spa start at $395 a night. Sims rejected O'Donnell's characterization, calling the event "an open-ended Western issues conference" that will focus on proposals to rewrite clean-air laws and the energy bill stalled in Congress.

Attendees include Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., chairman of the Senate Energy Committee, and representatives of the Energy and Interior departments and the EPA.

Sims said House members confirmed as attending include Reps. Rob Bishop and Chris Cannon of Utah; Jim Kolbe of Arizona; Denny Rehberg of Montana; Darrell Issa of California; and Tom Tancredo of Colorado.