Obama’s Energy Secretary Nominee Reveals Assets and Posts, Including BP, GE and Saudi Arabia

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Obama’s nominee for Energy Secretary has recently disclosed his connections to corrupt oil corporations like BP and General Electric, including other interests in Saudi Arabia.

U.S. President Barack Obama arrives for an event announcing the nominations of MIT professor Ernest Moniz as Energy Secretary, Gina McCarthy, to head the Environmental Protection Agency and Sylvia Mathews Burwell, the President of the Walmart Foundation, as his budget chief, during a ceremony in the East Room of the White House March 4, 2013 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images)

By JG Vibes
Intellihub.com
April 1, 2013
It’s no secret that monopolist corporations work so closely with the government that they are arguably the same entity, this fact is highlighted by the revolving door that exists between these two different factions of the ruling class.  Most people who find themselves in high level political positions were once CEO’s of fortune 100 companies and those who aren’t will likely become a well-connected lobbyist upon leaving office.
Some obvious examples of this revolving door would be Dick Cheney, former vice president and top executive at Halliburton, Michael Taylor of both the FDA and Monsanto or Goldman Sachs CEO turned treasury secretary Henry Paulson.  Each of the crooks in question undoubtedly used their political positions to influence events in such a way that would greatly benefit their respective businesses, this is commonplace in Washington.
Now with Obama’s most recent nominations for various regulatory agencies, that revolving door is just as present as it ever was.
According to the New York Times:
President Obama’s nominee for energy secretary, Ernest J. Moniz, is a consultant to the energy giant BP and a member of the advisory council and board of trustees of King Abdullah Petroleum Studies and Research Center, of Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, among other positions, according to disclosure statements filed with the government and released on Friday….

In all, he holds assets worth $4.6 million to $17.9 million. He is also a consultant to General Electric and IHS CERA, the consulting firm formerly known as Cambridge Energy Research Associates, and a director at American Science and Engineering of Billerica, Mass., a company that does security work, including cargo screening.

The following is taken from the Edmonds Institute and found through Rense, this list gives a comprehensive look at the revolving door that exists between the political and corporate world:
David W. Beier . . .former head of Government Affairs for Genentech, Inc. . . . chief domestic policy advisor to Al Gore when he was Vice President.
Linda J. Fisher . . .former Assistant Administrator of the United States Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Pollution Prevention, Pesticides, and Toxic Substances…now Vice President of Government and Public Affairs for Monsanto Corporation.
Michael A. Friedman, M.D. . . former acting commissioner of the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Department of Health and Human Services . . .now senior vice-president for clinical affairs at G. D. Searle & Co., a pharmaceutical division of Monsanto Corporation.
L. Val Giddings . . . former biotechnology regulator and (biosafety) negotiator at the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA/APHIS) . . .now Vice President for Food & Agriculture of the Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO).
Marcia Hale . . . former assistant to the President of the United States and director for intergovernmental affairs . . .now Director of International Government Affairs for Monsanto Corporation.
Michael (Mickey) Kantor. . . former Secretary of the United States Department of Commerce and former Trade Representative of the United States . . . now member of the board of directors of Monsanto Corporation.
Josh King . . . former director of production for White House events. . . now director of global communication in the Washington, D.C. office of Monsanto Corporation.
Terry Medley . . . former administrator of the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) of the United States Department of Agriculture, former chair and vice-chair of the United States Department of Agriculture Biotechnology Council, former member of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) food advisory committee…and now Director of Regulatory and External Affairs of Dupont Corporation’s Agricultural Enterprise.
Margaret Miller . . . former chemical laboratory supervisor for Monsanto, . . .now Deputy Director of Human Food Safety and Consultative Services, New Animal Drug Evaluation Office, Center for Veterinary Medicine in the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA).*
Michael Phillips . . . recently with the National Academy of Science Board on Agriculture . . . now head of regulatory affairs for the Biotechnology Industry Organization.
William D. Ruckelshaus . . . former chief administrator of the United States Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA), . .now (and for the past 12 years) a member of the board of directors of Monsanto Corporation.
Michael Taylor . . . former legal advisor to the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA)’s Bureau of Medical Devices and Bureau of Foods, later executive assistant to the Commissioner of the FDA… still later a partner at the law firm of King & Spaulding where he supervised a nine-lawyer group whose clients included Monsanto Agricultural Company… still later Deputy Commissioner for Policy at the United States Food and Drug Administration, . . . and later with the law firm of King & Spaulding… now head of the Washington, D.C. office of Monsanto Corporation.*
Lidia Watrud . . . former microbial biotechnology researcher at Monsanto Corporation in St. Louis, Missouri, . . .now with the United States Environmental Protection Agency Environmental Effects Laboratory, Western Ecology Division.
Jack Watson. . .former chief of staff to the President of the United States, Jimmy Carter, . . .now a staff lawyer with Monsanto Corporation in Washington, D.C.
Clayton K. Yeutter . . . former Secretary of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, former U.S. Trade Representative (who led the U.S. team in negotiating the U.S. Canada Free Trade Agreement and helped launch the Uruguay Round of the GATT negotiations), now a member of the board of directors of Mycogen Corporation, whose majority owner is Dow AgroSciences, a wholly owned subsidiary of The Dow Chemical Company.
Larry Zeph . . . former biologist in the Office of Prevention, Pesticides, and Toxic Substances, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, . . . now Regulatory Science Manager at Pioneer Hi-Bred International.
*Margaret Miller, Michael Taylor, and Suzanne Sechen (an FDA “primary reviewer for all rbST and other dairy drug production applications” ) were the subjects of a U.S. General Accounting Office (GAO) investigation in 1994 for their role in the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s approval of Posilac, Monsanto Corporation’s formulation of recombinant bovine growth hormone (rbST or rBGH). The GAO Office found “no conflicting financial interests with respect to the drug’s approval” and only “one minor deviation from now superseded FDA regulations”. (Quotations are from the 1994 GAO report).
This situation is an inevitable consequence of a process known as “regulatory capture”.  According to the Mises Wiki page:
Regulatory capture is a theory associated with George Stigler, a Nobel laureate economist. It is the process by which regulatory agencies eventually come to be dominated by the very industries they were charged with regulating. Regulatory capture happens when a regulatory agency, formed to act in the public’s interest, eventually acts in ways that benefit the industry it is supposed to be regulating, rather than the public.
Beyond this it is even more typical for those involved in monopolist corporations to develop quiet and cooperative relationships with people who already have political power, this allows them to direct  policy from behind the scenes by simply befriending or bribing politicians.
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J.G. Vibes is the author of an 87 chapter counter-culture textbook called Alchemy of the Modern Renaissance, a staff writer, reporter for Intellihub.com and Executive Producer of the Bob Tuskin Radio Show. You can keep up with his work, which includes free podcasts, free e-books & free audiobooks at his website www.aotmr.com