The Pebble Partnership has grabbed headlines recently by attacking an EPA scientist and claiming EPA somehow violated federal law by communicating with Alaskans.
It’s all a phony story, of course, to pump up fear around the bogey man of “federal overreach.” But there’s a healthy dose of irony here, because while the Pebble people are crying foul on EPA, the proponent of the Chuitna coal strip mine in Upper Cook Inlet – Delaware-based PacRim Coal – has been actively working behind closed doors with the Corps of Engineers and other government agencies to get needed permits.
Tom Collier is the lawyer and the CEO of the Pebble Partnership who concocted the idea EPA violated the Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA), an obscure federal law passed during the Nixon Era to promote more transparent government. When Mr. Collier worked for Bill Clinton in the Department of Interior, he got hit with allegations similar to the one he’s hurling now, and he apparently got some ideas.
