Harris McDowell is using public office for personal gain – The Smoking Gun
I wish that the statement above had the ability to shock, but for people who have been watching McDowell for a while it is not shocking. McDowell works for Delmarva Power. Ho hum. McDowell is working to establish a six-figure job for himself in the manner of Roger Roy.
No duh.
These are simple facts that are not hard to prove. Frankly, I wish it were more difficult to prove that Harris McDowell has repeatedly broken his oath of office. The fact that it is so easy to prove makes me think that a large number of people must already know what he is doing…and that they don’t mind.
Actually, one person did notice McDowell’s greedy machinations and that person did seem to mind. The story of that knowing and acting on the knowledge provides another layer to the sedimentary history of McDowell’s serial abuse of the public trust. In fact, it is a glittery and interesting layer of that dank history because Harris McDowell was rebuked for his greed and indiscretion in no uncertain terms.
It was a rebuke so stinging that a person with a conscience would have had to resign from public office in shame. (McDowell has no shame however, so the normal rules of decent behavior seem to be lost on him.)
So who was this person who saw through McDowell’s “green energy” champion act? You’ll never guess so I’ll tell you.
It was Ruth Ann Minner. Or at least the office of the Governor.
As I have discussed here [link] McDowell has not exactly been circumspect in his malfeasance. This instance of clumsy abuse of his chairmanship dates back to the closing days of the 141st General Assembly in 2001. As the Legislature tried to push to the finish line in mid-June of 2001 Harris McDowell introduced SB235 with one co-sponsor, Roger Roy.
Reading the bill out of context here online, it does not seem too shocking. It actually sounds kind of boring:
This Act directs the State Energy Office to establish standards and regulations governing the state facilities energy management plan for implementation by the Division of Facilities Management.
Okay.
This Act establishes the Delaware Green Energy Committee within the State Energy Office and places the environmental incentive fund, created by 26 Del. C. §1014(a) during electric deregulation, under the direction and control of the Committee.
Knowing what we now know about McDowell that part sounds pretty odd. The deregulation legislation created a fund by charging Delmarva and Conectiv customers a small surcharge that would be used to help individuals and businesses put up solar panels and such. In SB235 McDowell is making a play for that money. But, again, unadorned legislation is kind of dry. What makes SB235 interesting are the little clues to McDowell’s malfeasance that you can find on the margins.
For example:
SA 1 to SB 235
HA 1 to SB 235
HA 2 to SB 235
HA 1 to HA 1 to SB 235
That’s three amendments to the bill and one amendment to an amendment. And then there is this:
Committee Reports: Senate Committee report 06/20/01 03:00 pm F=0 M=3 U=0
House Committee Report 06/26/01 F=0 M=5 U=0
Voting Reports: Senate vote: () Passed 6/21/01 5:25:04 PM
House vote: () Passed 6/30/01 7:36:33 PM
Senate vote: () Passed 7/1/01 12:47:02 AM
So it looks like McDowell’s nest feathering bill is flying all over Leg Hall as the clock ticks down on the 141st GA. And if I were going to try and sneak myself a six-figure salary I’d do it when the crush of other business had everyone looking the other way. But – the most interesting thing is this:
Vetoed On 08/01/2001
Ruth Ann Minner is not liberal with the veto pen and I’m pretty sure that this is the only bill she vetoed that term. So I called the clerk of the Senate to see if there was an explanation for the veto. He was very nice and said that there probably was a “veto message” and suggested I contact the Governors office. Which I did. The Governors office was very helpful (but slow), and I happened to be in Dover last week so I stopped by the State Achieves to see if they had the veto message.
It was at the state achieves I opened the SB235 folder and found the most shockingly direct, brutal smack down of any public figure that I’ve ever read.
It begins with the usual niceties wherein the Governor explains that her action is constitutional and…
” I take this action because of serious operational and structural problems presented by the bill, particularly those caused by an amendment to the bill which was introduced on June 28 2001, passed by the house of representatives late in the evening on June 30, 2001 and passed by the senate shortly after midnight on July,1, 2001.
but then starts in. First dealing with the fact that in his stupidity and shortsightedness he wrote the legislation in such as way that it cut out the Division of Facilities Management.
Senate Bill 235 places the sole authority for ‘development, promulgation and maintenance’ of state facilities energy management plan in the hands of the State Energy Office. This task has previously been the express responsibility of the division of Facilities management. I do not believe that it is wise to divest the Division of Facilities Management, which bears responsibility for containing the cost of maintaining state facilities, from any role in developing and maintaining energy management plans. For those facilities.
That was just one of the practical issues. The veto message starts to simmer when it moves onto the fact that the McDowell/Roy bill basically misappropriates funds that were collected for a specific purpose:
Senate Bill 235 expands the allowed use of ‘environmental incentive fund’ monies in a manner that is contrary to the purpose for which those monies were originally collected from electricity customers. As originally created by the legislature during the electric deregulation process, the environmental incentive fund was to be used for “environmental incentive programs for conservation and efficiency.” In other word, the fund was to be used to provide incentives to persons within the DP&L/Conectiv service area to take steps promoting conservation and energy efficiency. S.B. 235 dramatically expands the allowed use of these funds to include grants of up to $1 million to persons presenting ‘a feasible business plan…for the development of a product directly related to renewable energy property…” Thus, under S.B. 235, grants of up to $1million could be to persons or companies to develop renewable energy equipment, which companies could then sell without any requirement of reimbursement to the State of Delaware. Drawing huge sums of money out of the fund for private projects that may be of little or no benefit to energy conservation in Delaware is inconsistent with the purpose of the environmental incentive fund.
Could that have been a mere oversight by the author of the bill? Did he intend to make that significant of a change? It will not take long to find out. In the next paragraph we get to the “money shot” as they say in the porn industry.
Senate Bill 235 also contains language which would eliminate an important condition that the legislature put on the expenditure of environmental incentive find money when the fund was created: that the money be spent within the service are covering those customers who created the fund through their payment of the DP&L and Conectiv bills. The legislature placed this condition of the environmental incentive fund monies to ensure that those funds were not spent out of state or even in those portions of the state that had not contributed to the fund. However, House amendment No. 1 to S.B. 235 eliminated this requirement altogether.
He is basically trying to direct money to his constituency outside of the country to build incinerators that are not even legal to use within Delaware. And by the way, if you want to know just how fixated was McDowell with incinerators, just consider that fact that the DSWA worked up some teaching materials on McDowell’s behalf which introduced elementary school students to the wonderful world of “waste to energy.” [The materials are still in use. PDF link]
McDowell’s’ hubris is breathtaking at this point, but WAIT..there is more. Like this next paragraph in which McDowell is shown to be setting himself up as the “Green” Energy Czar.
Senate Bill 235 also removed from the President Pro Tem of the Senate and the Speaker or the House the authority to appoint representatives to the body that would distribute environmental incentive fund money and instead afforded those appointments to the chairs of the Senate Energy and transit Committee and the House Telecommunications Committee. This is a substantial departure from the manner in which legislative appointments are normally made.
A departure to be sure, but when you are talking about Harris McDowell you are talking about a man so brazen in his corruption – so seemingly untouched by any agreed upon standard of ethical conduct that he decided to go for the gusto and provide himself with the funding for trips and meals. I shit you not. Read this:
Senate Bill 235 also gives the board of the “Delaware Center for Green Energy” permission to use environmental incentive find money to pay for its members to take trips, pay for meals, and retain consultants – all without any limitation or approval of any state agency. The original version of S.B. 235 prior to its amendment (not to mention the existing statute governing the environmental incentive fund) required that the fund be used only for grants to third parities relating to energy conservation.
The last time I wrote about McDowell I called him brazenly corrupt, but that language seems to fail in someway to describe McDowell’s loathsomeness. I feel like I have to coin a new word, like “Pornchy” or something in order to relate the fact that McDowell is in unplumbed depths of mega-malfeasance.
Well, unplumbed but not unheard of. I’m pretty sure McDowell hatched his schemes under the tutelage of Roger Roy who created the same kind of quasi-public entity called the Transportation Management Association. I’m not surprised that Roy co-sponsored the bloody abortion called SB235 and worked on the amendments. Roy must have been feeling like he figured out how to print money after having engineered the TMA scam. (For more on the TMA see Dana Garrett’s June 2006 post here.)
The only thing that I’m missing to tie all of this together is the authorizing legislation for the TMA that, I’ll bet reads word for word like the “Delaware Center for Green Energy” authorizing legislation. Knowing how lazy and stupid McDowell is I’d lay $100 bucks that he simply used white out the change the words “Transportation Management Association” to ” “Delaware Center for Green Energy.”
So that is it. If ever a document proved McDowell has violated his oath of office, it is this veto message. Of Course, it is not the Governors place to initiate ethics proceedings against a Senator – but from the tone of this message I get the feeling that somone in the executive branch might have thought about it.
Ethics investigation or not, it is abundantly clear that McDowell has been trying to pull a Roger Roy for a while and just when it looks like it is going to happen for him – stupid Blue Water Wind steps up and makes his dream of being paid to be a non-lobbyist lobbyist for Delmarva Power under the ruse that he is promoting “conservation” flies out the window. Why?
Because Delmarva Power is wedded to coal and natural gas. A successful off shore wind park would set into motion a process that would hasten the end of that dirty antiquated business model and mean that Pepco Holdings Inc. could lose out on maybe 25 years worth of coal and gas based profit.
Luckily they have a man inside who they have been working with for years. Lucky for them, unlucky for us.
Awesome Jason!
We’ve known this was out there but haven’t been able to pick up the threads that would lead to the smoking gun. You did it Jason! SB235 was simply a license to steal from the Delmarva ratepayers. And good on Ruth Ann and her staff for stopping it.
BTW, I was talking to a PDD member who installed solar panels under the State incentive program and it is working out very well for them. The pay-back period was projected for 10-years and they now calculate that it is going to come in around 7-years. We should all jump on this program before McDowell figures out some way to put the incentive funding in his pocket.
He will keep trying to get the green energy incentive money.
That much is clear.
…and just an aside.
You don;t have to be wearing a tin foil hat to know that there are major international poltical and economic implications to allowing the McDowell’s of the world to play their greedy little games
On a semi-related note, you may have read that Roger Roy has changed his registration. Just wondering if it’s to vote for John Carney since Roger’s wife, Paula, is the well-paid chief staffer for the Delaware Health Care Commission, which is chaired by…John Carney.
BTW, the Delaware Health Care Commission is a key impediment to genuine health care reform as it has members from the insurance industry, health care industry, hospital and nursing home industry, all looking out for their financial self interests, along with a few lonely ‘consumers’. No wonder ‘single payer’ has been dismissed as out of hand by the Commission.
Sorry for the digression. One outrage at a time…
Not at all. It goes to show how these semi-public/private boards (upon which Delamarva Power always has a seat) really pull the strings.
McDowell is going after something much bigger than the Green Energy Fund. He wants to use proceeds from the auction of carbon allowances under the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), which could amount to $30 million annually, to finance the Sustainable Energy Utility or SEU (SB 18). He was succesful in creating the SEU with a wink and a nod from Delmarva to the Senate Democratic leadership. Delmarva is relying on the SEU to manage its energy conservation and efficiency activities under the Integrated Resources Plan. The SEU suffers from the same lack of controls and accountability that Jason points out in McDowell’s attempt to create the Delaware Center for Green Energy. The quid pro quo being McDowell’s inexplicable and intractable opposition to the offsore wind energy project. It’s deja vu all over again.
Nice work, Jason. I wonder what it takes to impeach the guy? We could rid the state of him and have a Dem appointed. It’s been months since our last special election…
That is absolutely the quid pro quo. Thanks for turning it back toward the SEU and the carbon allowances.
My prior post dealt with that and I neglected to bring it full circle.
Oh, but you’ve done more than bring this issue full circle, Jason. You’ve connected the dots. Great blogging.
click recommend over at delawareonline guys…keep this one on the front page…
http://www.delawareonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/section?category=PluckPersona&U=73c0d40e54f648e98bde264d62dd1f4f&plckPersonaPage=BlogViewPost&plckUserId=73c0d40e54f648e98bde264d62dd1f4f&plckPostId=Blog%3a73c0d40e54f648e98bde264d62dd1f4fPost%3ae2fb0dcc-1385-452c-ad43-6cabd0d8839f&plckController=PersonaBlog&plckScript=personaScript&plckElementId=personaDest
Charles Potter, Jr., DE Senate in ’08
….hope McD won’t call in all his chits between now and then
Very well done, Jason! My hats off to you. I wish I had known more about this type of underbelly material to McDowell’s tenure in the ’06 race.
Unfortunately it probably wouldn’t have stopped his re-election by the 50% Democrat party control of the 1st SD. But the public should know and continue to be informed any way possible.
There was a lot about McDowell’s energy dealings I didn’t have the ability to penetrate in that campaign. To me it always seemed bizarre that McDowell held himself out as some sort of energy progressive, knowing what the real cast to his dealings was.
I always felt Senator McDowell’s “energy expertise” and campaign claims of support for energy alternatives were more a cover for him, allowing him to hide in plain site, if you will, for being Senator Delmarva.
I admittedly savaged him for it in our one debate, demanding to know why there has been such little movement on renewables notwithstanding his lip service and claims of leadership on the issue. His response was Bushian : “”Lots of this stuff takes a long time to accomplish.” http://delawarewatch.blogspot.com/2006/10/tyler-nixon-isnt-just-goodhe-is-best_30.html
I said I thought 30 years was long enough to wait for him to act in the right on any number of issues, not just energy.
Anyhow, count me in as a candidate in the special election, if it happens.
If the SEU money grab (SB228) goes through he is out for sure. If it fails he might still be out if he does not think he can get anything out of the well that he has poisoned.
Thanks Tyler. He had not overplayed his hand so much back when you were running against him and let’s face it there are some gullible people out there.
Even Green Delaware was spilt on whether or not to endorse him.
A special election would be good for the system and I think you’d be a great candidate for that seat – but let’s get McDowell out first.
This is some great stuff. Tip o’ the hat.
Carper, Minner, Carney, McDowell and Castle….aint a dimes worth of difference between them. Carney and Markell could both do all more if they truly back wind power…they could be on the airwaves/campaign trail every day..pushing it, why aren’t they?
Everyone’s touting someone or another to run against McDowell. I think Tommywonk is well-positioned should he decide to take him on and, yes, he lives in Harris’ district.
However, McDowell’s would-be opponents are all gonna have to unite behind one candidate, otherwise the opposition will splinter and enable him to survive despite falling well short of 50%.
Just a word to the wise…
Very well done. Strange how Mr. “Bloggers aren’t real writers/journalists” Fulcher is strangely absent.
Tip o’ the hat
“On a semi-related note, you may have read that Roger Roy has changed his registration. Just wondering if it’s to vote for John Carney since Roger’s wife, Paula, is the well-paid chief staffer for the Delaware Health Care Commission, which is chaired by … John Carney.”
I thought having anonymous surrogates spread baseless accusations against others was a Republican tactic.
I’ll give Jason credit for his research on this, but if El Somnambulo has some evidence of a quid pro quo that relates to Paula Roy and the Health Care Commission then out with it.
My advice — either do your homework and comment on what you know or shut your day old bread hole.
While we’re on the subject of changing party registrations (thanks El Somnambulo), it might interest you to know that another prominent Republican has also changed his registration.
Nathan Hayward — the guy who basically corn holed the state’s Transpiration Trust Fund. Guess who he’s voting for … Jack Markell.
Well, Fonzy, here’s the membership of the Delaware Health Care Commission:
Delaware Health Care Commission Membership
Chair
John C. Carney Jr.
Lieutenant Governor, State of Delaware
Commission Members
Theodore W. Becker, Jr.
Lisa C. Barkley, MD
Dean, College of Health and Public Policy, Delaware State University
Richard S. Cordrey
Secretary, Delaware State Department of Finance
Matthew Denn
Insurance Commissioner
Delaware Department of Insurance
Carol Ann DeSantis
Secretary, Delaware Department of Services for Children, Youth and Their Families
A. Richard Heffron
Senior VP for Government Relations, Delaware State Chamber of Commerce
Vincent P. Meconi
Secretary, Delaware Health & Social Services
Janice E. Nevin, MD, MPH
Chair, Department of Family & Community Medicine, Christiana Care Health Services
Dennis Rochford
President, Maritime Exchange for the Delaware River and Bay
and here’s the Executive Director:
Paula Roy, Executive Director, E-mail: Paula.Roy@state.de.us
Are you telling me that the Roys changed to vote AGAINST the guy who put Paula in that position? Now THAT’d be news…
Fonz says – “who basically corn holed the state’s Transportation Trust Fund…..”
but not
….as a Cabinet Secretary under the Minner-Carney administration who must have let him do it w/o any oversight on their part.
Fuck’s sake. Half of Greenville is going BLUE for Markell?
Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.
Good work on this post, Jason. This is looking like it is going to be the biggest story of the year.
This is excellent work, Jason. I suppose it should not surprise anyone that the energy-backwardness of Delaware is the result of cynical self-dealing by not just the power company, but by its legislative enablers.
If the NJ doesn’t pick this up, perhaps a bunch of us ought to print this up and drop a copy in every doorway in the 1st SD.
You eat with that mouth, willing? Classy
Dude, the goosebumps I got from reading this was like seeing our planet earth rising above the moonscape for the first time.
“Roger Roy has changed his registration.”
LOL. If that’s true, I might know why he did, but I cannot say. Do you know when (if?) he changed his registration?
Jason,
After reading this masterpiece, I am doing deep bows in your direction and saying enthusiastically, “You, Sir, are the master of the Delaware blogosphere!”
We all have our moments – the sad thing is that there is enough corruption in this state for 1,000 bloggers to be the king for a day.
Why is it when I link to Jason’s post from DE Watch, it doesn’t show up here on DE Lib like DePol.net & Kavips?
I have no idea, Dana. Pingbacks and how they work are still a little fuzzy in this geeky mind…
going out on a limb and saying b/c you aren’t wordpress?
I blame Burris for his pingback issue.
Thank you for your excellent work. The information about Minner’s veto shows that there is space between her and McDowell that can be exploited to stop McDowell. I think there could also be space between McDowell and Delmarva on many issues. Their interests happen to coincide exactly in the case of Bluewater, but in other situations there may be options that benefit Delmarva, but not McDowell or vice-versa, Understanding these could be useful in stopping the juggernaut.
If ever I have seen a mountain from nothing this is it. Legislation from seven years ago that attempts to create incentives for alternative energy sources that will not necessarily come from Delaware is what the bill attempted. The rest of what is posted here is basically slander and/or libel. I wonder about the timing of this… any chance you are on the BluewaterWind payroll?? Hmmm I bet you are.
Hawley –
Thanks for the giggle. I needed a little cheering up after last night.
Anyway, if McDowell finds it slanderous I hope he sues me. Dragging all of the evidence of his malfeasance into court would expose it to a much wider world.
As for me being on the Blue Water payroll. I wish. Do you know if they are taking resumes?
Slander and/or libel? Of a public official for printing what he’s done? Good luck with that.
Hawley,
we thank you for visting, stop back for more instances of libel. I promise I will satisfy your lawyerly lust for lawsuits. I assume you are a liberal, b/c no Republican likes lawyers and lawsuits…
Bluewater payroll? Jason is a stark-raving liberal, his pay is from the STATE! (snark snark snark snark snark snark!!!)
Jason, my friend, with all the recent trolls and “Hawley’s” comments, all I can say is, you truely have arrived (it’s measured in trolls, you know)! I feel like a proud sibling, one that is disappointed with your political choices, but damned proud of you here. I may even build that deck for you. Nah.
you don’t even make black sheep status smitty
so says my “personal” sheep. At least you’re hot.
Geek, I tagged this post 9 days later and the tag didn’t show as a comment. Just an FYI. I would think keeping track of comments added posthumously would be a function required to “preserve the brand, so to speak…..”. As I now write, it suddenly occurs to me that with the number of links in my “Outside the Perimeter” post…..I probably got sent to spam.
So never mind….
What a story, but I find it hard to believe,wondering where they got the facts.