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February 14, 2007
Lobbyist, Fed Lawyer Share Vacation Home
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 10:53 p.m. ET
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Nine months before agreeing to let ConocoPhillips delay a
half-billion-dollar pollution cleanup, the government's top environmental
prosecutor bought a $1 million vacation home with the company's top
lobbyist.
Also in on the Kiawah Island, S.C., house deal was former Deputy Interior
Secretary J. Steven Griles, the highest-ranking Bush administration official
targeted for criminal prosecution in the Jack Abramoff corruption probe.
Just before resigning last month, Assistant Attorney General Sue Ellen
Wooldridge signed two proposed consent decrees with ConocoPhillips: one
giving the company as much as two to three more years to install $525
million in pollution controls at nine refineries and the other dealing with
a Superfund toxic waste cleanup.
Last April, Wooldridge, ConocoPhillips Vice President Donald R. Duncan and
Griles had gone together on a $980,000 home in a gated community at Kiawah
Island. Records from the Charleston County Auditor's office obtained by The
Associated Press list Duncan as a 50 percent owner of the home and
Wooldridge and Griles as 25 percent owners.
The deed is filed under Duncan's name, but the mailing address for the South
Carolina property -- tucked among pines, palmettos, a pool, golf course and
racket club several hundred yards from the beach -- is Griles' home in
Virginia. He and Wooldridge jointly own a condo there.
The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee said Wednesday night it
will open an inquiry and request documents into the real estate transaction
and consent agreements.
''There appears to be a breakdown of ethics at the Justice Department, said
the committee's chairman, Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif. ''Senior Justice
Department officials should not be handling cases that affect their close
friends and investment partners.''
Griles, now an oil and gas lobbyist, began dating Wooldridge while he was
her boss at Interior. He was the department's No. 2 official from July 2001
to January 2005, behind only former Secretary Gale Norton. He and Duncan, a
ConocoPhillips vice president who runs the company's Washington office, both
served on President Bush's presidential transition team, Griles for the
Interior Department, Duncan for the Energy Department.
Duncan has played a major role in getting the Bush administration's backing
for a proposed $25 billion natural gas pipeline reaching from Alaska to
Midwest markets.
Wooldridge and Griles have known each other at least since the first year of
the Bush administration in 2001, when Wooldridge became deputy chief of
staff and counselor to then-Secretary Norton. Bush used a recess appointment
to make Wooldridge the department's solicitor -- its top lawyer -- in June
2004.
After she became solicitor, Wooldridge told the department's ethics office
she and Griles had begun dating, an Interior spokesman said.
From 2001 through 2004 Duncan was lobbying the department on a wide range of
issues. The topics, according to his lobbying records on file with the
government, included oil leases in the eastern Gulf of Mexico, coal-bed
methane in the San Juan Basin of New Mexico and the Powder River Basin in
Wyoming, and permits for the proposed Alaska natural gas pipeline.
After Griles resigned from Interior, Bush appointed Wooldridge to head the
Justice Department's 600-employee environment division, representing
virtually every federal agency on cases related to pollution, natural
resources, wildlife, some Indian issues and land condemnation. She began
work at Justice in November 2005. The division is now handling about 6,800
cases nationwide.
Griles, meanwhile, had signed up as lobbying clients the American Petroleum
Institute, Newmont Mining Corp. and other energy and mining clients with a
broad range of legal and financial interests before the government.
As for the vacation home, Stephen W. Grafman, Wooldridge's attorney, said
she paid for her share and was told by the Justice Department's ethics
office a month before the sale went through ''that the purchase was not a
problem.''
''There was no need to recuse herself from ConocoPhillips since she was
advised by the appropriate ethics officials that there was not a conflict,''
Grafman said. ''Mr. Duncan invested in the property as an individual and
friend. He has no business before the environment division. He never lobbied
Ms Wooldridge on an issue on behalf of himself. In point of fact, he never
lobbied her on behalf of ConocoPhillips.''
A Justice Department spokeswoman, Cynthia Magnuson, confirmed that
Wooldridge ''sought the advice of ethics officials who informed her that the
purchase did not raise ethical issues.''
Magnuson said the consent decrees with ConocoPhillips ''were approved
through the normal management channels and were presented to Sue Ellen with
the unanimous recommendations of her career staff as well as those of the
EPA.''
Griles' lawyer, Barry M. Hartman, called the home ''a shared investment
among people who have been close personal friends for years. What exactly is
wrong with three close personal friends sharing a vacation/rental home?''
Wooldridge submitted her resignation letter to the Justice Department on
Jan. 8, three days after other prosecutors in the department met with Griles
to outline criminal charges they are seeking against him. She said in the
letter she wanted to return to work in the private sector.
The federal task force heading the Abramoff corruption probe also has become
interested in Wooldridge and her connections to Griles, people familiar with
the investigation said on condition of anonymity, citing the issue's
sensitivity.
Paul Light, a professor at New York University's Wagner School of Public
Service and an expert on presidential appointees, said Wooldridge's
participation in the Kiawah Island partnership and the ConocoPhillips
settlement ''creates the impression of favoritism, or favors due.''
''From an appearance standpoint it's awful, and from a legal standpoint it's
questionable,'' Light said Wednesday. ''Political appointees have been
indicted for less.''
Wooldridge's last day at Justice was Jan. 19. All of the other parties to
the ConocoPhillips agreement -- four states, the Environmental Protection
Agency, a local pollution control agency in Washington state, and the
company -- signed it in November.
Wooldridge's signature is not dated, but the document with it as well as the
other signatures weren't submitted to the U.S. District Court in Houston,
where ConocoPhillips is headquartered, until Jan. 11. It was published in
the Federal Register on Jan. 25, triggering a 30-day public comment period
before U.S. District Judge Sim Lake can decide whether to approve or reject
it.
One of the proposed agreements would change the terms of a major air
pollution settlement announced with fanfare in 2005 by Wooldridge's
predecessor at the Justice Department, Thomas Sansonetti. In addition to
installing a half-billion dollars in new pollution controls, ConocoPhillips
agreed to pay a $4.5 million fine to settle charges of Clean Air Act
violations.
The new agreement Wooldridge signed delays many of the deadlines the
government had imposed on the company -- some by two to three years -- for
cutting emissions of chemicals from its refineries that cause smog and soot.
It also postponed by more than a year some potential penalties and pollution
reporting requirements. The agreement cited damage to a refinery in Belle
Chasse, La., from Hurricane Katrina as justification for some of the delays.
EPA referred all comment to the Justice Department.
Wooldridge did not list her purchase of the South Carolina resort community
home with Griles and ConocoPhillips' Duncan in a financial disclosure report
she submitted a month after the real estate deal. That report covered
calendar 2005 and Wooldridge resigned before having to submit a financial
disclosure report covering 2006.
The other refineries covered in the consent decree are in the Los Angeles
and San Francisco areas in California, Roxana, Ill., Linden, N.J., Trainer,
Pa., Borger and Old Ocean, Texas, and Ferndale, Wash.
Wooldridge also put her undated signature on a proposed consent decree filed
in January involving ConocoPhillips and a Superfund toxic waste site. The
agreement calls for nearly 100 companies to pay $500,000 in damages and up
to $10 million to clean up an 8-acre former solvent recycling facility in
Elkton, Md., that closed in 1988.
Separately, Justice Department prosecutors notified Griles by letter last
month that he faces possible criminal charges of lying to Congress and fraud
under a 1988 law that says citizens are entitled to ''honest services'' from
public officials.
The charges involve questions about whether Griles passed on information
from Abramoff to other Interior officials and falsely testified in 2005
before the Senate Indian Affairs Committee about Abramoff's attempts to hire
him away from Interior. Abramoff is serving about six years in prison for a
fraudulent deal to buy a fleet of casino ships in Florida and awaits
sentencing in Washington after pleading guilty to corrupting government
officials and their staff members with bribes.
ConocoPhillips and Duncan had no comment.
On Monday, ConocoPhillips notified the Securities and Exchange Commission of
changes in its bylaws and ethics code. The company reiterated its policy
that the ''promise, offer or delivery to an official or employee of the U.S.
government of a gift, favor or other gratuity in violation of these rules
would not only violate company policy but could also be a criminal
offense.''
Lobbyist, Fed Lawyer Share Vacation Home
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 10:53 p.m. ET
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Nine months before agreeing to let ConocoPhillips delay a
half-billion-dollar pollution cleanup, the government's top environmental
prosecutor bought a $1 million vacation home with the company's top
lobbyist.
Also in on the Kiawah Island, S.C., house deal was former Deputy Interior
Secretary J. Steven Griles, the highest-ranking Bush administration official
targeted for criminal prosecution in the Jack Abramoff corruption probe.
Just before resigning last month, Assistant Attorney General Sue Ellen
Wooldridge signed two proposed consent decrees with ConocoPhillips: one
giving the company as much as two to three more years to install $525
million in pollution controls at nine refineries and the other dealing with
a Superfund toxic waste cleanup.
Last April, Wooldridge, ConocoPhillips Vice President Donald R. Duncan and
Griles had gone together on a $980,000 home in a gated community at Kiawah
Island. Records from the Charleston County Auditor's office obtained by The
Associated Press list Duncan as a 50 percent owner of the home and
Wooldridge and Griles as 25 percent owners.
The deed is filed under Duncan's name, but the mailing address for the South
Carolina property -- tucked among pines, palmettos, a pool, golf course and
racket club several hundred yards from the beach -- is Griles' home in
Virginia. He and Wooldridge jointly own a condo there.
The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee said Wednesday night it
will open an inquiry and request documents into the real estate transaction
and consent agreements.
''There appears to be a breakdown of ethics at the Justice Department, said
the committee's chairman, Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif. ''Senior Justice
Department officials should not be handling cases that affect their close
friends and investment partners.''
Griles, now an oil and gas lobbyist, began dating Wooldridge while he was
her boss at Interior. He was the department's No. 2 official from July 2001
to January 2005, behind only former Secretary Gale Norton. He and Duncan, a
ConocoPhillips vice president who runs the company's Washington office, both
served on President Bush's presidential transition team, Griles for the
Interior Department, Duncan for the Energy Department.
Duncan has played a major role in getting the Bush administration's backing
for a proposed $25 billion natural gas pipeline reaching from Alaska to
Midwest markets.
Wooldridge and Griles have known each other at least since the first year of
the Bush administration in 2001, when Wooldridge became deputy chief of
staff and counselor to then-Secretary Norton. Bush used a recess appointment
to make Wooldridge the department's solicitor -- its top lawyer -- in June
2004.
After she became solicitor, Wooldridge told the department's ethics office
she and Griles had begun dating, an Interior spokesman said.
From 2001 through 2004 Duncan was lobbying the department on a wide range of
issues. The topics, according to his lobbying records on file with the
government, included oil leases in the eastern Gulf of Mexico, coal-bed
methane in the San Juan Basin of New Mexico and the Powder River Basin in
Wyoming, and permits for the proposed Alaska natural gas pipeline.
After Griles resigned from Interior, Bush appointed Wooldridge to head the
Justice Department's 600-employee environment division, representing
virtually every federal agency on cases related to pollution, natural
resources, wildlife, some Indian issues and land condemnation. She began
work at Justice in November 2005. The division is now handling about 6,800
cases nationwide.
Griles, meanwhile, had signed up as lobbying clients the American Petroleum
Institute, Newmont Mining Corp. and other energy and mining clients with a
broad range of legal and financial interests before the government.
As for the vacation home, Stephen W. Grafman, Wooldridge's attorney, said
she paid for her share and was told by the Justice Department's ethics
office a month before the sale went through ''that the purchase was not a
problem.''
''There was no need to recuse herself from ConocoPhillips since she was
advised by the appropriate ethics officials that there was not a conflict,''
Grafman said. ''Mr. Duncan invested in the property as an individual and
friend. He has no business before the environment division. He never lobbied
Ms Wooldridge on an issue on behalf of himself. In point of fact, he never
lobbied her on behalf of ConocoPhillips.''
A Justice Department spokeswoman, Cynthia Magnuson, confirmed that
Wooldridge ''sought the advice of ethics officials who informed her that the
purchase did not raise ethical issues.''
Magnuson said the consent decrees with ConocoPhillips ''were approved
through the normal management channels and were presented to Sue Ellen with
the unanimous recommendations of her career staff as well as those of the
EPA.''
Griles' lawyer, Barry M. Hartman, called the home ''a shared investment
among people who have been close personal friends for years. What exactly is
wrong with three close personal friends sharing a vacation/rental home?''
Wooldridge submitted her resignation letter to the Justice Department on
Jan. 8, three days after other prosecutors in the department met with Griles
to outline criminal charges they are seeking against him. She said in the
letter she wanted to return to work in the private sector.
The federal task force heading the Abramoff corruption probe also has become
interested in Wooldridge and her connections to Griles, people familiar with
the investigation said on condition of anonymity, citing the issue's
sensitivity.
Paul Light, a professor at New York University's Wagner School of Public
Service and an expert on presidential appointees, said Wooldridge's
participation in the Kiawah Island partnership and the ConocoPhillips
settlement ''creates the impression of favoritism, or favors due.''
''From an appearance standpoint it's awful, and from a legal standpoint it's
questionable,'' Light said Wednesday. ''Political appointees have been
indicted for less.''
Wooldridge's last day at Justice was Jan. 19. All of the other parties to
the ConocoPhillips agreement -- four states, the Environmental Protection
Agency, a local pollution control agency in Washington state, and the
company -- signed it in November.
Wooldridge's signature is not dated, but the document with it as well as the
other signatures weren't submitted to the U.S. District Court in Houston,
where ConocoPhillips is headquartered, until Jan. 11. It was published in
the Federal Register on Jan. 25, triggering a 30-day public comment period
before U.S. District Judge Sim Lake can decide whether to approve or reject
it.
One of the proposed agreements would change the terms of a major air
pollution settlement announced with fanfare in 2005 by Wooldridge's
predecessor at the Justice Department, Thomas Sansonetti. In addition to
installing a half-billion dollars in new pollution controls, ConocoPhillips
agreed to pay a $4.5 million fine to settle charges of Clean Air Act
violations.
The new agreement Wooldridge signed delays many of the deadlines the
government had imposed on the company -- some by two to three years -- for
cutting emissions of chemicals from its refineries that cause smog and soot.
It also postponed by more than a year some potential penalties and pollution
reporting requirements. The agreement cited damage to a refinery in Belle
Chasse, La., from Hurricane Katrina as justification for some of the delays.
EPA referred all comment to the Justice Department.
Wooldridge did not list her purchase of the South Carolina resort community
home with Griles and ConocoPhillips' Duncan in a financial disclosure report
she submitted a month after the real estate deal. That report covered
calendar 2005 and Wooldridge resigned before having to submit a financial
disclosure report covering 2006.
The other refineries covered in the consent decree are in the Los Angeles
and San Francisco areas in California, Roxana, Ill., Linden, N.J., Trainer,
Pa., Borger and Old Ocean, Texas, and Ferndale, Wash.
Wooldridge also put her undated signature on a proposed consent decree filed
in January involving ConocoPhillips and a Superfund toxic waste site. The
agreement calls for nearly 100 companies to pay $500,000 in damages and up
to $10 million to clean up an 8-acre former solvent recycling facility in
Elkton, Md., that closed in 1988.
Separately, Justice Department prosecutors notified Griles by letter last
month that he faces possible criminal charges of lying to Congress and fraud
under a 1988 law that says citizens are entitled to ''honest services'' from
public officials.
The charges involve questions about whether Griles passed on information
from Abramoff to other Interior officials and falsely testified in 2005
before the Senate Indian Affairs Committee about Abramoff's attempts to hire
him away from Interior. Abramoff is serving about six years in prison for a
fraudulent deal to buy a fleet of casino ships in Florida and awaits
sentencing in Washington after pleading guilty to corrupting government
officials and their staff members with bribes.
ConocoPhillips and Duncan had no comment.
On Monday, ConocoPhillips notified the Securities and Exchange Commission of
changes in its bylaws and ethics code. The company reiterated its policy
that the ''promise, offer or delivery to an official or employee of the U.S.
government of a gift, favor or other gratuity in violation of these rules
would not only violate company policy but could also be a criminal
offense.''
