Who Picked Palin?

[JDPriestly]

This may have been posted last weekend, but I am posting this information again because it is the key to the whole Palin candidacy.

Palin's baby was born April 16 or 17, 2008.

Here is the local news item on that birth:
. . . .

Just yesterday, Palin was in Texas at a forum on energy with Texas Gov. Rick Perry and executives from four other states.

Palin was asked at the forum whether or not she would accept an offer by Republican presidential candidate John McCain to share the national ticket as vice presidential nominee.

She said she would accept, according to reports from a Texas newspaper.

http://www.ktuu.com/global/story.asp?s=8194634

In this light, I (as OpEd News had done before me) asked:

"What was she doing in Texas that was so important that she couldn’t leave, and that she didn’t want to highlight by giving birth in Texas?"

Reported to be a "forum on energy with Texas Gov. Rick Perry and executives from four other states", it took a little digging to find that this forum was a closed-door affair hosting a select group of nine Republican governors and such notable corporate energy VIPS (and polluters) as Greg Boyce, chairman and CEO of the Peabody Energy Corp.; John Hofmeister, president of Shell Oil; Robert A. Malone, chairman and president, BP America; Anthony Orlando, president and CEO, Covanta Energy Corp.; and John Somerhalder II, chairman and CEO, AGL Resources.

It is important, too, to understand that the host, Governor Rick Perry, is the governor neatly trained to take Bush's spot in the Texas Governor's mansion. Before that, Perry defeated Jim Hightower for Texas Agricultural Commissioner with the help of Karl Rove and his scurilous tactics.

Perry is also the father of Dick Cheney's son-in-law, the lawyer Phillip Perry, who has bounced back and forth for the last several years between lobbying for Lockheed Martin and working for the White House. His wife, Elizabeth Cheney, though a mother of five herself, is a hawk for attacking Iran and has worked in the Bush Cheney State Department.

http://www.opednews.com/articles/Sarah-Palin-and-the-Closed-by-Barbara-Bellows-Te-080831-733.html

Greg Boyce:

Gregory H. Boyce
Greg Boyce is Peabody Energy’s Chairman and Chief Executive Officer. He was elected to the Board of Directors in March 2005, assumed responsibility as President and CEO on Jan. 1, 2006, and was elected Chairman of the board on Oct. 10, 2007. He joined Peabody in 2003 as President and Chief Operating Officer and has extensive U.S. and international management, operating and engineering experience.

Previously Greg served as Chief Executive Officer for Energy for Rio Tinto PLC. His prior positions include President and Chief Executive Officer of Kennecott Energy Company; President of Kennecott Minerals Company; and Director of Government and Public Affairs of Kennecott Corporation. He also served as Executive Assistant to the Vice Chairman of Standard Oil.

Greg’s leadership positions include Vice Chairman of the World Coal Institute, member of the National Coal Council (NCC) and Study Chair of NCC’s 2006 report, “Coal: America’s Energy Future.” Greg serves on the board of directors of Marathon Oil Corporation. He is also a member of the Coal Industry Advisory Board of the International Energy Agency. He is a Board member of the Business Roundtable, the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity (ACCCE) and the National Mining Association. Greg is a member of the Board of Directors of the St. Louis Regional Chamber and Growth Association and a member of Civic Progress in St. Louis. He is a member of the Board of Trustees of St. Louis Children’s Hospital; the School of Engineering and Applied Science National Council at Washington University in St. Louis; and the Advisory Council of the University of Arizona’s Department of Mining and Geological Engineering.

http://www.peabodyenergy.com/Profile/ManagementTeam.asp

John Hofmeister Founder and CEO Citizens For Affordable Energy

John Hofmeister was named President of Houston based Shell Oil Company in March 2005. In this position, he heads the US Country Leadership Team, which includes the leaders of all Shell businesses operating in the U.S. Mr. Hofmeister became President after serving as Group Human Resource Director of the Shell Group, based in The Hague, The Netherlands.

He earned bachelor's and master's degrees in political science from Kansas State University. He has lived and worked in North America, Europe and Asia. Mr. Hofmeister is a member of the Department of Energy's new Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Technical Advisory Committee and a member of the Board of Directors, the Executive Committee and the Policy Committee of the American Petroleum Institute.

Mr. Hofmeister served as Chairman of the Board of the Partnership from 2007- 2008.

http://www.houston.org/boardMembers/bios.asp?bioID=202246

Hofmeister on Charlie Rose

John Hofmeister is president of Shell Oil Company, the U.S. division of Royal Dutch Shell. Shell reported global earnings of $27.6 billion last year and is the second largest public oil company in the world. He's also been highly vocal about the environment and proclaimed his support for the global warming argument and called for the U.S. government to place caps on CO2 emissions. Hofmeister also advocates increased drilling on U.S. territories in order to relax our dependence on OPEC and foreign supply.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/charlie-rose/my-conversation-with-john_b_93632.html

Here is Hofmeister's energy plan:

Shell Oil has formulated a 12-step program, Hofmeister said, that “enables us to move forward as a society, that enables us to maintain our economic competitiveness and our beloved lifestyle.”

Shell Oil's plan calls for:

* Opening up currently restricted areas to increase domestic oil and gas production;
* Developing unconventional oil and gas resources, specifically the oil shale of Colorado and the oil sands of Canada;
* Using new technology to turn coal into synthetic gas;
* Augmenting the current supply of natural gas with liquefied natural gas;
* Developing biofuels from sources other than those needed for food, such as algae, straw and woodchips;
* Devising new wind technologies;
* Speeding the development of solar energy technology;
* Improving hydrogen energy technology by focusing on developing hydrogen fuel cell powered vehicles;
* Controlling carbon dioxide emissions nationwide, not on a state-by-state basis;
* Incentivizing alternative energy solutions to make them more appealing to average Americans;
* Promoting energy education across the nation; and
* Using more nuclear and geothermal energy.

http://www.udel.edu/PR/UDaily/2008/may/global050808.html

(My opinion: not bad in the abstract, but what does it mean and I would put the last alternative energy solutions as the top priorities.)

Robert A. Malone

Education: He holds a Bachelor of Science in Metallurgical Engineering from the University of Texas at El Paso, and was an Alfred P. Sloan Fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology where he received a Master of Science in Management.
Career: Bob Malone started his career in 1974 as a junior metallurgical engineer at Kennecott Copper Corporation in Ely, Nevada. Over the next 4 years, he had various plant and environmental engineering roles which in 1977 lead to an operational leadership position as Director of Health, Safety, and Environment (HSE) for the Nevada division. In 1979, Bob became the Manager of Safety and Security for the western mining division located in Salt Lake City, Utah, and then went on to become Assistant to the Chairman and President of Kennecott Corporation in 1980.

In 1981, Kennecott was acquired by Standard Oil of Ohio (SOHIO), and in 1987, British Petroleum acquired SOHIO, and Kennecott became part of BP Minerals America. During this period, Bob was the Director of HSE for both Kennecott and BP America.
From 1988 to 1989, Bob was a Sloan Fellow at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His next BP post was the Vice President of Operations at the Carborundum Company of Niagara Falls - a subsidiary of BP America, Inc. In 1993, he became President of BP Pipelines Alaska, and then in 1996, Mr. Malone was appointed as President and Chief Operating Officer of Alyeska Pipeline Service Company (APSC), operator of the Trans Alaska Oil Pipeline.

http://www.bp.com/sectiongenericarticle.do?categoryId=9021818&contentId=7040637

Anthony J. Orlando,
Director

Anthony J. Orlando was named President and Chief Executive Officer in October 2004 and was elected director in September 2005 and is a member of the Public Policy Committee. Previously, he had been President and Chief Executive Officer of Covanta Energy since November 2003. From March 2003 to November 2003 he served as Senior Vice President, Business and Financial Management of Covanta Energy. From January 2001 until March 2003, Mr. Orlando served as Covanta Energy's Senior Vice President, Energy-from-waste. Previously, he served as executive Vice President of Covanta Energy Group, Inc. Mr. Orlando joined Covanta Energy in 1987.

http://www.covantaholding.com/site/management/anthony-orlando.html

John W. Somerhalder II was named president and chief executive officer of AGL Resources (NYSE: ATG) in March 2006 and elected as chairman of company’s board of directors in November 2007. AGL Resources is an Atlanta-based natural gas company serving 2.2 million customers in six states. The company also operates natural gas distribution systems, markets natural gas at wholesale and retail, and owns and operates dark fiber optic network infrastructure.

Somerhalder joined AGL Resources from El Paso Corporation (NYSE: EP) where he spent almost 30 years with El Paso and its predecessor entities, rising through the ranks from engineer to president of El Paso Pipeline Group and executive vice president of El Paso Corporation. As president of the El Paso Pipeline Group, Somerhalder oversaw 3,600 employees at pipelines throughout the United States. They included the Tennessee Gas, Southern Natural Gas, El Paso Natural Gas, ANR, Colorado Interstate Gas, WIC, and Mojave Pipeline organizations. He also oversaw El Paso’s interest in Southern LNG (Elba Island) and the company’s 50 percent ownership of Florida Gas Transmission and Great Lakes Transmission.

John Somerhalder serves on the board of the American Gas Association, the Gas Technology Institute, the Metro Atlanta Chamber of Commerce, and the Georgia Chamber of Commerce. He was elected Director of Quicksilver Gas Services GP LLC in July 2007. He has served as past chairman of INGAA and the INGAA Foundation.

Somerhalder holds a bachelor of science degree in chemical engineering from the University of Arizona. He and his wife, Rebecca, live in Atlanta. They have four grown children and two grandchildren.

http://www.aglresources.com/about/bios_Somerhalder.aspx

Now, I would like to make it clear that in posting this information, I respect these gentlemen and their companies. I do not want to demonize them. Far from it. Their companies help provide the energy we are using right now as we communicate on the internet.

They should certainly be included at the table where decisions about energy policy and the direction of our country are made. But then, so should we.

I do not recall having been invited to the energy conference at which the important decision about Sarah Palin was apparently hatched.

I note that Mr. Hofmeister appeared on Charlie Rose. That certainly shows a willingness to enter into dialogue with the public. But, let's face it. For the most part, the decision-making by bigwigs like these guys is done behind closed doors. And their decisions are dictated by the interests of the companies they represent and stockholders who pay them. They are not paid to have my interests or your interests at heart. And, while they will claim that the interests of their companies are our interests, that is a decision that only you an I can make and only after full disclosure of just what their proposals and interests are.

Clearly they think or at least some of them think that putting Sarah Palin into the presidency is in their interest. So now my question is: What is it that this wealthy bunch of guys find so interesting about putting Palin in the presidency. And once I know that, I will ask whether I share the interest.

(And, considering McCain's age, etc., we are very likely talking about a Palin presidency within ten years if she becomes VP.)

[rosesaylavee]

1. OMG

I don't think I saw this yet. So if its a repost, thanks for that.

K & R

[JDPriestly]

3. I googled for the information.

Somebody posted a reference to the Alaska article yesterday (in a post about the birth I think). I wanted more information about the conference and Google took me to the OpEd piece. Then I googled the names mentioned. I don't know what governors were also present. They are not named in the article. I would like to see DUers add to this information. We are probably looking at some of the same names and companies that Cheney met with at the beginning of the Bush administration. There is nothing wrong with the men or their companies. so why is everything so under the radar?

[FrenchieCat]

2. McCain is weak.

[JDPriestly]

4. McCain and Palin are tools of the energy industry.

What do you know about Obama's links to the energy industry?

I'm hoping he will be more independent. I have nothing against the energy industry, but they should not be running the show to the extent that they do.

[PatSeg]

5. K&R

[TheDoorbellRang]

6. She is Cheney's reincarnation

I am terrified for our country. This McCain/Palin ticket makes B*sh/Cheney seem almost benign in comparison.

[ihavenobias]

K & R

Interesting.

[ihavenobias]

7. K & R

Interesting.