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How a Handful of Foreign Fish Buyers, plus Trident, are
Taking Away the Free Fish Market in America: With Money
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How did an entire American
free market get sold to foreign corporations? It started in 2003, when United States Senator Ted
Stevens made it clear that he would force a bill through Congress that would force American fishermen to sell all of their
crab to a few big Japanese corporations, plus Trident (more on them later). The dismay felt
by Alaskans at this is perhaps best expressed in the following piece from an Unalaska resident:
ANCHORAGE DAILY NEWS
Fish quota limits wealth to the
few
http://www.adn.com/opinion/story/4348737p-4357646c.html
By WALTER TELLMAN
(Published: November 7, 2003)
I live in what used to be the small Native fishing village of Unalaska. Today it is surrounded by a company town where decisions are driven by foreign seafood companies, global economies
and corporate board rooms elsewhere that care little about fishing families and the value of small independent businesses.
My wife and I grew up as generations before us did, fishing for a living. We hope our children and theirs continue this.
In the next week or so, Congress is going to vote on legislation that
would forever seal the fate of independent fishermen. The legislation requires that fishermen sell most of their catch to
specific processing companies. It limits who can do business in our communities and allows those endowed companies exclusive
control of seafood markets. It will limit competition in the market and overwhelm small processors. Fishermen will not be
able to get together to market their own fish. People with innovative ideas will not be able to build new markets that could
result in higher value products and better prices. Called the "processing quota," this anti-competitive plan is designed to
create wealth for a few companies on the backs of independent fishermen and small businesses.
Sen. Ted Stevens is championing the processing quota by attaching the
plan as a rider to an appropriations bill. It's not an easy thing to go up against our senior senator because he has done
a lot for rural Alaska. For fisheries in particular he has carried a lot of water for us, such as
championing the international ban on high seas driftnets to protect our salmon. But this processing quota plan will be more
dangerous for our way of life in coastal Alaska. We can't be silent.
Thousands of Alaskans and dozens of communities
are opposed to the processing quota. During its recent convention, the Alaska Federation of Natives passed a resolution opposing
the processing quota. We unanimously called for "fishery management programs that promote conservation, community benefits,
and free markets."
We're not alone. In August the Department of Justice found that the
processing quota is anti-competitive and advised the federal government to oppose the legislation. Sen. Lisa Murkowski recently
voiced her concerns about the program because of what she's heard from across the state. We appreciate her boldness in the
face of a near tidal wave of political pressure from the processing companies that stand to walk away with the enormous windfall.
These are times for independent judgment. If the big processors prevail and this ill-conceived legislation passes, it won't
be because we were silent. It will be because our leaders didn't draw the line and tell the corporations "no."
We ask our leaders to stand for good government. And good government
does not give away control of the public's resource to foreign corporations.
Walter Tellman and his family are tribal members
from Unalaska and Knik.
Mr. Tellman's opposition to the infamous
"Crab Rider" was shared by the editorial staffs of newspapers nationwide, from the "The Daily Astorian" of
Oregon to the Portland, Maine "Herald":
Lead editorial from The Daily
Astorian
Tuesday, November 11, 2003
This stinks
Welcome to the Trident Seafoods and Pacific
Seafood Group Prosperity Act
Hog heaven would be a good description of these years in Washington, D.C. If a natural resources mogul or an oil company is not cutting
a fat hog with this president, they aren’t paying attention.
When there
are no ethical standards and when giveaways are the norm, some very preposterous schemes are put on the table. That is proper
framework for understanding Sen. Ted Stevens’ proposal to guarantee fish deliveries to certain processors.
Give
Trident Seafoods of Seattle and Pacific Seafood Group of Portland credit. They see the opportunity to eliminate competition, and they are going for it. Pacific Seafood
Group owns six plants on the West Coast, including Pacific Coast Seafoods of Warrenton. Trident Seafoods has Alaska plants and another in Newport.
Sen. Stevens’ rider to the appropriations bill for the state, commerce
and justice departments would force a fishing vessel in Alaskan waters to deliver its harvest to a given processor.
The bill says that’s to be done at a negotiated price, which sounds fairly contradictory, when a vessel is forced to
sell to one processor.
Stevens’ rider is all about eliminating competition, and it negates anti-trust.
In general, that is an unhealthy concept. The rider applies to Alaska, but the clear intent of Trident and Frank Dulcich’s Pacific Seafood Group is to move it to waters
off Washington
and Oregon.
This concept would have an especially damaging effect on the seafood processing industry at the mouth of the Columbia River. It could take jobs out of communities.
The correct name for this legislation should be the
Trident and Pacific Coast Seafoods Guaranteed Prosperity Act.
The public owns this resource, and this
rider would effectively transfer its ownership to a few fish processors and fishermen.
In his rider,
Stevens would also eliminate research on coral and sponge in Alaskan waters. That fits another Bush administration precept:
The less we know about our natural environment, the better.
Sens. Ron Wyden and Gordon Smith should
stop this proposal dead in its tracks.
Monday, November 3, 2003
EDITORIAL: PORTLAND HERALD, Maine
'Crab cartels' are bad news for Maine lobster industry
A rider on the commerce appropriations bill has made some Alaska fishermen and environmental groups, well, crabby.
Rightly so.
Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, is trying to push through a plan that would essentially create "crab cartels"
in Alaska, guaranteeing certain crab processors
a quota of the catch. That undermines fair market competition. As the Anchorage Daily News rightly points out, nobody would
try to tell farmers that they could only sell their grain to certain agribusinesses.
Crab producers want the plan, obviously, because it guarantees them business but they also say it will
get crab to consumers faster.
Such a rider would set a dangerous precedent, shifting oversight of the details of the regulatory process
from the regional council and giving it to Congress. The regional council system is flawed, but it does allow for more public
input. There's also a danger of this plan eventually affecting other business, such as Maine's lobster industry. Sen. Olympia
Snowe is opposed to the rider.
The plan also would end funding for identification and protection of essential fish habitat, making sensitive
areas such as coral reefs vulnerable to damage by huge trawlers.
This rider is bad for Alaska and it's bad for the nation as a whole, and it should be removed from the bill.
# # # #
Nevertheless, and despite howls of protests
from Senators McCain and Snowe, the Justice Department,( "The
Department urges NOAA to oppose IPQ. Processor shares could deter product innovation, reduce the incentive for processors
to make optimal investment decisions and raise prices for processed crab products, all without countervailing efficiency benefits.")
the General Accounting Office,( Whose analysis of
Prof. Matulich's study in support of IPQs showed it to be bad science) despite opposition from fisherman's
groups, environmentalists, patriots, paupers and princes, despite the fact that the "Crab Rider" had less popular support
than any bill ever brought before Congress, Ted Stevens, as all-powerful Chairman of Senate Appropriations,
stuck it onto that year's giant omnibus spending bill. In this way he single handedly made a foreign monopoly
in the United States. Why?
From “The Cascadia Times”:
Ben and Ted’s Ethically Challenged Adventures
Ted Stevens' son, Ben, worked in the fishing industry
for 15 years, working his way up from deckhand to captain of a crab boat. In 1994, Ben started his own lobbying firm in Washington,
D.C., and began working for several fisheries-related companies among other clients. In
2002, Ben was appointed to the Alaska State Senate and is now the Senate’s majority leader. Over
the years, the fishing industry and “Ben-and-Ted” have worked their connections to their own great reward:
Adak Seafood Interests
Ted
sponsored legislation that granted the Aleut Corporation ownership of all pollock caught in the Aleutian chain, worth at least
$10 million annually. Ben is on the board of directors of the Aleut Enterprise Corp., a subsidiary of the Aleut Corporation
whose sole function is to develop the Aleutian pollock fishery. The corporation plans to build a processing plant at a former
Navy base at Adak, located 400 miles west of Dutch Harbor.
Two companies involved in the Adak fish project are Adak Seafoods and Adak Fisheries, which combined
paid Ben $120,000 between 2000 and 2002 as a consultant.
At Sea Processors
In 1998, Ted sponsored legislation allocating
40 percent of the Bering Sea pollock catch to the 19-members of the Seattle-based At-Sea Processors
Association. In 2001, Ted sponsored legislation making that allocation permanent. For 2001 and 2002, the
At-Sea Processors paid Ben $54,000 in consulting fees.
Crab Boat Owners
In 2000, Ted included funding for the buyout
of unprofitable crab boats after Ben was hired as a consultant by the Bering Sea Crab Reduction Fund, a trade association
for crab harvesters. The crabbers paid Ben $42,500 for his work.
Pollock Industry
In 2000, Ted chose Southwest Alaska Municipal
Conference (SAMC) to distribute $30 million federal disaster relief money following what he considered a "poor" fishing season.
Most of the funds went to fishing companies, while the Pribilof Aleuts, who live in the center of Bering Sea
fisheries, got nothing. SAMC paid Ben $12,800 for consulting work in 2000. During this so-called “disaster,” a
near record 1.31 million tons of pollock were caught.
Seafood Marketers
In 2003, Ted earmarked $10 million to market
Alaska seafood. His bill also required the military to purchase only domestic
seafood. This benefited consulting clients who paid Ben $549,976 from 2000 through 2002. Ben is
a board member of the Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute.
Trident Seafoods
In 2003, Ted attached a rider to a spending
bill to benefit crab processors by creating quotas for how much of the harvest they were entitled to process. The North Pacific
Crab Association, a processor trade group that supported the rider, paid Ben $56,000 for helping out.
The rider gave about 24 seafood processors exclusive rights to purchase 90 percent of the snow and king crab harvest in the
Bering Sea. Trident Seafoods, a lobbying client of Trevor McCabe — a former member of Stevens'
staff — was awarded the largest share of the catch by the North Pacific Fishery Management Council. One of the council’s
11 members is David Benson, a Trident employee in Seattle. A Native Aleut company
based in the Pribilof Islands, which leases a major processing plant to Trident on St.
Paul Island, received none of the processing shares. Brad Gilman,
a friend of Ben's since fifth grade, also lobbies for Trident Seafood.
Sources: Alaska
Public Offices Commission, Anchorage Daily News, Los Angeles
Times
And Now that crab
is monopolized, the next stop is "Groundfish Rationalization".
Processor lobbyists have their
plan to own the market in cod, and the lucrative halibut bycatch, all ready to go. Unfortunately
their lawyers have told them that State water fisheries have to copy the new federal law for the monopoly to go through.
Enter Ben Stevens, lobbyist extrordinaire, and, coincidentally, a State Senator.
He offers S.B. 113, a bill that is handed to him by industry insiders, a bill he does not understand,
to the Alaska Senate who approve it, even though the bill has no parameters. It simply instructs
the state's Board of Fish to copy the federal law, which does not yet exist.
Ben Stevens is Alaska’s Paris Hilton-
He has it all: the preening arrogance, the shameless sense of entitlement,
the regally upturned nose wrinkling from the stench of lowly constituent trash, be it Valley or fisherman - all because he
holds the golden key to his Dad's office.
Yes (gasp), Ben Stevens' real job is whispering into
the ear of his father, Ted, who is among the world's most powerful lawmakers. At a time when Britain's House of Lords is being phased out, the best way to have a boon granted by Alaska's fearsome
King Ted is through bonny prince Benny.
Does anyone really believe that Ben Stevens has such a commanding knowledge
of the inner workings of VECO or CIRI or the Special Olympics that “consultations” with them should command fees
of $50,000, $70,000 and $200,000, respectively? That's right, $236,225.78 went into Ben's palm to help the Special Olympics
kids in 2002. Compare that to your job. But Benny's best job, the one that keeps on giving, is as “consultant”
for a handful of very large, out-of-state fish buying companies.
I saw “Sin City” last night. The corrupt Senator, played by the growling Powers Boothe,
said something that struck home to me. He said the trick to holding power was to tell a lie that everyone knows is a lie,
and make them pretend to believe it.
Welcome to Senate Bill 113, a lie from start
to finish. All the frilly talk about safety and quality
and protecting Alaska's fishermen from themselves is a thin veil covering a monumental rip-off. The
trail to the truth starts with the Fed. The North Pacific Fisheries Management Council
had put together a perfect fascism, until they tripped on the Alaska constitution. Their plan to force “Co-Ops”
on groundfishermen is a deal between a few trawlers and processors that will steal the resource from the rest of the fishermen
and the free market from the rest of the processors. Even more egregious than Ted Stevens' infamous “crab rider,”
the new laws will allow the selected boat owners to pool their gifted quotas and cut out nine out of 10 fishermen now working
as skippers and crew. They will be able to sit on the beach and collect a paycheck while the Federal government buys back
their boats. The price they will pay is that they will never be able to sell their catch on the free market again. Foreign
companies will own the exclusive right to buy Alaska's groundfish.
The whole scam was going quite well, including a “public process”
that allows the protests of fishermen to be officially ignored. Then National Marine Fisheries Service lawyers pointed out
that, because boats drive back and forth over the three-mile line, the state needed to mimic the federal plan or else the
whole thing is on a sandbar.
And so a few members of the Board of Fish and the NPFMC (whose membership
is heavily weighted with processor employees, most notably the chair, Stephanie Madson) approached the state's most prominent
processor lobbyist, Ben Stevens, to put forth a bill with no parameters, other than vague references to “associations”
(read: Co-Ops) and “dedicated access privileges” (read: take the resource from Peter and give it to Paul). They used Ben Stevens because that's his job: he gets 10 times his senator's pay - a quarter of a million dollars
a year - to push state and federal laws that will make his processor clients richer.
Senate Bill 113 is nothing more than the state bending down to kiss the
golden ring on the federal hand. There is no chance for the bill to come back for a vote. The state senate has approved a
plan about which it knows nothing. The “public process” promised by the BOF promises nothing more than the gut-wrenching
experience of flying to meetings for the honor of being ignored, again.
SB 113 has nothing to do with improving the management of Alaska's fisheries. It has to do with a payoff that a few boat owners and fish buyers have been waiting for, a payoff into
which they have invested millions of dollars to put their minions into positions of influence and power. When it finally comes
to be, this scheme will decimate coastal communities and give the fish in their backyards to foreign fish buyers and boat
owners living on the golf courses of sunny Arizona. That SB 113 is a “tool” for better management of our fisheries is
a lie that I refuse to pretend to believe.
Paris Hilton always gets what she wants, and I suppose
Ben will too. But don't try to tell me that either of them has anything but their own interests in their mercenary little
hearts.
A sad story indeed, but one that is still
being played out. Oh, and here's how Trident plans to "Americanize" the American fisheries:
GREAT PACIFIC NORTHWEST SALMON
AND CRAB BEING SENT TO CHINA TO
BE
FILLETED AND DE-SHELLED
BEFORE ARRIVING ON U.S. TABLES
CHOY LENG YOUNG, BLOOMBERG NEWS: Pacific salmon swim as far
as 2,000 miles to lay their eggs in rivers up and down the Northwest. Once
caught, some make a longer journey:
8,000 miles round-trip to China.
Facing growing imports of low-cost seafood, fish processors in the
Northwest,
including Seattle-based Trident Seafoods, are sending part of
their catch of Alaskan salmon
or Dungeness crab to China to be filleted
or de-shelled before returning to U.S. tables.
"There are 36 pin bones
in a salmon and the best way to remove them is
by hand," says Charles Bundrant, founder of Trident, which ships about
30
million pounds of its 1.2 billion-pound annual harvest to China for
processing. "Something that would cost us $1 per pound
labor here, they
get it done for 20 cents in China."
Trident and other companies that use Chinese labor say it is
a way to
protect a Northwest industry under threat from farmed seafood produced
by nations such as China, Thailand,
Vietnam and Chile.
Imports accounted for 78% of the 4.7 billion pounds of seafood Americans
consumed last year,
according to the National Marine Fisheries Service.
Alaska and Washington have each lost about one-fifth of their processing
jobs
over the past decade. In Washington, average monthly employment in
the industry fell to 6,434 in 2004 from 8,668 in 1994,
says Rick
Lockhart, a state economist. Alaska's employment dropped to 8,500 last
year from 10,400 in 1995, according
to the Web site of the state
Department of Labor and Workforce Development.
THE INDUSTRY'S BIG FISH
Three of
the top four seafood suppliers in the U.S. are privately owned
companies based on the West Coast, according to SeaFood
Business
magazine's 2004 sales rankings.
1. Trident Seafoods (Seattle, Washington) $800 million
2. Red Chamber
Group (Vernon, California) $793 million
3. (tie) Pacific Seafood Group (Clackamas, Oregon) $700 million
ConAgra's
Louis Kemp unit (Omaha, Nebraska) $700 million
Source: SeaFood Business
"It's a dying industry in the U.S.,"
says Tony Neves, senior vice
president of Vernon, Calif.-based Red Chamber, the second-biggest U.S.
seafood company.
"It's a sad reality, but it's a fact."
Clackamas, Ore.-based Pacific Seafood Group, the third-biggest U.S.
seafood
company, started a trial six months ago to process Dungeness
crabs in Qingdao, China. The crab, found from the Aleutian
Islands off
Alaska to south of San Francisco, is named after the town in Washington
where it was first harvested commercially.
Crab
shakers in Qingdao get $100 to $150 a month to extract meat from
crab shells with pincers --- one-tenth what it might cost
in the U.S.,
says John Lin, who oversees new-product development at Pacific's
headquarters.
"Because labor is
so much more affordable, they can spend more time to
take the crab meat out" in China, Lin says. "There's a higher recovery
rate."
Seattle-based
Premier Pacific Seafoods spent $10 million last year to
build a new facility on its 680-foot Ocean Phoenix fishing vessel
to
prepare Alaskan pollock for sale to processors in China.
The fish are de-headed and gutted on the ship in the
Bering Sea, then
frozen and sent to China, says Douglas Forsyth, Premier Pacific's
president. Once there, they are boned,
skinned and cut into portions of
two ounces to six ounces, he says.
Supermarket chains and nationwide retailers are
helping to drive the
practice, Forsyth says. "You're dealing with national retail chains that
have strict product specifications
that are so exacting that they
require hand processing," he says.
Even factoring in 20 cents a pound in transportation
costs, processing
in China is still cheaper for the most labor-intensive fish, says
Trident's Bundrant.
The company
freezes its salmon within hours of harvest and then ships
them to China, where they are thawed to 40 degrees and boned.
The
journey there and back takes two months, Bundrant says.
Bundrant started with a single boat, fishing for Alaskan
king crab.
Costs in the U.S. are almost prohibitive, he says, citing competition
from farmed fish from other parts of
the world.
"It's a labor-intensive product," he says in his 60,000-square-foot
processing and cold-storage facility
on Pier 91, off Elliott Bay in
Seattle.
Fish processed in China don't have to bear a "Made in
China" label.
At a QFC supermarket in Seattle, operated by Cincinnati-based Kroger,
Trident's frozen salmon
burgers are sold in packages marking them as
ocean-caught, wild Alaska products. Some fish in the burgers may have
been
boned in China, Bundrant says.
That disclosure isn't required under U.S. Department of Agriculture
labeling rules,
as long as a "substantial transformation," such as
breading or frying, still takes place in the U.S., says William Mardon,
a
fresh-seafood buyer for U.S. stores of Issaquah-based Costco, the
largest U.S. warehouse-club retailer. The Trident burgers
are par-fried
in canola or soybean oil.
Under the USDA's Country of Origin Labeling Act, which became effective
in
April, retailers must label the country of origin for seafood, and
whether it is farmed or wild. The act excludes seafood
that is cooked,
breaded, canned, cured, smoked or marinated.
Outsourcing needs to be monitored carefully to ensure
Chinese plants
comply with U.S. food-handling standards, says Lisa Goche, president of
Surefish, a seafood-inspection
company based in Seattle.
The firm is getting more work from U.S. companies to audit plants in
China as more fish
is processed there, she says.
"As in other countries, the quality is variable," Goche says. "Some of
it is good,
some of it is not so good. When we do find defects, the most
common types of problems are odors of decomposition, overall
quality
issues like texture, flavor and defects like bruising."
Premier Pacific's Forsyth says he hasn't noticed
many defects at Chinese
plants. "The ones I've been in, I'll eat off the floor," he says. [ July
16, 2005 ]
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Now here are more of the shame -free follies of our public
servents, Ted and Ben:
" Did I get bought off? Yes. Am I going
to fight Ted Stevens and win? No. No one will." -----------Lobbyist who successfully petitioned the federal government
for exclusive fishing rights for the Aleut Corporation.
Uncle Ted $tevens
Alaska’s senator has a record of delivering for the fishing industry
By Paul Koberstein
When the Alaska fishing industry has a problem, they know what to do. Just pick up a phone and dial "Uncle
Ted."
“Uncle Ted,” of course, is the Senator Ted
Stevens, a Republican who has kept his current job since Alaska Gov. Wally Hickel apponted him in 1968 to fill the late
Bob Bartlett’s seat.
To the industry, Uncle Ted is the fixer. As Larry Cotter, an industry operative, said at a September meeting
on the closed pollock fishery in the Aleutian Islands, "We all know there is one big fella named Uncle Ted who might be interested
in seeing that fishery open."
Few doubt that Uncle Ted can open the fishery. He has substantial clout over ocean issues in Congress, especially
on topics near and dear to his heart like Alaska fisheries. In 2003, he tacked a rider to an appropriations bill that will
reopen the fishery if NOAA Fisheries decies that conflicts with Steller sea lions can be resolved. Congress approved the rider,
and now the NOAA Fisheries may be under unusual pressure to rule in the industry’s favor, especially because Stevens
own son stands to personally benefit from the deal.
Besides that, it seems Stevens has never met a fishery he couldn’t keep open.
In August 2000, for instance, Federal District Judge Thomas Zily closed the entire Bering Sea pollock fishery
because the North Pacific Fishery Management Council and NOAA Fisheries had refused to make sure the endangered Steller sea
lions had enough food to eat. Stevens attached a rider to a spending bill that would have kept the pollock fishery going,
regardless of any harm to the sea lions. In effect, the rider would have exempted the entire Bering Sea from the Endangered
Species Act. The Clinton administration threatened to close down the government over this one issue, so a compromise was struck.
Stevens and Clinton agreed to let the fishery continue for a year while the fishing industry rewrote the rules in a way that
pleased the court without shutting itself down. The judge let the new rules stand, even though the pollock harvest increased
substantially since then as pollock trawlers greatly expanded fishing operations within the sea lion’s habitat.
Fishers have also relied on Stevens to resolve their own personal problems.
For example, this fall John Winther of Petersburg, Alaska, persuaded Stevens to
settle a longstanding dispute with NOAA Fisheries in his favor. Winther, who wanted a bigger share of
sablefish in the North Pacific, had lost his case in court. Stevens wrote an amendment to a spending bill that solved
Winther’s problem by giving him fishing rights worth as much as $4 million a year if sold to other fishermen. Others
in the sablefish fishery screamed foul, but Winther is a donor to Stevens’ campaigns, giving $2,000 since 2001, according
to the Seattle Times.
In 1998, Dave Fraser of Seattle made the same plea to Stevens. Fraser was about to lose access to fish in
the Bering Sea, under a law pending before Congress, the American Fisheries Act. Stevens added 120 words
to the Act, worth about $1 million a year to Fraser and his partners.
In 2003, the crab industry needed a solution. All seven Bering Sea crab stocks had crashed, five crab fisheries
were closed and four species were declared "overfished." Crab fishers and processors were losing money, there were too many
boats chasing too few fish, and the processors worried about getting shut out of the market. Stevens got Congress to approve
a rider that gave remaining crabbers and processors permanent shares of the catch, despite antitrust concerns voiced by the
U.S. Justice Department and complaints by the Pribilof Aleuts that their right to process crab had been unfairly transfered
to Seattle-based Trident Seafoods.
Stevens has been chairman of the powerful Senate Appropriations Committee since 1997, and in 2005 could take
over command of the Senate Commerce Committee. Thanks largely to Stevens, in the 2004 omnibus appropriations bill Alaska received
the third largest share of earmarked federal funds, after only California and New York, according to Taxpayers for Common
Sense.
Stevens is plenty powerful, and has a long track record of delivering for the Alaska fishing industry. But
there are limits to even the most powerful senator’s influence. After all, Stevens may be able to open a fishery, but
he can't bring back the fish.
While it’s hard to see how Stevens could become more powerful, his new assignment —
should it come his way — could increase his influence over Alaska’s fisheries. That’s because NOAA Fisheries
is under the Commerce Committee’s jurisdiction, and will be expected to answer directly to him.
KENAI PENINSULA CLARION
Web posted Monday, September 12, 2005
Voices
of Alaska: Stevens' 'consulting fees' a conflict
By RAY METCALF
Corruption is killing the Alaska Dream and it's soon going to
take your dividend, and possibly your job, if you don't pay attention.
Twenty-five years ago, State Senator George Hohman's fellow Senators expelled him from the Alaska Senate and an Alaska
Judge sentenced him to three years because someone said he said supporting a certain legislative proposal might be good for
a thousand dollar "campaign contribution."
Today, State Senator Ben Stevens doesn't need "campaign contributions." He's collected nearly two million dollars in "consulting
fees" from people hoping to benefit from his legislation. Today, prosecutors ho-hum such indiscretions to death while our
ethically bankrupt Senate Leadership rewards Ben's behavior with the Presidency of the Alaska State Senate.
Nearly a quarter-million of Ben's payments came from VECO, in exchange for services Ben fails to define in his "Conflict
of Interest Report" beyond "Consulting fees."
If you find all this hard to believe, direct your browser to http://www.repmod.info/ and click on "Conflict of Interest
Documentation." View the facts and decide!
In 1999, VECO supported a $350,000 campaign seeking voter permission to redirect Permanent Fund Dividends to capital projects.
The vote was 83% "NO."
Since the 1999 vote, VECO has paid $400,000 to six lobbyists and $243,000 to Ben Stevens, seeking ways to fund government
from Permanent Fund earnings to thereby reduce public pressure for the Legislature to demand world market value for Alaska's
oil.
VECO's interest in raiding the Fund stems from their wish to sustain an endlessly increasing series of taxbreaks, (taxbreaks
commonly referred to as ELF), that the oil companies lobbied through many years ago. While oil company profits soar, ELF has
cut Alaska's tax on oil in half.
ELF's taxbreaks increase automatically every year. If not reversed, ELF's increases will soon cut our severance tax on
North-Slope oil to one-fourth of the original pre-pipeline agreement. If labor leaders continue to ignore this issue, everything
from patching potholes to competitive salaries for teachers and troopers will become impossible without taking away dividends
and slapping the public with a very big tax. Giving away Alaska's oil is not a winning formula for successful bargaining.
When Stevens was sworn into the State Senate, he signed an oath, (a contract with Alaska) promising to uphold Alaska's
Constitution. Alaska's Constitution requires him to seek the highest possible payment for Alaska's resources. Stevens then
contracted his advice and loyalty to a company seeking to extract Alaska's resources for as little as possible.
Shortly thereafter, Stevens introduced a Bill attempting to redirect $337 million from the Permanent Fund Earnings Account,
into capitol projects.
The Permanent Fund Earnings Account has for 25 years been Alaska's piggybank for dividends.
Stevens argued that the cost would just be a few dollars per person, but do the math. Divide $337 million between 650 thousand
Alaskans. You'll come up with $518 for every man, woman, and child in Alaska; and you can be sure they will extract more next
year.
Contracting to advocate the position of two clients on matters of each client's mutually shared but conflicting interest
is generally considered fraudulent and corrupt. Due to the opposing objectives of such contracts, it is not possible for a
single consultant to loyally advocate victory for both sides. "By necessity of law," one of any two such contracts was irrefutably
signed in bad faith.
Stevens' failure to define what he actually does for his "consulting fees" violates Alaska's Conflict of Interest Disclosure
Law (Sec 24.60.200) which requires Legislators to provide the public with details sufficient to tell the reader what work
was performed in exchange for payment received.
Alaska Criminal Law (Sec. 11.56.110) reads: "A public servant commits the crime of receiving a bribe if the public servant
solicits a benefit with the intent that the public servant's vote, opinion, judgment, action, decision, or exercise of discretion
as a public servant will be influenced." Receiving a bribe is a felony.
If enough Alaskan's do nothing while Ben Stevens does VECO's bidding and raids the Permanent Fund, corruption will flourish,
and Alaska's Dividend distribution program will soon be history.
Ray Metcalfe is the chairman of the Republican Moderate Party
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Article Published: Saturday,
September 10, 2005 |
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Ted
Stevens lashes out at media
By SAM BISHOP News-Miner Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON--Sen. Ted Stevens threatened Alaska's media Friday with investigations
and libel lawsuits if they continue what he described as malicious portrayals of his potential conflicts of interest, a subject
that appeared again this week in reporting on a court dispute over his son's involvement in Adak Island fisheries.
Walking into his Hart Building office, where reporters were seated, Stevens observed that three of the reporters
present had notified his spokeswoman they wanted to ask about whether he helped his son, state Sen. Ben Stevens, with Adak
fisheries business.
So he obliged before taking any questions.
"This is a continuation of a vicious attack against me and my son. It's politically inspired. I believe it
is inspired by your nonresident owners of two media in Alaska, maybe three," he said.
Stevens directed his ire primarily at the Anchorage Daily News, owned by the California-based McClatchy Corp.,
and KTUU Channel 2 Broadcasting in Anchorage, owned by Zaser and Longston of Bellevue, Wash.
Both reported Friday on a state Superior Court decision in the Adak case, in which Aleutian Spray Fisheries
and entrepreneur Kjetil Solberg fought over ownership of Adak Fisheries.
Adak Fisheries has the only fish processing plant on the remote island in the Aleutians. The court decided
Thursday that Aleutian Spray, not Solberg, controls it.
Friday's KTUU report and an earlier report on Aug. 31 noted that Ted Stevens had secured federal legislation
in 2003 giving the Aleut Corp. rights to catch pollock, a valuable groundfish, in an area around Adak. Ben Stevens sat on
an Aleut subsidiary's board at the time and was a consultant to Adak Fisheries, which the Aleut subsidiary then hired to manage
its pollock fishing.
Sue Salveson, a division chief with the National Marine Fisheries Service in Juneau, said the first fishing
under the Aleut Corp.'s allocation occurred early this year but produced few pollock--just 190 tons out of a total allowable
catch of 19,000.
Ted Stevens told an Anchorage Daily News reporter in 2003 that he and his son never talked about the pollock
allocation. He said he wasn't even aware at the time that his son sat on the Aleut subsidiary's board.
All this has been reported before, Ted Stevens said Friday.
"Nothing's happened since '03 to make it any different," he said. "But the intensity of the attack now, what
caused that? What caused that? A lawsuit that's filed against my son?"
That court wrangling between Aleutian Spray and Adak Fisheries did reveal one new fact: Ben Stevens claims
a 25 percent interest in Adak Fisheries. That wasn't reported in 2003 and Aleut Corp. spokesman Curtis Smith said Ben Stevens
didn't disclose the potential ownership interest when he and other board members voted to give management of the new pollock
allocation to Adak Fisheries.
Smith, and both the Daily News and KTUU reports Friday, said the validity of Ben Stevens' ownership claim
will be decided in a second, related court case.
Ted Stevens said he also learned of his son's potential ownership in Adak Fisheries from this week's news
reports. Asked what specifically was incorrect about the reports, he said he objected to the way they linked him and his son.
"The reports say that I had discussed this with my son and they say that I did it to benefit my son," he said.
A News-Miner search of recent news reports on the situation found no such direct allegation. The KTUU report
said the court's upcoming decision on Adak Fisheries' ownership "could determine the extent to which Ben Stevens could benefit
financially from Ted Stevens, his father," KTUU reported.
Ted Stevens said he believes such words imply he has committed a federal crime and thus are "very close" to
libelous, meaning a jury could award him compensation for damage to his reputation.
"I'd be happy to show you the memos that (his fisheries aide) Matt Paxton wrote to me back in '03. They're
still the same, but despite those facts, you persisted in pursuing it and continued the connection between me and my son on
this Adak fishery, which is absolutely false," Stevens said. "Be careful. If you accuse me of a crime, I'm going to take you
to court."
"You two," he told the Daily News reporter Liz Ruskin and KTUU reporter Seth Linden on Friday, "have demonstrated
malicious intent over a period of at least three years now, directed toward me, to accuse me of unethical conduct, not only
in this situation but in others, and I believe a court would recognize that malicious intent, politically driven by absentee
owners of these entities that you represent."
McClatchy bought the Daily News in 1979. The company owns a dozen newspapers, the largest of which is the
Minneapolis Star Tribune.
Stevens noted advertisers sued McClatchy in June for allegedly falsifying the Star Tribune's circulation figures.
He said he believed there should be a federal law against misrepresenting circulation.
"People that live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones," Stevens said. "I intend to find out if they're
pursuing that activity in our state and I intend to show them that we can fight back."
Daily News publisher Mike Sexton said Friday evening that the company was working on a prepared statement.
The statement was not received by deadline.
Zaser and Longston is a small family company that has owned KTUU since 1982. Asked whether he would register
a complaint against KTUU with the Federal Communications Commission, which regulates broadcasters, Stevens said he didn't
know yet.
"I'm going to wait and see just how far you go in libeling me," he said.
John Tracy, news director at KTUU, said the station had received no direction from Zaser and Longston on the
Adak story or any other. The station is still managed by Al Bramstedt Jr., son of the station's founder, he said.
"There is Outside ownership, no doubt, but it's all managed locally," Tracy said. "Al has been here ever since
he was sweeping the floors as a kid."
Ted Stevens said he is angered by the constant media focus on potential conflicts of interests with his private
investments and those of his family and friends in recent years as he funneled $3 billion a year by his estimate into Alaska's
economy.
"My ability to do that now is questioned," he said. "The reason for my doing that is questioned. I think you've
harmed Alaska by this malicious attack on me."
In recent years, the Daily News, the News-Miner and other newspapers across the country have reported details
of Stevens' personal finances, which were boosted by 1997 investments with Anchorage real estate developers Jonathan Rubini
and Leonard Hyde. Last year, Stevens sold it all and put the money in a blind trust.
Stevens said in January that he sold his interest in one Centerpoint development in Anchorage last year because
the General Services Administration was going to lease space in the building and that posed a conflict with his position in
Congress.
He sold interests in a second Centerpoint development and Jillian Square in Fairbanks because all the scrutiny
was unfair to his partners, he said. He also sold a Utah subdivision he owned with Anchorage businessman Bob Penney.
The financial disclosure form released in June shows the sales earned him just over $1 million.
The Daily News also reported on the various stocks he still holds with McKinley Capital Management of Anchorage
and quoted political pundits discussing whether those gave the senator a conflict of interest.
Stevens appeared personally hurt by the unstated assumption in such reports--that he could be the kind of
person who would use his position to benefit himself or his family and friends financially.
"I've made small investments in these things and some of them have been very successful. Others have been
terrible," Stevens told Alaska reporters in January. "No one ever asks me about the losses, but they have really held up to
public scorn the successes, and the scorn covered the people who allowed me to invest with them."
Earlier in his career, Stevens enjoyed close relationships with owners of Alaska media, including the News-Miner's
C.W. Snedden. Snedden, who bought the paper in 1950 and was its principal owner until he died in 1989, at one point gave Stevens
his Hawaii-based yacht, which the senator subsequently sold.
The News-Miner has been owned since 1992 by Dean Singleton, chief executive officer of the Denver-based MediaNews
Group Inc., the seventh-largest newspaper chain in the country.
Stevens said he personally helped the Daily News with at least two financial challenges over many decades.
"Why the subsequent owners, the McClatchy people, have decided to continue this malicious attack on me, I
don't know," he said.
"I intend to pursue to find out why it is the owners of these media that I have had a relationship with for
over 40 years have changed and decided to maliciously attack me as consistently as they have."
Washington, D.C., reporter Sam Bishop can be reached at (202) 662-8721 or sbishop@newsminer.com .
Sen. Stevens
Questions are fair
and necessary
Published: September 14, 2005
Last Modified: September 14, 2005 at
12:36 AM
U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens has said the Anchorage Daily News and KTUU-Channel 2 have launched a "vicious
attack" on him and his son, state Sen. Ben Stevens.
What the Daily News has done is ask questions of both senators about legislation and financial dealings,
about consultant work and any connections in the activities of the two men. That's our job.
These are fair questions that all Alaskans -- the people both men work for -- have a right to ask.
We're in the business of asking them, and pressing for answers, because Alaskans have a right to the answers.
The elder Stevens made a point of reminding reporters that he delivers almost $3 billion a year to
the Alaska economy.
There's no question that Ted Stevens has delivered for Alaska in a long and distinguished career in
the U.S. Senate.
But neither $3 billion, nor $30 billion, nor $300 billion, gives any politician a free pass. No politician
is above questions about their financial dealings or appearances of conflict. To regard any such question as an attack is
just wrong.
We'll continue to ask the questions.
BOTTOM LINE: No Alaska lawmaker, no matter how powerful, is above straight questions from Alaskans.
One question
Sen. Ben Stevens has the answer
At a brief press conference Thursday, state Senate President Ben Stevens said he doesn't have to explain
to anybody -- government agencies, the media, his constituents -- what work he did to earn his lucrative consulting contracts.
His silence leaves many Alaskans wondering why he is so tight-lipped. If he did legitimate work, trot
out some written evidence of it, so everybody can see. That would be the end of it.
But Sen. Ben Stevens is a combative politician. He'd rather fight than give an inch.
So, the controversy about Sen. Stevens' consulting contracts drags on. The question remains: Is this
another case where powerful political interests curried favor with powerful politicians by putting them on retainer, with
little or no real work required?
BOTTOM LINE: Sen. Ben Stevens can answer the question about his consulting work. Otherwise the question
isn't going away.
Ted Stevens reacts to negative reports about his son
 Washington, D.C. - U.S. Sen.
Ted Stevens reacted with anger today to news reports of his son's business dealings
with an Adak fish processor. The company, Adak Fisheries, stands to benefit from legislation
Ted Stevens pushed through Congress. And state Sen. Ben Stevens
acquired an option to buy a stake in Adak Fisheries shortly before Ted Stevens
introduced his legislation. But the senior Stevens says to make a connection between
the two amounts to a malicious attack.
When Sen. Ted Stevens held his press briefing this morning, he wasn't happy.
 “The reports that you've been filing are erroneous, they're not true, they're malicious. And they are the continuation
of this malicious attack on me,” said Stevens.
Ted Stevens is referring
to news reports about his son, state Sen. Ben Stevens, and his business dealings
in a company called Adak Fisheries. Adak Fisheries, the only fish processor on Adak
Island, could be one of the major benefactors of legislation Ted Stevens pushed through Congress in 2003. He awarded a $12 million annual pollock allocation to
the Aleut Corporation in an effort to bolster the island's economy damaged by the Navy's departure.
 Ted Stevens says he was unaware his son was on the board of directors for the Aleut
Enterprise Corporation, a subsidiary of the Aleut Corp. And Ted Stevens says he
was unaware his son was a paid consultant for Adak Fisheries, as shown in state financial disclosure reports.
Since 2002, Ben Stevens has been paid nearly $300,000 by Adak Fisheries.
“Fathers and
sons don't talk business all the time. He has his business, I have mine. He’s
a state senator. I’m a federal senator. I do not discuss my life with my son and I don't ask him what he's doing. I
certainly don't discuss his personal business in his office where he represents clients,” said Ted Stevens.
Ben Stevens’ involvement in Adak Fisheries went deeper than simply consulting work. In the summer
of 2002, in court filings, Ben Stevens admits to acquiring an option to buy 25
percent of Adak Fisheries. In fall 2003, Ted Stevens pushed for the pollock allocation
to the Aleut Corp. And in October 2003, the Aleut Enterprise Corporation, with Ben Stevens
on the board, voted to transfer the management of that pollock to Adak Fisheries. The next
year, Ben Stevens attempted to exercise his option to purchase his interest in
the company.
Among those upset with
Ben Stevens’ actions is Sandra Moller, the president and CEO of the Aleut
Enterprise  Corporation. Moller claims Stevens did not disclose his interest in Adak
Fisheries when he voted to give the company management of the pollock allocation. She says while Ted Stevens
attempted to help the Native corporation, she says it appears Ben Stevens used
his position on the board for his own interest.
“I think there's
nobody that questions Ted Stevens’ ability and his contribution to the state and Adak
is no exception. I think that he and Ben Stevens are related. I’d stop it right there,” said Moller (left).
Ben Stevens refused to comment today. But his father says the reports paint a picture of him and his
son in collusion. He calls the reports damaging and untrue.
“What you collectively
have done has decreased my effectiveness as an Alaska senator.
I’ve had other senators ask me about these stories. My staff has been asked about them. And whether you know it or not,
I’m responsible for almost $3 billion a year that goes into the Alaska
economy. My ability to do that now is  questioned,” said Ted Stevens.
Stevens’ ire is directed primary at KTUU-TV and the Anchorage
Daily News. He goes on to say the reports are very close to libel and a vicious politically-inspired attack.
As a result of the
stories on his son, Sen. Ted Stevens today also threatened to call for an investigation
of the Anchorage Daily News and its circulation numbers.
- Adak Fisheries and Sen. Ben Stevens sued (Wednesday, August 31, 2005)
The Aleut Corporation has the exclusive right to 19,000 metric tons of pollock around
Adak. Late last year, the Aleut Corporation awarded the management of its pollock allocation to Adak Fisheries. Now Ben Stevens,
who has been a paid consultant for Adak Fisheries for several years, also claims to have an option to buy 25 percent of the
company.
- Judge in fisheries case says there was no contract (Thursday, September 8, 2005)
Judge Craig Stowers settled a dispute Thursday between Aleutian Spray Fisheries, which
claimed it owned half of Adak Fisheries, and the other owner, Kjetil Solberg, who claims he acquired Aleutian Spray's interest
in a deal earlier this year. The judge ruled there was no contract and no deal.
- Stevens reacts to continued criticism (Thursday, September 8, 2005)
For weeks Ben Stevens has been the political target of criticism and a recall campaign.
Thursday the Republican state senator held a news conference to speak about recent charges.
Ben Stevens' secret fish deal
State senator helped steer Adak pollock to a company he had financial
stake in
By RICHARD MAUER
Anchorage Daily News
(Published: September 18, 2005)
State Sen. Ben Stevens held a secret option to buy into an Alaska seafood company at the same time
his powerful father, U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens, was creating a special Aleutian Islands fishery that would supply the company
with pollock worth millions of dollars a year.
The pollock allocation alone was projected to provide the company with $1.5 million in profits this year and $3.7 million
in 2006, the company's founder said in an affidavit in March, before problems involving the company and the availability of
fish cast doubt on those numbers. Under his deal, Ben Stevens would have been entitled to one-fourth of the profits of the
company, Adak Fisheries.
During the time he held the option, the company grew in value from about $2 million to at least $8.5 million, according
to an owner and court documents.
A copy of Ben Stevens' option agreement surfaced as one of hundreds of documents submitted in the last few months as evidence
in several lawsuits involving the company, its owners, its landlord and government regulators.
In the past few weeks, Ben Stevens' attempt to obtain ownership in Adak Fisheries has been the subject of news stories
on KTUU-Channel 2 and in the Daily News -- coverage denounced by Ted Stevens at a recent news conference.
The secret option was a surprise to officials of the Aleut Corp., the intended beneficiary of the pollock fishery, they
said, when they learned of it late last year. The company, the regional Native corporation for the Aleutian Islands and the
Pribilofs, had invited Ben Stevens to serve as a director of Aleut Enterprise Corp., its subsidiary charged with the economic
development of the former Navy base at Adak.
As a director of Aleut Enterprise Corp., and without disclosing his conflict of interest, Ben Stevens voted to transfer
the pollock rights to Adak Fisheries and argued against the Aleut Corp. claiming a larger share of the profits, according
to Aleut officials in court testimony or interviews with the Daily News.
Ben Stevens has repeatedly declined to answer any questions from the Daily News about the option or any aspect of his activities
involving fish processing at Adak or the Aleut corporations.
"My attorneys have advised not to discuss it because it's before the court," he told reporters two weeks ago.
Nevertheless, Stevens discussed the option on an Anchorage talk radio show last week and asserted he had no obligation
to disclose it.
In a deposition Aug. 10, Aleut Corp.'s corporate counsel, Roger DuBrock, said he first heard rumors about Stevens' option
in summer or fall 2004, after Stevens left the Aleut Enterprise Corp. board. He said he began worrying about the consequences
if it were true and word leaked out.
"My concern is that if it ever became public knowledge that Sen. Ted Stevens got legislation passed for a pollock allocation
that ended up getting assigned to Adak Fisheries, and that Ben Stevens, his son, had an ownership interest in that company,
there would be all kinds of unfavorable newspaper reports written that might damage Senator Stevens and might damage Ben Stevens
and might damage the Aleut Corporation," DuBrock testified.
TED STEVENS DENIES A LINK
There is no evidence that Ted Stevens created the pollock allocation to benefit his son. In angrily denying any such link,
the elder Stevens told reporters on Sept. 9 that doing so would be a crime.
In fact, he said, he never discussed the pollock allocation with his son. He said he only learned of the option from recent
news reports.
Stevens said he pushed the measure to spur the economic development of Adak.
"The people I talked to are (Aleut fish consultant Clem) Tillion and the (federal North Pacific fishery management) regional
council people, and I'll be glad to show you the memos that (Senate staffer) Matt Paxton wrote to me back in '03," Stevens
told reporters.
The next business day, Monday, when a Daily News reporter asked to see the memos, Stevens rescinded the offer.
George Lowe, Ted Stevens' chief of staff, offered Tuesday to go "off the record" to explain why Stevens now will not provide
the documents, but the Daily News declined to accept the information under such a re |
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