United States | News & Politics

inexplicably, in early October of last year, the city quietly approved an entirely different LUCS for Zenith Energy without even informing the public that a second application was in the works.

"It all happened without any public input," Audrey Leonard, a staff attorney with Columbia Riverkeeper, told DeSmog. Columbia Riverkeeper was formally involved in litigation defending the city's initial rejection of Zenith's LUCS. "It seemed like this was kept behind closed doors on purpose to just sort of have it be a done deal by the time it was public."

new documents and email communications obtained by DeSmog show that there is more to the story. Both city commissioners Dan Ryan and Carmen Rubio, and their top staff, were not only involved in the process, but appear to have played an influential role in coordinating the effort to push Zenith's new LUCS application over the finish line. That contradicts the public narrative that the LUCS was the result of a routine administrative process at the bureaucratic level, with elected officials above the fray.

Emails from Zenith's lobbyists at Pac/West Communications show that Zenith's outreach to city council began as soon as the company's legal challenges began to run into trouble. On February 2, a state land use board ruled that Portland had the authority to reject the permit, as long as the city provided some more evidence to justify its decision. That same day, Zenith reached out to Commissioner Ryan to invite him to visit its site. That appears to be the beginning of an effort that would last several months to court Ryan and Rubio, with the goal of getting the city commissioners to visit the site. The overtures continued through the spring, including to Rubio's office.

Rubio's chief of staff, Jillian Schoene, appears to have played a significant role in the city's relationship with Zenith over the summer, having met with lobbyists hired by Zenith, Pac/West Communications, on at least two occasions, in June and July.

Government gets the upper hand over giant fossil-fuel company's environmentally risky plans, company's future profit growth is partly imperiled, company finds government officials in key positions willing to meet with its leadership and with its lobbyists, government backs down, company profit growth plans back on track. Nothing to see here, no corruption whatsoever, move along everyone.

I'm interested in learning about what hands were greased and how. Will it be the usual campaign contributions, or will it be private jet trips to remote private resorts? The latter seems to be in vogue at the moment.