Along with Cannon, the hazardous and radioactive waste company has signed on as lobbyists two Republican Party fundraisers, Max Farbman and Greg Hopkins. Both are directors of Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr.'s political action committee.
The company says all three lobbyists focus on the national arena, drumming up new business from the government and nuclear reactors, and building relationships with national figures concerned about radioactive cleanup and disposal.
"What we've asked them to do is help us with ways to expand our business operation on a national level," said Envirocare Vice President Tim Barney.
Barney downplayed the idea that the new lobbyists might be assisting the company's large lobbying team at the state Capitol or with Envirocare's efforts to win approval to double its size. But Cannon noted that he did register as a Utah lobbyist for Envirocare in the past week just to be safe.
Envirocare has brought on these big guns at a critical time. Since it came under new ownership last February, the company has moved swiftly into new business lines and a more national profile. Industry insiders say the company wants to have a crack at the sort of national contracts worth billions.
Envirocare used to focus narrowly on federal disposal contracts, primarily from the Defense Department, the Environmental Protection Agency and the Energy Department. But last month, it bought a decontamination and decommissioning business and began its first major cleanup-removal-transportation-disposal job in Massachusetts.
In Utah, the company is expecting another record year, taking in more than 12 million cubic feet of radioactive and hazardous waste in the first half of 2005, but expecting its mainstay of government contracts to begin tapering off. Envirocare also has been pushing to expand to nearly double its current size of nearly one square mile.
The expansion already has the approval of the state Division of Radiation Control. And the company is pressing to quickly dispense with an appeal brought by the environmental group, the Healthy Environment Alliance of Utah (HEAL) in time for the question to be taken up this winter by the state Legislature and governor.
Huntsman's office distanced itself from Envirocare's efforts to enlarge its facility and operations.
"The governor has concerns about any proposal that would expand our capacity for this kind of waste," said Mike Mower, Huntsman's deputy chief of staff.
Hopkins, a former director of the Utah GOP and a key fundraiser for the governor, insisted his work is not related to any particular legislation before Congress.
"We're not doing anything related to their expansion to their facility in Utah," he added.
Meanwhile, a lobbyist disclosure report filed with the Secretary of the U.S. Senate says Farbman and Hopkins are "assisting [the] company in gaining support for expanded operations." But Barney and Hopkins both insisted that is unrelated to the pending Utah expansion.
"That's kind of an inopportune choice of words because we've explicitly asked them not to help them with our expansion in Utah," Barney said, adding that the specific terms of their work is confidential. "We're a company that operates in a competitive environment and it's important for us to do that."
Cannon said in an interview Tuesday, he has helped arrange meetings with members of Congress and their staffs, but he primarily deals with issues before federal regulators.
In an ironic twist, Cannon's law firm merged last spring with the firm pushing a high-level reactor fuel storage site in Tooele County that has been proposed by a consortium of utilities called Private Fuel Storage. It is a project Envirocare President and CEO, Steve Creamer, vocally opposes, although the PFS members are also the kind of low-level waste customers Envirocare is now trying to line up.
Cannon said he has been friends with Creamer for years. They both worked in 2003 on "Plan B," an effort to derail the PFS disposal site and offer high-level waste disposal on Utah school trust lands in southeastern Utah. The two say they have since dropped Plan B.
The Utah GOP has also hired Farbman and Hopkins to raise money for Republican causes and candidates, said Cannon. "My impression is they are not very busy on the governor's stuff" but on the party fundraising, he said.
"Utah is a small state," Cannon added, referring to Hopkins and Farbman's important expertise in raising money. "That is one of the problems."
While Cannon sees nothing inappropriate nor conflict of interest in these relationships, HEAL does.
Vanessa Pierce, program director for HEAL, accused Envirocare of "purposely" bringing on board people with close ties to the governor as it pushes for his favorable vote on the expansion.
She noted that the governor's brother-in-law, Rick Durham, is a partner in one of the investment groups that bought Envirocare earlier this year. Durham used to be CFO of the Huntsman Corp. and is a trustee of the Jon and Karen Huntsman Foundation.
"With all the folks Envirocare has hired," Pierce said, "the only way they could get closer to the governor is if they hired [first lady] Mary Kaye [Huntsman]."
Mower, the governor's aide, said Huntsman would "certainly re-evaluate our relationship" if Farbman and Hopkins were registered as state lobbyists. Hopkins is currently listed as "inactive" on the state's lobbyist registration site. Farbman's only listed lobby client is the Western Governors University.
Envirocare has a record of lining up high-profile lobbying help. In 2003, U.S. Rep. Rob Bishop of Utah pushed for federal legislation that would allow Envirocare to accept highly-concentrated waste from an Energy Department cleanup in Fernald, Ohio, that, in effect, was hotter than the radioactive waste allowed in the state. Bishop had been a lobbyist for Envirocare before going to Washington.
Pierce said Utahns say over and over they don't want to be the radioactive dumping ground of the nation, but continue to work the backrooms of politics to defeat the public will.
"Envirocare's first loyalty is to their stakeholders and their shareholders," she said. "And, consequently, they're going to pull whatever political levers they need to double their size and double their profits."
fahys@sltrib.com
gehrke@sltrib.com
Envirocare's new power hitters
Max Farbman
Ties to Envirocare: Registered as lobbyist in late September.
Ties to Huntsman: A director of the governor's political action committee, which solicited $25,000 last year from the businessman who now heads Envirocare. The governor later returned the money, intended to help pay for his inauguration.
Fundraiser for the Utah Policy Partnership, a Huntsman non-profit think tank.
Other important ties: Fund-raising for Utah Republican Party.
Greg Hopkins
Ties to Envirocare: Registered as lobbyist in late September.
Ties to Huntsman: A director of the governor's political action committee, which solicited $25,000 last year from the businessman who now heads Envirocare. The governor later returned the money, intended to help pay for his inauguration.
Huntsman transition team director.
Fundraiser for the Utah Policy Partnership, a Huntsman non-profit think tank.
Other important ties: Worked for U.S. Sen. Bob Bennett, R-Utah; Fundraising for Utah GOP Party; Former Utah Republican Party executive director.
Joe Cannon
Ties to Envirocare: Hired as lobbyist last March; longtime friend of Envirocare President and CEO Steve Creamer.
Other important ties: Utah GOP Party Chairman since 2001; former assistant administrator for Air and Radiation, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency; Member of the Washington, D.C. law firm Pillsbury Winthrop Saw Pittman, the same firm that represents Private Fuel Storage, the company proposing to store high-level nuclear waste in Tooele County.
