>The Utah Question:
>Why did Clinton turn 1.7 million acres of "enviro-coal" land into a
>national park in Utah?
>
>The Lippo Question:
>The Indonesians gave Clinton big money, including $630,000 to his Legal
>Defense Fund. What did they get in return?
>
>The Answer:
>Big monopolistic profits from its "enviro-coal" -- now
>that Clinton has blocked Utah's coal resources from reaching the
>market.
The following was originally posted by: tpd at callamerica.net (wayne mann):
"Quid Pro Coal" on THE AMERICAN INVESTIGATOR on NET (National Empowerment Television) Thurs. 12/19/96
Ethan Gutmann, the Chief Investigator for this episode was interviewed by Jim Quinn on WRRK 97 FM in Pittsburgh, PA on Friday, Dec. 20th. I will summarize the interview, but not do a full transcript, as follows:
This is a follow-up on the move by President Clinton to declare millions of acres of Utah wilderness as a federal preserve. The move was hailed by environmentalists initially, but now, Gutmann reports, some of them are feeling a bit used and deceived.
Bill Clinton has put 25% of this country's so-called "compliance coal" or "enviro coal" (i.e., clean-burning, low sulfur) off limits with his Executive Order declaring this section of Utah to be a national park. The remaining 75% of this type of coal happens to be in places that are hard to get to, difficult to mine, difficult to transport coal from, like the mountains of Wyoming, therefore the cost-effectiveness of mining the coal from these other areas is diminished.
Gutmann reports that, under NAFTA, Mexico had to "sign on to" some of our clean air rules, so they are in the process of building new power plants which will require this type of "compliance coal". Utah was to be an export center for all these new Mexican power plants. This would have meant thousands of coal mining and related jobs for Utah. The impact on the environment would have been minimal since this coal would require UNDERGROUND MINING, not strip mining. The coal would have been easily transportable through train lines to Long Beach, California, and there loaded onto barges and shipped to Mexico -- that is, until Bill Clinton declared with the sweep of a pen that their coal is untouchable. Now, most likely, the Mexicans will be buying their "compliance coal" from Indonesia.
The other shoe has finally dropped on COAL-GATE and it all started, Gutmann reports, as far back as 1977. That's when Mochtar Riady and his son, James, first arrived in this country and started buying up Bert Lance's assets, clearly making a play for the Carter administration. But their attention was later turned in another direction by Jackson Stephens who essentially said, here's a real comer (no pun intended), and introduced them to Bill Clinton. So the Riady's started investing like mad in Little Rock and in the political career of William Jefferson Blythe Clinton. They got to know Hillary Clinton, Webster Hubbell, Vince Foster, and others in the Clinton circle of power. They bailed Clinton out during the New Hampshire primaries and held on all the way through to the White House--where they put John Huang in a key position at the Commerce Dept. thanks to an expedited top-level security clearance courtesy of the Clinton White House.
Gutmann says, although we're seeing the recent scandals of campaign contributions, the real events took place during Ron Brown's trade missions in 1994. Brown would set up deals between American companies and Indonesian companies to build coal-burning power plants in Indonesia and in China. Apparently they understood what was going to happen even back then.
Maybe it was John Huang, Ron Brown, or even Bill Clinton, Gutmann says. We don't know about that yet. We're still trying to find out, "what did Clinton know and when did he know it?"
The show host, Jim Quinn, asked if a lot of these Indonesian coal reserves are owned by the son-in-law of President Suharto. Gutmann replied, yes, but actually it's Suharto's DAUGHTER who's involved in the most capital-intensive power project in Indonesia. Ron Brown was involved with arranging for an American company to take over one-third of the ownership. Some energy companies in America have actually gotten rich over all this. Gutmann named two of them: ENTERGY and MISSION ENERGY. Quinn added that Entergy is a huge (Democratic) company in Little Rock and they employed Ron Brown's son. He then added what an absolute quagmire of corruption this all is.
Gutmann then added, "The question is, did the Clinton administration know they were making Indonesia rich? How could they NOT know? This 'compliance coal' is very rare stuff."
This "compliance coal" has a low enough sulfur content that it is permissible to burn or to mix it with higher sulfur coal and still meet the ever-stricter clean air standards which have just conveniently been tightened even more by the EPA. We will be needing more and more of this sort of environment-friendly coal in the future in this country, and Bill Clinton has just seen to it that the largest and most easily accessible deposit of it in the continental U.S. is now OFF LIMITS.
Gutmann added that President Clinton has made sure that we can't export it, either. ADARO is the name of the company that owns Indonesian Coal (actually the Indonesian government owns the mineral resources, but this company has the mining rights). ADARO owns a fair amount of the Wyoming coal in this country, too.
There's more. Kentucky Democratic politicians and ADARO have set up a deal so that Tampa Electric Company is going to buy 400,000 tons a year of Indonesian coal.
Also, Gutmann reports, they are making a move on the "compliance coal" in Columbia, as well. "We're talking about something that is starting to look like a cartel. ADARO may just buy up the Columbian coal reserves and sit on them which will force the value of Indonesian coal to go up." (Anyone remember the James Bond movie, "Goldfinger"? The villain wasn't trying to steal the gold from Fort Knox. Instead he wanted to set off a nuclear device that would contaminate the gold reserves of the United States and render it useless and valueless, thus making the value of all the remaining gold in the world go up. We may be seeing a little of that at work here.)
Quinn mentioned that he has heard there's a law suit in progress to challenge President Clinton's Executive Order which has declared the coal on the new Utah national park off-limits to mining. Gutmann asked skeptically, "Do you really think it's going to go anywhere?" He said that Executive Orders are very powerful. Gutmann added that many of the viewers of the "Quid Pro Coal" show on Thursday night were so angry after learning what Clinton has done that they are calling for his impeachment. Realisticly, if there is enough public anger and outcry about this directed at the Bureau of Land Management, at best Utah may be given permission to put a few roads in there, a rail line, and then mine about 40 acres of it. There was never going to be any strip mining. It would all be underground mining at a very small site. There is enough "compliance coal" at this site in Utah to last an estimated 240 to 270 years if mined constantly. But now we will probably be buying this type of coal from Indonesia.
THE CHINA CONNECTION:
Gutmann shifted focus to China Resources, which is a Hong Kong based commercial arms company for the Peoples Republic of China. Intelligence sources say it is a cover for Chinese military intelligence.
In 1992, just before our presidential elections, China Resources bought out 15% of Lippo as what would appear to be a gesture of good faith. Lippo was in a lot of trouble at the time from overextending itself. Right after Bill Clinton was elected as president, they bought 50% of Lippo.
So now Mochtar and James Riady, the long-time friends and financial backers of Bill Clinton, find that half their company is now owned by a company that is a front for the Chinese Military.
I would add here from the pages of Dec. 24th issue of Strategic Investment newsletter this chilling warning:
...China has replaced Japan as the country with which the U.S. is running the largest trade deficit. The Chinese have accumulated approximately $100 billion in reserves, most of which are held in the form of U.S. Treasury obligations...
Now consider that Bill Clinton's administration has been willing to sell the Chinese anything they want. Most Favored Trading Nation Status (while looking the other way on human rights violations). Foreign policy decisions. Domestic policy decisions. Our technology. Our weapons. Our factories which are disassembled and shipped over there along with the jobs that used to belong in this country. John Huang had top secret clearance in the Commerce Dept., thanks to Bill Clinton, and thereby had access to our nation's secrets. Quinn asked, do you honestly believe that none of these secrets were passed on to the Chinese?
There has been a massive break down and infiltration of our national security by the Chinese. And the lubricant for all this, Quinn says, are donations for the Democratic National Committee. Bill Clinton has put up our NATION FOR SALE. Gutmann agreed. Bill Clinton has put up our NATIONAL SECRETS FOR SALE. Gutmann agreed. Jim Quinn concluded that, "what we're talking about here is TREASON." It was so stated in the Washington Times just recently. This is the sort of thing you see in a Third World country. It's no wonder we're seeing political murders passed off as suicide. "And you know what I'm talking about, don't you?" Quinn said. Gutmann said, yes.
Quinn remarked about the recent revelations about FBI agent Earl Edwin Pitts being charged with spying. "What's the difference between what this man has done in selling out his country's secrets to an enemy country and between what Bill Clinton has done in selling out this country to our enemies, whether done directly by him or facilitated by him, what's the difference?"
Gutmann added that this is sleazy Arkansas politics elevated to the national level. But Clinton will claim ignorance and dodge responsibility. He always does. Quinn agreed.
With Bill Clinton's assistance, the Chinese now have virtually cornered the market on "compliance coal." Gutmann said that the net result of all this is that we can expect our energy costs to go up and up and we will be a net importer with an already established dependence on the Middle East for oil. We are reminded that this was something we were willing to go to war over under George Bush.
FEELING USED?
And lastly what of those environmentalists who initially championed this act of eco-compassion by our "green" president and his tree-hugging vice president? Well, let's consider that the coal in Indonesia is going to be removed by STRIP MINING, which will leave the land ravaged and scarred in an area of the world that is primarily precious and delicate RAIN FOREST habitat. So much for our eco-friendly president. And now these same environmentalists who were trotted out to act as part of the backdrop for the Grand Canyon signing ceremony and photo-op are feeling betrayed because they and their cause were used as a cover for something entirely different. Hey, nobody ever said being a Friend-of-Bill's was a win-win situation. Next time, maybe tell Bill he should at least kiss you first... -------------------------------------------------------
[Reporting on Ethan Gutmann "Quid Pro Coal" interview on Quinn in the Morning show, WRRK 97 FM, Pittsburgh, PA, Friday 12/20/96 by Beverly C. Specht]