Carbon Sequestration "Research" Became Piggy Bank For Developer, Paid Mike Enzi's Son's Salary

PITTSBURGH — It was supposed to be a scientific and environmental research project to see if industrial carbon dioxide gases could be safely captured and stored underground in Wyoming’s Powder River Basin, and eventually help slow global warming. More immediately, the federally funded Two Elk Energy Park Industrial Capture and Storage project, part of President Barack Obama’s National Recovery Act stimulus program, was supposed to create new jobs and help revitalize the moribund US economy.

Instead, according to federal prosecutors here in Pittsburgh, Two Elk promoter Michael J. Ruffatto used the stimulus grant as his personal piggy bank, indulging himself with luxury cars, jewelry, oriental carpets, and foreign travel. In addition, federal records show that Ruffatto used the $9.9 million in stimulus grants to pay himself and his chief deputy Brad Enzi, son of Wyoming senior U.S. Sen. Mike Enzi, more than $1.2 million in salaries for two years — 2009 – 2011 — before the grants were abruptly suspended by the Department of Energy for accounting irregularities. No new jobs were created.

“Protecting federal taxpayer funds dedicated to energy-related development projects is an important responsibility,” U.S. Attorney David J. Hickton said after Ruffatto’s plea hearing in Pittsburgh federal court Oct. 21. “Recovery Act funds were awarded to spur job creation, not to provide personal enrichment.”

After his guilty plea, the 70-year-old Ruffatto — looking grey as the cloudy Pittsburgh sky and lacking the confident brio that has marked his 40-year career as a power plant promoter — was released on a $25,000 unsecured bond. Chief U.S. District Judge Joy Flowers Conti ordered him to surrender his passport and restricted his travel to southern California and Colorado, where he has offices, and northern Virginia, where he has family.

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http://www.wyofile.com/two-elk-venality-greed-not-coal-research-jobs/