Fluor To Hold Fundraiser For Delay

Forget Abramoff. You just can’t get a better example of corrupt corporate cronyism than Flour hosting a fundraiser for Tom Delay. The fox guarding the hen house just doesn't quite do this rat infestation justice.

Flour is one of the slimiest corporations out there. There’s no doubt what this particular fundraiser is about. Flour has an office in Sugar Land and has been lobbying on the Energy Bill because it owns several coal mines. Now you know why Energy Secretary Bodman thinks that our future energy needs depend on coal and nuclear; not wind and solar.

Flour has a dreadful history of corporate malfeasance as well. Flour was one of the companies responsible for rebuilding Iraq’s electricity, water, sewer and trash removal infrastructure. It paid $8.5 million in fines in 2001 to settle charges it had improperly billed the government.

Flour was the lead contractor at the Hanford Nuclear Facility in 1997 when a chemical tank exploded. The tank was less than 20 years from a silo holding 10 tons of plutonium. The tank had “not even been inspected for over six months despite signs that such an "autocatalytic explosion" was possible.”

Flour learned nothing though, in 2000 its Massey Coal subsidiary was responsible for the 250 million gallon sludge spill that spread across parts of Kentucky and West Virginia and damaged 60 miles of the Big Sandy River. Massey officers went on to run Asian American Coal in China, owned by Flour. Massey was spun into a separately traded company and continues to wreak environmental havoc in West Virgnia communities, which is consistent with their known history of violating labor laws. Flour has also been cited for water violations in Washington in 1997, nuclear safety violations in Ohio in 2003, and more Hanford violations in 2004.

Perhaps most endearing, Fluor is one of 20 businesses that are being sued due to their support of apartheid. While the world placed sanctions on South Africa, Fluor is said to have assisted the government in building a plant to turn coal into oil to reduce the impact of the sanctions. They are also accused of hiring guards who dressed in KKK garb and attacked protestors.

Charming moral values, don’t you think?

Links:
http://www.lightupthedarkness.org/blog/default.asp?view=plink&id=758