THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, October 25, 1995 TAG: 9510250458
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY PETER BAKER, THE WASHINGTON POST
DATELINE: RICHMOND LENGTH: Long : 119 lines
In his quest to finance a Republican takeover of the General Assembly, Gov. George F. Allen has accepted $100,000 in political contributions from a meatpacking company that is under investigation by his administration for dumping improperly treated animal waste into a tributary of the Chesapeake Bay.
The gifts make Smithfield Foods Inc. the largest corporate contributor to Allen's political action committee. They constitute more than 12 percent of the money he's raised since April for campaign activities.
The checks were written as the Smithfield food processor was negotiating with Virginia regulators who repeatedly have cited the plant for releasing polluted wastewater into the Pagan River.
The company has been cited by state officials two dozen times in the past 18 months and could face millions of dollars in fines. It also faces a federal investigation into the disappearance of thousands of environmental documents.
The Smithfield contributions are part of an unprecedented wave of cash pouring into political coffers from special interests this year, as both parties struggle for control of the General Assembly in the Nov. 7 elections. The Republican Party could gain control of both the House and the Senate by picking up seven seats.
Candidates had collected more than $14 million as of Sept. 30, already outstripping the $10 million spent during the entire campaign in 1991, the last time the full Assembly was on the ballot. That doesn't include the nearly $800,000 Allen raised in the past six months.
Unlike any governor before him, Allen has aggressively built his own organization to try to influence the elections. Allen sees a GOP majority as vital to his effort to scale back government and revamp education in his last two years in office.
Campaign finance reports filed with the state indicate that Smithfield gave Allen's PAC, called the Campaign for Honest Change, a $50,000 check on May 11 and another $50,000 check on Sept. 4. Only one other donor has been as generous; Republican presidential candidate Bob Dole's PAC gave $100,000.
Such large gifts are rare in Virginia politics.
It could not be determined Tuesday whether Smithfield contributed to Allen's 1993 gubernatorial campaign. Smithfield officials did not return several telephone calls.
Virginia law imposes virtually no limits on campaign donations as long as they are publicly disclosed, but several government ethicists and environmentalists said the governor's acceptance of such a large amount of money from Smithfield compromises his administration's ability to regulate the company.
``It should have never been accepted in the first place,'' said Julie Lapham, executive director of Common Cause of Virginia, a government watchdog group. ``It's just too close for comfort, and that's conflict of interests, and that's poor ethics, and that's poor values. And for an administration that preaches values, it's appalling.''
A top Allen environmental official denied any connection between the contribution and Smithfield's negotiations with the state, saying he was not aware of the gifts until a reporter's inquiry.
``I just doubt very seriously whether anybody knows or cares,'' said Tom Hopkins, the deputy secretary of natural resources. ``We do not react in our agencies on the basis of who's making political contributions. Certainly, that's illegal and unethical and immoral. . . . There's no connection between anything that Smithfield is doing in terms of political contributions and the regulation of their operations.''
Allen's office referred questions on the Smithfield contributions to PAC director Chris Nolen, who solicited the money. Nolen said he was unaware of the company's legal problems with the state.
``This is the first I heard of it,'' he said. Had he known at the time, ``then, yeah, we would have sat down and evaluated the situation.''
Allen has used his PAC to pay for media advertising for favorite candidates, for his campaign travels around the state and for a statewide television commercial.
Allen routinely has ridiculed environmental groups in speeches, saying they care more about the environment than jobs.
Since taking office, he has decentralized the Department of Environmental Quality, signed legislation granting amnesty to certain polluters who disclose their own violations, put business representatives on environmental panels and sued the federal government to avoid enforcing the Clean Air Act.
Hopkins said the governor favors a constructive style of regulation that seeks to ensure industry compliance without hurting the state's economy. ``Throwing people in jail and charging huge penalties and fines and those sorts of things are not going to clean up the environment,'' he said.
But environmentalists say they consider Allen a sellout to industry, and they see the Smithfield gifts as the latest evidence.
``It's really beyond comprehension that the chief elected official of a state would take that kind of money from a company that depends on the state for its permits and for enforcement,'' said Kay Slaughter, a lawyer with the Southern Environmental Law Center who lost a congressional race to Allen in 1991. ``It's a disastrous combination, and it's very arrogant of the company .
Smithfield has had a history of pollution problems but appeared to have cleaned up its operations until May 1994, when new violations began occurring.
The most common violations, state officials say, have been excessive levels of fecal coliform, a bacterium that indicates the presence of manure - sometimes many times the permitted amount. ILLUSTRATION: Photo
Gov. Allen: His deputy secretary of natural resources said, ``We do
not react in our agencies on the basis of who's making political
contributions.
KEYWORDS: POLITICAL ACTION COMMITTEES CAMPAIGN CONTRIBUTIONS
CAMPAIGN FINANCING SMITHFIELD FOODS INC. by CNB