BY Celeste Katz – nydailynews.com
Rep. Michael Grimm’s support for a natural gas pipeline through Queens is fueling criticism that he’s a just another pol courting powerful private interests — not the Tea Party reformer he claims to be.
Our Gendar and Lesser report:
Seven months after sponsoring legislation to run a pipeline under Jacob Riis Park, the freshman congressman has collected some $3,000 from its backers.
Grimm, a former FBI agent, won his Staten Island campaigning as an outsider who wasn’t going to buy into the crippling go-along-to-get-along ethos of inside the Beltway.
“The American people are sick and tired of the way Washington works,” Grimm told the Daily News last May. “It’s broken and I’m here to do things in a different way.”
But the intersection of money, power and legislation is highlighted in the latest campaign financial disclosure statements — not just for Grimm but others in the New York delegation.
“It’s truly a system of legalized bribery,” said Meredith McGehee, policy director of the non-partisan Campaign Legal Center.
“You can’t go in and say, ‘Please vote for this bill, or kill this bill and I’ll send you a check.’ But you can go in and say, ‘We’d like you to be a leader on this issue.’ That’s perfectly legal,” she said.
A recent example where money follows legislation is Grimm’s bill to allow the Williams Companies and National Grid to run a natural gas pipeline under Jacob Riis Park in the Rockaways.
Disgraced Queens Rep. Anthony Weiner had shown interest in the project before he resigned in June. National Grid was among Weiner’s top campaign contributors in his last run for election, giving some $6,200, according to a review by the Center for Responsive Politics.
Grimm — seeing the project as a way to generate more than 300 jobs and wean New York City off outside energy — proposed the legislation in May.
He received $2,000 from Williams Companies in September and December and $1,000 from National Grid in September, campaign records show.
Chad Kolton, a spokesman for Grimm’s campaign, defended the contributions.
“More than a thousand people from all walks of life have contributed to Michael Grimm’s campaigns because they believe he is fighting for the issues they care about and which matter most to Staten Island and Brooklyn,” Kolton said.
Veteran Queens Rep. Gregory Meeks and Republican newcomer Bob Turner, a former cable TV exec, co-sponsored the pipeline bill. Since July, Meeks received donations totaling $2,500 from lobbyists pressing Congress to approve the pipeline project, according to campaign reports.
Turner received a $600 from a National Grid employee before he took office, campaign financial records show.
“He decided to be a co-sponsor of the bi-partisan bill because it will not only bring needed energy to Brooklyn and the Rockaways, but will also create jobs and serve as a potential revenue source for the Gateway National Park,” said Turner’s spokesman, Trey Stapleton.
Grimm had another piece of legislation to end a 10% tax on the tanning industry, and has collected nearly $9,000 from purveyors of indoor tanning.
The tax was added to help defer the costs of President Obama’s health care initiative, and was a prime example Grimm argued of government overreach and Washington bureaucrats picking winners and losers in the free market.
He submitted legislation in June, and by December had received four cash contributions from Indoor Tanning and Heartland Tanning, and a $1,232 in-kind contribution when Indoor Tanning picked up the catering tab for an October industry breakfast in Nashville, Tenn.
“There was no formal fundraiser. We invited some people from the industry get together with Mr. Grimm for breakfast on the morning of the show and I paid for the breakfast,” John Overstreet, executive director of the Indoor Tanning Association, wrote in an email to The News.
“I don’t know how much was raised because I didn’t handle the money. The people at the breakfast gave checks to the campaign staff accompanying Mr. Grimm,” Overstreet added.
Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/blogs/dailypolitics/2012/02/michael-grimm-pushes-pipeline-pulls-donations
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