Linking Titan’s welfare & permits
Posted December 15th, 2009 at 7:54 AM by John HoodFor many of us with mixed feelings about the proposed Titan Cement plant, the attempt to link the project’s government subsidies with its environmental permitting is one of the most troubling aspects of the case. Here’s the Lumina News explanation in case you haven’t already read the reporting on this:
Marino Papazoglou, a Titan America official, sought help from New Hanover County and North Carolina in jumping a potential hurdle for his company.
Titan’s counsel, attorney George W. House, informed Papazoglou in an e-mail dated July 22, 2008, that if a state or county incentive package involved writing a check—which it does—the State Environmental Policy Act, better known as SEPA, would trigger a top-to-bottom review, delaying Titan’s permits until the review could be completed.
House also notified Papazoglou of a loophole: if the state or county authorized a tax credit in lieu of a grant, and the company never pays the taxes to the government, this would not constitute an “expenditure of public funds,” and a SEPA review would be averted.
New Hanover County and the North Carolina Department of Commerce have each approved grants, funded by taxpayer dollars, in a combined amount of $4.5 million.
Papazoglou responded to House’s report by sending an e-mail the same day, marked confidential, to Ken Allen, the economic development representative for the Department of Commerce’s southeast regional office; New Hanover County manager Bruce Shell; and John Merritt, former co-chief of staff in Governor Easley’s administration turned Titan lobbyist.
In the message, Papazoglou posed a question to state and county officials: “Can we change the incentives packages offered by the state and the county to become credits instead of grants? This change will automatically eliminate one of the hurdles,” he said.
Ultimately, the subsidies weren’t converted. But controversy about Titan’s permitting continues.
December 17th, 2009 at 5:01 pm
[...] John Hood wrote at this site of his “mixed feelings about the proposed Titan Cement plant.” John said that attempts to “link the project’s government subsidies with its environmental [...]