Just one month after beginning his fourth term, Oregon Democratic Gov. John Kitzhaber announced he will be resigning from office. The final moments of Kitzhaber’s tenure have been marred by scandals involving his fiancee and environmental interests vying to push green energy policies on Oregonians.
...Cylvia Hayes has been the at the center of controversy since she admitted to being paid to marry foreigners in order to get them greencards– an act that is highly illegal. That was years ago, however, and more recent scandals involving green energy have caused her fall from power.
She often referred to herself as the “first lady” and used the governor’s mansion to hold meetings and push green energy policies. None of her payments by environmental interests were reported on her tax forms or on Kitzhaber’s ethics filings. While in the governor’s mansion she pushed green energy policies supported by clients and environmental groups that gave her money.
Newspapers reported that Hayes was paid $118,000 by an environmental group in 2011 and 2012 to lobby for global warming regulations on transportation fuel, called a low-carbon fuel standard — all while she was engaged to Kitzhaber and served in his office as an unpaid policy advisor.
The D.C.-based Clean Economy Development Center (CEDC), which paid Hayes while she was in the governor’s office, actually had its tax exempt status pulled by the IRS for failing to file tax returns in 2014 after Hayes’ fellowship had ended. Another group, the San Francisco-based Energy Foundation, directly hired Hayes in 2013 to create a green energy communications strategy. Her contract with the Foundation was reportedly worth $40,000.
The Energy Foundation had also funded part of Hayes’s fellowship at CDEC, and is connected to San Francisco billionaire Tom Steyer, a prominent environmentalist who has also been pushing global warming policies in West Coast states.
Kitzhaber’s signature green policy has been the low-carbon fuel standard, a law aimed at fighting global warming through regulating transportation fuels. This policy was backed by Hayes’ clients who likely benefitted from making fossil fuels more costly.
Steyer, in fact, has been pushing similar policies in California and Washington, giving huge amounts of money to politicians and environmentalists who are willing to lend their voice to the issue.
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