Today, TPM Muckraker asked a question that needs a little more attention than I could give it in their forums.
It's a reasonable question, one I was asking myself here in my first blog a couple of weeks ago -- What was in it for Veco?
Once again, I think there are reasonable answers out there, but in order to understand fully, you have to put yourself into the Alaskan political and economic mindset.
Sorry, but it's one of my favorite stories, and it's the way I learned my first lesson in Alaska's political and economic culture, so I'm going to start off with personal history once again.
My first lesson in Alaskan politics came over a period of a couple of months in that Summer of `89, right after the oil spill, when I'd moved to Anchorage to paint an apartment building in return for room, board, and passage.
My benefactors, who eventually adopted me as family, stopped by one evening to inform me they were taking me camping. Summer in Alaska was too short, they said, and if I were to make an informed decision on staying here, I'd have to get outside of Anchorage to see the wonder.
We pulled into a popular campsite on the Kenai River, some 3 hours from Anchorage, in the middle of a hot red salmon run. I went wandering around for awhile, and by the time I returned to the campsite, my new family had taken to socializing with an elderly couple who'd parked in the campsite next to us.
They seemed nice enough, and the conversation wasn't mindless yammer -- this guy had some smarts about him, I thought. But there were a few things he didn't like about me, and he was more than happy to diplomatically share those dislikes with me.
For example, I'm not much of a wine drinker, but at everyone's urging, I tried this very special wine he'd been boasting while I was away from the table. As I had the mouthful, my friend's wife said, "Isn't this wonderful? It's all the way from South Africa..."
This was during Apartheid. I spit that mouthful on the ground.
George -- let's call him "George" -- cocked his head sideways and asked, "Something wrong with the wine?"
"A little bitter," I responded, and put the glass down on the picnic table with symbolic grandeur.
By far, his biggest dislike was for my baseball cap -- an Exxon gas station uniform cap (from my former job) with a circle and slash drawn through the logo with a marker. George forgave me for my ignorance and explained that I might not get the reaction to that cap from Alaskans that I did from Outsiders.
Exxon, he explained, was a huge source of income to Alaska. When Exxon feels pain, Alaskans feel pain. When Exxon is pleased, Alaskans get work, and are pleased. Alaskans like jobs. Alaskans like Exxon.
George's campground lessons were given the attention they deserved, but I didn't really start understanding until several weeks later. I'd finished the house and was ready to look for work in my "career field" -- cashier and restaurant work, mostly -- when I noticed my benefactor, an engineer, had a computer in his home office. I asked him if I could use it to type a resume.
Again, this was 1989.
"Wait," he said. "You know how to use a computer? And you want to use a computer to make a resume for a job as a cashier?!" He dragged me by the ear down to his engineering firm where I was hired in the best job I'd ever had -- $5.00/hr to help their IT manager maintain CAD machines.
I was, of course, a little nervous on my first day -- learning all about my little role in the Engineering Industry, filling out forms, getting tours and introductions -- when suddenly, around a blind corner walked George, the guy from the campgrounds, in a flawless business suit with his hand extended for the most professional handshake I'd encountered to-date.
"Mr. [Kuparuk]-- welcome aboard! I'm George Wuerch, President here. Now, first things first. When you signed on, you signed an agreement that states you will not take part in any boycotts or protests against any of our clients. Exxon is a client. I trust you won't be wearing that hat of yours again. Oh... and, Welcome to Fluor Daniel!" And with that, he continued on his way.
It was very clear. Rocking the boat about the oil industry in Alaska meant having no economic viability there. I had run into this guy in the middle of the woods, not knowing he was my friend's boss, and he was now dangling my financial future in front of my nose -- over a hat. Alaska was a small place, I learned, where people remember who you are and what you say.
George, of course, went on to become the Mayor of Anchorage, just a few years after Veco's "competition" drove Fluor out of Alaska.
Like its competitors, Veco had a loyalty toward its customers -- the Oil Producers. But unlike Fluor, et. al., who had built reputations on the quality of their work over decades, Veco's success was actually spawned by the oil industry itself.
Veco had limited assets before gaining the lucrative oil spill clean-up contracts. They were not known for the class of engineering necessary to build oil production and transportation facilities in the Arctic. Yet somehow, shortly after the spill, they started turning up on the producers' bidder's lists and actually started winning those contracts. With such a large project log, they were able to absorb most of the project managers and engineers from their competitors, and so became a nearly unchallenged economic powerhouse.
Without blinking an eye, Veco used its growing capital to spin Alaskan politics as hard as it possibly could.
It started by becoming a driving force in campaign finance. You can look at nearly any Alaskan Republican's donor logs over the years to find a number of Veco employees all donating the maximum amount allowed by law. Rumors circulated that these donations -- which often included money to politicians outside of the donors' districts -- were reimbursed in the form of bonuses from the company, but nothing was ever proven.
To further its political power, Veco purchased the Anchorage Times daily newspaper and turned it into a precursor to today's Fox News. There were days when its stories bore no resemblance to the reality shared by most of the rest of the world, but the presence of the Times was a unifying beacon of credibility for the growing number of disconnected neocons in Alaska's voting demographic. It ran only the most right-wing syndicated columns, and relied heavily on the stylings of Rush Limbaugh in the presentation of its own news and Op-Ed columns.
Locally, the paper became known as "The Veco Times." As the politics in Alaska polarized in the early nineties, the newspaper on your lawn or desk became seen as a loud political statement.
Allen himself became a Reaganesque hero of the working-class Alaskan Republican. He was hailed as the man with a homespun dream who, through hard-work and shrewd business savvy, had become an international industrial magnate with god-like power, just as they all dreamed of doing.
It was clear from the beginning, and there was no effort taken to hide it -- Veco was here to promote the Republican Party in Alaska. But when looking for their motives for doing so, you need only to follow the money.
Veco got its biggest capital boost from The Producers. They went on to win contract after contract with The Producers. In fact, the recent corruption scandal only came to light because of how brazenly and zealously Veco was trying to buy legislators over a tax not on Veco, but on The Producers.
Think about that. Allen and company got busted because they got too pushy over a bill that did not directly affect them. The bill was to alter the tax structure on the oil coming out of the ground -- Veco does not produce oil. They get paid the same for building a module whether the tax is 10% or 40%.
To top it all, the king of the producers in Alaska is BP Exploration, Alaska -- the same BP now being compelled to testify about its lack of maintenance on its Alaskan facilities, leading to a pipeline failure and resulting oil spill. Their professionalism in recent years has been questionable.
When viewed in this historical context, recent revelations about Ted Stevens and Don Young getting favors or being financed by Veco still point to The Producers as being Veco's one true love.
Veco has now outgrown Alaska's borders and makes quite a heft on federal contracts. But any favors Ted has done for Veco can be explained just by Allen's monstrous contributions to Republican fundraising and propaganda in Alaska throughout the era. Veco's undying loyalty to The Producers over time indicates that its massive financial support to federal legislators Don Young, Ted Stevens, and Frank Murkowski came because they were part of the Alaskan Republican Machine. No specific quid pro quo is necessary to understand their generosity.
The Producers already had a well-established Washington lobbying arm. What they needed was strong support for Republican corporate welfare policies within the State of Alaska -- where the laws that most affect their bottom line are enacted. With billions of dollars of limited-competition contracts rolling in, Veco was more than happy to fulfill that role for them.
Enjoy.