NY-21: Tonko Milking the System?

Originally Posted on The Albany Project.

It turns out the packed Democratic primary in the Capital District is gaining some attention in Central New York thanks to candidate Paul Tonko having years of connections as a former Assemblyman and recently resigned NYSERDA President.

From the Syracuse Post-Standard under the headline Key lawmaker milks the system for his backyard:

For 15 years, Paul Tonko could be counted on to criticize state energy policy and National Grid's prices.

At the same time, the chairman of the Assembly Energy Committee quietly asked the state's energy agencies and the utility for a favor:

A breakdown of an investigation into Paul Tonko's energy record below the fold.

The Post-Standard' inquiry is a juicy piece for political newswatchers, featuring a star politician running for Congress in a nine-way primary and a supporting cast of characters including lobbyists, no-bid contracts, pork barrels, and bewlidered constituents.

Tonko, a Democrat, asked the state to spend $502,000 on energy-efficiency grants for dairy farmers -- but only those within the boundaries of his Assembly district. He asked National Grid to match those grants with money the utility collects from its electric customers.

They both agreed. The state gave a no-bid contract in 2004 to a Tonko campaign contributor to pass out the grants in his district, which includes Montgomery and Schenectady counties.

The Vermont company called EnSave signed up the farmers, helped them pick out equipment and coordinated with National Grid. EnSave gave about half of the money to 51 farmers and kept the other half -- $222,000, records show.

Craig Metz, EnSave's vice president, said he met Tonko at an event and "Paul just picked up the banner." Metz and EnSave contributed $900 to Tonko's Assembly campaign, records show.

Emphasis added.

A good follow-the-money and follow-the-politician story continues.  While it sounds like a good thing for a legislator to do for their district, the Post-Standard leads readers down a different trail:

"Well, I thought, if you're going to put a program out there, why didn't every farmer have the benefit of it, you know?" [dairy farmer Matt] Utter said. "That did seem like a shame. I never heard any explanation why it was Montgomery County and not everybody else, too."

There is nothing special about Montgomery County's 225 dairy farms that puts them in a more difficult position than the 6,000 dairy farms elsewhere in New York. In fact, Montgomery County has only about 2 percent of the state's dairy cows.

Cayuga County, for example, has more than twice as many cows.

Montgomery County farmers simply found themselves in the right Assembly District at the right time.
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Metz and Tonko said they hoped the state would use the program in the 105th Assembly District as a pilot and then expand it to the rest of the state. But three years later, the program has gone nowhere.
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National Grid tried to abandon the program last August, but the PSC ordered Grid to keep it alive while matching funds are sought.

The money won't come from Tonko. He left the Assembly last year and moved up to a job where he controlled even more state money for energy-efficiency projects. He became president and chief executive officer of the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority -- the state agency that handled this deal when he was in the Assembly.

Tonko did not expand the dairy program from his perch at NYSERDA. In April, Tonko resigned from the authority to run for the U.S. House of Representatives.

The article continues into detail on how Tonko spent his many years as a legislator and bureaucrat with a story that includes such directly challenging quotes as these:

Tonko, like other legislators in the majority party, knew where to find discretionary pots of state money.
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At the same time Tonko needed National Grid's help, the utility was lobbying him and other state legislators on energy policy.

One day, [Montgomery County farm equipment dealer Matt] Littrell said, an EnSave representative called to say he should stop ordering equipment. Littrell said he will never forget that phone call: "They said 'That's it. Money's gone.' "

"I had some upset customers," he said. "I did thank Paul Tonko for getting that money."

That final line is how the article closes; I can't get past that hint of subtle journalistic sarcasm.  While I enjoyed the substance and the general idea that Tonko knows his "pork-barrel" politics, it left me wondering why this kind of story about Tonko's record appeared out in Syracuse and not here in Albany where he's running for Congress more than why the paper would publish such a scathing report.

While people can decide for themselves what to think of all this, it's good to have the information on the candidate being published in the home district (and hopefully not just Montgomery County).

Soundpolitic Blogger's Note

What I saw was old politics.  The chronology of Tonko's manuevering leaves no doubt as to what people would get with Congressman Paul Tonko, and if that's what they want, that's fine.  The passage that jumped out at me was the Post-Standard's reply to Tonko's justification for the program being reserved for only his Assembly District:

The answer was that the project was a "one-time opportunity" for NYSERDA to leverage other state funding and National Grid money for an energy efficiency program. The committee also said in its memo that the project was a pilot, records show.

The committee gave the project a 2 on a scale of 1 to 4 (the highest).

I wouldn't give a "one-time opportunity" a two on a scale of four.  That could just be style differences.  But the fact that the pilot never took off and was so exclusive and was so infiltrated by insider kick-backs leaves me to conclude that if I hear Paul Tonko say he secured half-a-million bucks for upstate dairy farmers, I'll know that the farmers only got about half the money and only one upstate county reaped the benefits, only to get cut off in the end anyway.

I point that out because here is what Tonko has to say about National Grid right now on the campaign trail, via his new website:

"We need to significantly increase our investment in energy efficiency here in our state and throughout the nation.  However, I believe our state needs to implement programs that are proven and do not unnecessarily burden energy consumers."

--Paul Tonko, from PAUL TONKO CONDEMNS NATIONAL GRID RATE INCREASE press release, May 23, 2008

It doesn't sound like the dairy equipment program was that signficant an investment.  And Tonko got the program going when he was in the position to, and also let it slide when he was in an even higher position.  But here he is now, running for even higher office, issueing pressers telling us what the state "needs to implement" and calling on Bush to sign bills, instead of keeping his "pilot"  going.

Paul Tonko is running as an experience candidate.  Which means people are going to take into account a lot of past performance.  And in light of recent events on the national stage, it's clear 2008 is a "change" election.  So I'm going to stick with Steck.

The nine Democrats running for Congress in NY-21 are: John Aretakis, Tracey Brooks, Criag Burridge, Lester Freeman, Darius Shahinfar, Phil Steck, John P. Sullivan, Paul Tonko, and Arthur Welser.