A five minute explainer on Ukraine. If Ukraine joined the EU it would be the second largest economy in Europe. What’s at stake as both Russia and the West tug the Ukranian people in two separate directions? We talk to Alec Luhn the Nation Magazine’s Moscow correspondent.
The producers of House Of Cards are threatening to stop filming in Washington DC unless the city gives them a special tax break. This is the type of extortion perfected by the NFL. Build us a stadium, or we’ll leave. Cities build the new stadiums convinced they’re creating new jobs. But, as you’ll see in this interview, new stadiums create low paying jobs that never offset the gigantic tax breaks NFL teams are able to coerce from politicians too afraid to take on the fans.
Patrick Hruby writes for SportsOnEarth.com. His most recent article in Politico is entitled ‘The National Freeloader League.’
David: You write that the NFL is a 501(c)6 and that back in 1966, Congress rewrote the tax code so that a 501(c)6 would be tax exempt. So what is a 501(c)6? The NFL is a 501(c)6, what is a 501(c)6?
Despite its incessant calls for patriotism the NFL pays surprisingly little in taxes.
Patrick Hruby: Congress, like a lot of times, they had a decent idea here. A 501(c)6 is supposed to be basically a trade association. So like a local chamber of commerce or maybe the pistachio council for pistachio nuts or something like that, where it’s an association of businesses and it exists essentially to promote that product. But when the NFL and the AFL merged in the ’60s, somehow they had the 501(c)6 language changed to specifically include professional football leagues. Now, the NFL doesn’t generically promote football. It promotes its member clubs. It’s promoting NFL football. All you have to do is put on an NFL game or see an NFL advertisement to realize that that’s what we’re talking about here. They really don’t compare to other trade associations. They’re nothing like your local chamber of commerce, promoting general business welfare. As Senator Tom Coburn has been arguing for a while, and now has legislation to this effect, the NFL doesn’t deserve to have this sort of designation, the law should be changed.
David: Does Senator Coburn represent Oklahoma?
Patrick: He does, which conveniently enough, does not have an NFL team. Quite a coincidence.
David: Yes. And Linda Sanchez? Congressman Linda Sanchez.
Patrick: Linda Sanchez is somebody who is from California who has actually taken on the NFL a lot over head trauma. And, again, right now, California does have NFL teams but not in her district. She’s in Southern California and not in San Diego. She’s in the LA area. So the NFL has not had a team in the LA area for 15, 20 years now.
David: Right.
70% of the money going into new stadiums comes from taxpayers.
Patrick: So it’s definitely something to keep in mind here is that the NFL does have a lot of sort of soft power in Washington and in the halls of Congress. A lot of that isn’t just that, you know, they spend a good amount on lobbying. They spend $1 million to $2 million a year on lobbying. I think they’re up to now four K Street firms that represent them. They’ve increased their lobbying efforts a lot in the last decade to half decade. But they have a soft power, in terms of if you’re an NFL front office, if you’re an NFL owner, it’s very easy to invite a congress person or an important government person up to your owner’s box for a game. You’ve kind of got that sort of schmoozing factor. You’ve got that access factor. You don’t have to necessarily make a big campaign donation to get the ear of somebody. You sort of have this other glamorous way of doing it.
David: It can cost you a lot of money if you’ve got Governor Chris Christie in that skybox, stomach stapling not withstanding. I mean that guy can eat through a lot of your profits. Let’s turn to local pride. Was that funny?
Patrick: I laughed.
David: OK.
Patrick: I’m here.
David: All right. I don’t… Let’s turn to local pride. In the past two decades, you say about 80 stadiums have been built in America. What does your average stadium cost and who pays for it?
Patrick: The costs can vary so wildly, depending on what kind of sport we’re talking about, the size of the stadium, how sort of Taj-Majal-esque you want the stadium to be. But, you know, we’re talking everything from maybe $300 million, $400 million, $500 million, which is a ton of money, to over $1 billion, which is an even bigger ton of money. Let’s put it that way. And people that have studied this, one woman in particular, Grant Judith Long, at Harvard has studied this extensively. The majority of cases, the majority of the money is being paid for by local taxpayers. State and municipal taxpayers. They’re picking up the tab, so we’re talking hundreds of millions of dollars.
Study after study reveals that NFL teams do not create high paying jobs for the local economy.
David: You write that 70% of the capital costs in NFL stadiums is provided by taxpayers. Is that through actual tax or is that through bond issues mostly?
Patrick: Well, that’s the sneaky thing here. It’s that and more. I mean, when we’re talking about the actual total cost, we’re not just talking about construction bonds, which are a huge part of the expense, we’re also talking about tax subsidies. So a stadium is built and then the ownership of the team doesn’t have to pay property tax at all. Or they pay very small property tax. Or much less than what a normal business would pay. We’re talking about all kinds of infrastructure that is built around these stadiums. Everything from roads, sewers, electricity, all that stuff. The public almost always picks up the tab for that. Public transportation to the station. A metro stop is built next to the stadium. The public picks up that cost. We’re also talking about how these bonds funded. I mean, generally, it’s things like hotel taxes, rental car taxes, sometimes there are lottery taxes. The lottery was actually used to help pay for the stadium in Baltimore. For the Baltimore Ravens. As any economists will tell you, lottery taxes are incredibly aggressive. That’s essentially taxing poor people more than rich people. So there’s almost something being morally more offensive about that.
David: Yeah. The taxpayers are subsidizing the building of the stadiums, the teams don’t have to pay property taxes?
Patrick: In a lot of cases, they don’t have to pay property tax or they pay a very reduced rate. There’s a federal layer to all this, by the way. These construction bonds that are issued by the local and state governments to pay for these stadiums? They are also exempt from federal taxes. Again, Congress had a good idea making these kinds of bonds generally exempt because they wanted to encourage states and cities to build schools and roads and hospitals. But stadiums also are kept under this sort of umbrella of being tax exempt. In a Bloomberg News report on this, they estimated that this is costing the federal treasury something like $140 million a year. Which, again, is a significant amount of money.
David: How much? How much?
Patrick: $140 million a year is what Bloomberg estimated.
David: That’s the, just so our listeners understand this and so I understand, local and state bonds, for the most part, if you buy a local and state bond, the interest on it that you collect is exempt from federal taxes. But that’s to encourage the building of bridges and highways and schools?
Patrick: Exactly.
David: Okay.
Patrick: And somehow stadiums are being kept under that same umbrella.
David: Well, they’re kept under that umbrella, Patrick, because stadiums are good for local business. When a team owner threatens to leave, aren’t we going to lose great jobs?
Despite its incessant calls for patriotism the NFL pays surprisingly little in taxes.
Patrick: That’s the other part of the myth here. I mean, every economic study that has not been paid for by a league or a team owner has concluded that there is no economic positive effect from building a stadium. A stadium is not like building roads. It is not like building schools. You are not investing in your future. You are not getting an economic multiplier effect. You are not juicing the economy in any way. You might create a few low paying jobs in terms of food service and parking attendants and things like that. But, for the most part, what you’re doing is putting money into an owner’s pocket. You’re putting it into their pocket in terms of increasing their franchise value. These cities don’t even ask that, if the team is moved or sold, they get a cut of that equity. So they’re not even making good deals on here. And in terms of the return on investment, one economist I talked to, Dennis Coates, over here at University of Baltimore, he told me he looked at local incomes in places where multiple stadiums had been built and that had multiple pro sports franchises. He said that the net effect was a slight reduction in local income, which is astonishing.
David: This is great. Patrick, we have a new mayor in New York City. I think his name is de Blasio. Am I pronouncing that right?
Patrick: You’re right.
David: Mayor de Blasio wants to fund preschool for all by putting an extra tax on the richest 1% and it’s intimated that some Wall Street executives will take Wall Street someplace else. That’s the way cities are always threatened. If you tax us, we’ll move. If you won’t build us a stadium, we’ll move. In 1999, you write that the Senate had a solution for this. What would it be called? Greenmail? Or what would you call this? Blackmail?
Patrick: Yeah, for this, basically this is a form of civic extortion. Right. So, you’re right. I’m glad you brought up Wall Street. This doesn’t just happen in sports, but sports are a great way to look at it. So, essentially, the owner of the team says, ‘Build me a new stadium, or I’m going to move to Los Angeles. Or I’m going to move to Portland. Or I’m going to move to Washington D.C. Or wherever it is that I can get a deal for a stadium.’ It’s been termed, basically, the war of the states or the war of cities, where we’re tripping over ourselves to give out corporate welfare, essentially. And, like I said, it’s not just for stadiums. This Senate bill, what it would have done, it’s brilliant. It would have slapped a 100% federal excise tax on any state or local spending that was designed to benefit a single industry or a single company. So, if the Seattle Seahawks or UPS said to the city of Seattle or said to the city of Tacoma or wherever, I don’t know, wherever UPS is located, if they said, ‘Look, give us a new building. Give us a tax break or we’re leaving.’ The city could have said, ‘Well, fine, but you’re going to have to pay 100% excise tax on whatever benefit you’re getting from us.’ Therefore, the team owner would have no incentive to ask for that money. Instantly, all this sort of pitting cities against each other, pitting states against each other, it would’ve been defused.
David: What is an excise tax?
Patrick: It’s just basically slapping a tax on that kind of transaction. So it’d be like, if you do this then you automatically have to pay this tax to the federal government. It’s almost more of a threat than something you expect to carry through with, in a way.
David: Suppose Microsoft says, ‘We want to build a factory in Texas.’ and they go shopping around for tax breaks.
Patrick: Right. Whatever tax break they would’ve gotten, they would then have to pay 100% of the break they got back to the federal government. So, essentially, they would have no incentive to move in the first place.
David: Patrick Hruby writes for SportsOnEarth.com, his most recent article in Politico is entitled, ‘The National Freeloader League’. Patrick, thank you for joining us.
Patrick: Thanks for having me on.
Listen to the original broadcast
What do you think? I’d like to hear. Please join the conversation below:
The NFL isn’t just stealing from America by charging too much for tickets, it’s stealing high paying jobs while not paying its fair share of taxes.
Patrick Hruby writes for SportsonEarth.Com and his most recent article in Politico is entitled, ‘The National Freeloader League.’ Patrick not only accuses the NFL of paying zero taxes, he also says football teams drain our economy, creating low-paying jobs while tax payers subsidize stadiums they can’t afford to step foot in. Patrick says the NFL socializes the risk and privatizes the profits.
Listen to the original broadcast
David: Patrick, I watched the Superbowl yesterday. Why do you hate our troops?
Patrick: Well, I love Budweiser, can we find some common ground there? They love the troops. Even by NFL standards and Superbowl standards it was a weirdly flag-wrapping, overtly patriotic spectacle and you know what they say about patriotism and scoundrels and last refuges. Maybe it’s telling about the cultural place that the NFL is at right now. It’s almost defensive, in a way.
David: The commercial didn’t say that Budweiser loves our troops, they love one troop.
Patrick: Which was also, kind of, weird, and again, you know, there’s a fine line between trying to do something nice and celebratory and yes, even patriotic for our military. Almost everybody thinks it’s a good idea. And going over that line into using all of that for crass self promotion, wrapping yourself in the flag and using it as a way of deflecting legitimate criticism and I just sort of felt uncomfortable with it last night.
NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell earns $29 and a half million a year running a tax-exempt corporation.
David: We had Andrew Bacevich, the military historian, on our show. He’s also a West Point graduate who served in Vietnam and he calls this spectacle ‘cheap grace.’ Americans get a false sense of patriotism and helping the troops by welling up when they see one soldier returning and some fireworks. And then they can get back to watching the game and being exploited by Budweiser. Patrick, you write that the NFL is going to make $9 billion this year.
Patrick: That $9 billion, and actually, it’s $9 and a half billion and by sum estimates, closer to $10 billion, it includes everything. So, what the teams are bringing in at the gate through ticket sales, what the league is bringing in through its various television contracts, which is really where the big money is and all the sort of ancillary money they make selling jerseys and licensing NFL logos for t-shirts and all those sorts of things. So, we’re talking about a pretty large industry and definitely the biggest in American domestic sports.
David: More than baseball?
Patrick: Yes, they’re bringing in more than baseball, though baseball has been going up for recent years but the NFL is still the juggernaut.
David: How much does NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell earn?
Patrick: The last reported year, which was the tax returns of the NFL in 2012, he brought in $29 and a half million.
David: A year.
Patrick: A year, which is a pretty significant sum. Now, if you get into what I talk about in the article how the NFL front office, which Roger Goodell is the head of, is a tax exempt organization, Roger Goodell’s salary dwarfs that of other CEO’s of tax exempt organizations, such as the United Way, Red Cross, things like that. You’re seeing maybe salaries in the $1 to $2 million range for most charitable non-profit organizations.
David: Right, but Roger Goodell pays taxes on his salary.
Patrick: Yes, he does pay taxes on his salary and something to be clear about, in terms of the tax exemption here, the NFL teams are paying taxes on the money they’re bringing in and the league is paying taxes on the for profit parts of the league, the TV deals and things like that they do. But the front office itself, the NFL headquarters, Park Avenue, New York, where they administer the league, they make the deals with the TV networks, they make the deals with the players’ union over the collective bargaining agreement, they oversee the on-field rules, all of that, that’s a non-profit.
David: Roger Goodell makes how much?
Patrick: $29 and a half million a year.
Former NFL Commissioner Paul Tagliabue has earned $50 million from the NFL while no longer working for the organization.
David: And the commissioner before him was Paul Tagliabue.
Patrick: That’s right.
David: Is he still earning money from the NFL?
Patrick: Amazingly, he is. I went back and I went through their tax returns, and basically since Tagliabue stepped down and was succeeded by Roger Goodell and this was in 2006, and Paul made close to $50 million in the last half decade from the NFL and its related organizations, essentially for not working. He works now at Covington and Burling, it’s a big law firm in DC, which has worked with the NFL for a very long time. So, just as there’s that revolving door in Washington on K Street and Congress, there seems to be a little bit of a revolving door between K street and the NFL.
David: And our justice Department, Eric Holder, comes out of that law firm as well.
Patrick: That’s right. And the head of the NFL Union, Dee Smith, he comes from Patton Boggs, another K street firm. The NFL’s top lawyer right now, Jeff Pash, is a former Covington guy. And for purposes of what we’re talking about, the NFL’s tax chief council, I found out he also works at Covington. So, there’s quite a connection there. The NFL’s well connected in D.C.
David: And Covington I believe also represents Goldman Sachs and some of the big names.
Patrick: I think they do and if you go back further, they also represented a lot of the big tobacco back in the bad old days of big tobacco telling everybody that cigarettes weren’t bad for your health.
David: Eric Holder, our Attorney General, comes from that law firm.
Patrick: Correct.
Listen to the original broadcast
What do you think? Please join the conversation below:
Ask your typical American who Canada’s prime minister is and they would say, ‘What’s a prime minister?’ But ask an American who Toronto’s mayor is, and they would say, ‘Rob Ford.’ Joining us is Martin Short.
Listen to the original broadcast
David: Marty, you’re a Canadian. Is crack cocaine legal in Canada?
Marty: Yes, it is. And I think it’s wrong. No, it’s not remotely legal. There’s nothing that makes sense in this case. You know, the police chief has video of the mayor smoking crack. Often, that’s a detriment to a man seeking re-election. Somehow, this has helped this man. I don’t have the answers. I lived in Toronto for many years. I can’t explain the phenomenon of Rob Ford. This is a guy who does not care what happens to him. Justin Bieber threw eggs at his house, and Ford just ate them. When Ford goes to a casino buffet . . .
David: Yes?
Marty: The cook, upon seeing his arrival screamed, ‘I need backup’ So I can’t explain his popularity. I just can’t.
Toronto Mayor Rob Ford is running for reelection.
David: He’s running for re-election . . .
Marty: And he has a very good chance of winning.
David: So he’s done more than drugs. Is there a record he can run on besides his police record?
Marty: What I have been told is that he has kept his campaign promises. He has said he was going to cut taxes, was going to close libraries. Every decision wasn’t based on elegance or sophistication, but it was certainly based on his pledge, ‘I will cut taxes and I will help the suburbs more than the suburbs feel they’re being helped.’ And both those cases, his supporters would say he’s actually done that. There’s been no indication of graft or anything illegal other than personal behavior that the mayor has done. So that’s why he’s forgiven by many.
David: Well, you say that Mayor Ford kept his campaign promises. Some would say that President George W. Bush also kept his campaign promises.
Marty: I don’t think he promised to invade a country that hadn’t done anything to us.
David: You’re saying Mayor Ford didn’t campaign on promising to invade a foreign country, or President Bush?
Marty: Mayor Ford.
David: Mayor Ford said he would never invade a foreign country.
Marty: Unless they had crack cocaine. Then he would invade them. If Buffalo opened a crack cocaine manufacturing, there could be troops coming from Toronto into Buffalo. I’m just warning you. I’m not trying to be the doomsday guy.
Marty Short says Mayor Ford has a pretty good chance of getting reelected.
David: Mayor Rob Ford has kept his promise to the people who put him in office, who wanted fiscal responsibility, not necessarily personal responsibility.
Marty: Correct. But there are other issues about Ford, you know, that can’t be forgotten. You know, he voted against AIDS funding because, and this is his quote, ‘If you’re not doing needles and you are not gay, you wouldn’t get AIDS, probably.’ This is a quote.
David: Which, to me, is more important than his smoking crack.
Marty: Right. He also solicited money from lobbyists on city letterhead for the Rob Ford Football Foundation, his private charity. Totally illegal. He proposed eliminating the city’s watchdog agencies after they targeted him for misconduct. And he said Oriental people are taking over Toronto because they work like dogs. Using the term ‘Orientals’, first, in this day and age.
Mayor Ford was videotaped recently smoking crack cocaine.
David: Yeah.
Marty: I mean, it’s just like, you wonder, what, is he smoking crack?
It’s insane that this guy represents the fourth-largest city in North America. It’s not elegant. But I have one bit of advice to his wife.
David: Yes?
Marty: Get on top!
David: Martin Short, when were you honorary mayor of the Pacific Palisades?
Marty: I was, from 1999 to 2001, and then I was followed by Anthony Hopkins.
David: You were accused of overreach. You did implement a very strict, draconian stop-and-frisk policy as honorary mayor.
Marty: Mm-hmm. It was a little different. It was called stop-and-finger.
Listen to the original broadcast
The Center for Disease Control issued a report late last year warning that, conservatively speaking, more than 2 million Americans are sickened and 23,000 are killed each year by antibiotic-resistant infections.
The CDC warns half of all antibiotic prescriptions for humans are unnecessary.
Meanwhile, 80% of all antibiotics used in America are placed in animal feed.
Now comes word the Food and Drug Administration conducted a ten-year study of 30 animal feed antibiotics, and concluded that 18 of them posed a high risk for developing antibacterial-resistant superbugs, which can make their way into humans.
The FDA withheld this study. But through the Freedom of Information Act, the Natural Resources Defense Council got its hands on the study and is making it public this week.
Avinash Kar is one of the attorneys with the Natural Resources Defense Council who sued for the release of this study. He joins us from Washington, D.C.
David: How can the FDA possibly defend this behavior?
Avinash: FDA is likely to point to its recent guidance, its policy recommendations that it put out late last year, which are voluntary and ask for drug manufacturers to give up some of the uses of antibiotics to animals that are not sick. We think that’s inadequate. It’ll simply allow many current uses to continue under a different name. And, of course, it is still voluntary.
Margaret A. Hamburg became the 21st commissioner of food and drugs on May 18, 2009.
David: What was in this study, Avinash? What was the FDA not telling the American people?
Avinash: FDA reviewed the safety of 30 different penicillin and tetracycline antibiotics added to animal feed over the course of the last decade. It concluded that almost none of these antibiotics meet the safety standards that FDA established in 1973. FDA also compared these antibiotics against the most recent policy standard for looking at the safety of antibiotics in feed, and concluded they would not be approvable today under those standards if they were to come up.
Having made these conclusions, FDA should have acted on them, and should have stopped the use of these antibiotics in animal feed. Instead, it’s put out mere recommendations that don’t go far enough.
David: This study involves two of my favorite people, Big Ag and the pharmaceutical industry. So, Big Ag and the pharmaceutical industry are working hand in hand to encourage farmers to give our livestock penicillin. Why are they giving our livestock penicillin?
Avinash: Antibiotics are used in animal feed, whether it’s cattle, swine, or poultry, for a couple of reasons when they’re used on animals that are not sick. The first is to speed up animal growth. The second is to compensate for the crowded and often unsanitary conditions that often exist in facilities.
So it’s to speed up animal growth artificially, and to compensate for the conditions and none of the animals are sick. We’re not opposed to the use of antibiotics on animals that are sick, but this is basically the equivalent of adding antibiotics to the cereal of children day after day because they might get sick in daycare. It’s not an appropriate use.
David: Instead of housing the animals properly, and treating them properly, they’re looking for a quick fix, which is just throw some antibiotics into the feed. The FDA did not release this study. Why not?
The NRDC sued through the Freedom Of Information Act to make FDA’s study public.
Avinash: I’m not sure why they didn’t release this study, because it calls for action on their part. It shows that these antibiotics are not being used in a way that is protective of human health. FDA has consistently given in to the livestock and pharmaceutical industries on this issue, and this continues their pattern of inaction on this issue, and their failure to really engage meaningfully on it.
David: Who does the Food and Drug Administration work for, the American people, or Big Ag and Big Pharma?
Avinash: Well, they’re supposed to be working for us, and they’re supposed to be protecting public health. Unfortunately, their actions don’t often move towards protecting public health. They seem to be protecting industry.
David: Are lobbyists allowed to lobby the FDA?
Avinash: Yes, they are. For instance, when FDA put out its voluntary recommendations late last year, the Animal Health Institute, which is the animal pharmaceutical industry association, had advanced word of the announcement, which none of us knew about until we heard about it through their press release.
David: Is there something American farmers could be doing to raise our animals without antibiotics?
Avinash: We think there’s a really good example in the experience in Denmark. Denmark produces about 30 million hogs a year in an industrial system of production. It’s about the same number of hogs as Iowa produces in a year. They have managed to reduce their use of antibiotics by over 40% since they stopped the use of antibiotics in animals that are not sick.
They’ve done it through measures that are not exactly rocket science. They are doing better sanitation. They’re providing a little bit more space for animals. We’re not talking about pasture-raised animals here. We’re talking still about an industrial system of production. They’re weaning the animals a little bit later, and they’re taking other such good management measures that are helping them produce even more pigs than they were before, without the use of antibiotics.
David: That’s Denmark?
Avinash: Yes.
David: There’s something rotten in America. Avinash Kar is with the Natural Resources Defense Council.
Avinash: Thank you very much, David.
What do you think? Please join the conversation below.
Bobby Shriver is the brother of our state’s former First Lady, Maria Shriver. He’s the son of Sargent Shriver, who started the Peace Corps, and the nephew of President Kennedy. Bobby Shriver is a graduate of Yale Law School, and has also served as mayor of Santa Monica. He is now running for a seat on the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors as an environmentalist promising to ‘…clean up Santa Monica Bay and the beaches, and to create and maintain our parks.’
Hunter Schwarz writes for BuzzFeed, and has been looking into Bobby Shriver’s investments.
Listen to the original broadcast
David: Hunter, you write in BuzzFeed, ‘He purchased $1.1 million in oil and gas stocks in 2010,’ companies that do offshore drilling?
Hunter: Yeah, that’s correct.
David: What companies?
Hunter: Exxon Mobil, Occidental Petroleum, Sunoco Logistics Partners, TransOcean. TransOcean is the offshore drilling company that was behind the oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico a few years back.
Bobby Shriver’s father, R. Sargent Shriver, was the first director of the Peace Corps and was Senator George McGovern’s running mate in 1972.
David: When you say he’s bought oil companies, a lot of people his age buy mutual funds that are a basket of stocks, and they end up unwittingly owning stocks in oil companies. But you’re saying that he went out and purposely purchased stock in TransOcean, which helped contribute to the BP oil spill?
Hunter: Bobby Shriver said himself that the only stocks that he specifically picked were Berkshire Hathaway, Harley Davidson and Starbucks. That’s what the campaign is saying, that these were oil drilling stocks that other people picked for him.
David: Well, he did work as a venture capitalist at one time in his life.
Hunter: He told the Los Angeles Times that when he had people pick stocks for him, he had one thing that he wouldn’t let them do, and that was buy stocks from companies in South Africa during apartheid. That was the only prohibition he’s ever placed on any purchase of stock.
David: What is the Arctic Royalty Limited Partnership?
Hunter: The Arctic Royalty Limited Partnership had 143 oil and gas lease sites in Texas and Oklahoma.
David: This is a company that is drilling for oil in Texas and Oklahoma?
Hunter: Yeah, mm hmm.
David: He receives royalties from these drilling sites?
Hunter: In 2011, he made between $10,000 and $100,000 from Arctic Royalty Limited Partnership.
David: Okay. That’s not a lot of money for a Kennedy, is it?
Hunter: No. But he has a lot more that is invested in his stock portfolio. It’s a minor thing, but it is there on his public records about his economic interests.
David: Have you looked at his entire investment portfolio?
Hunter: I’ve looked at everything that he’s filed for the past several years.
Bobby Shriver’s sister Maria, JFK’s niece, married a Republican weightlifter.
David: Do you know what his net worth is?
Hunter: No, I do not.
David: Does he have to reveal what his net worth is?
Hunter: I’m not sure. The thing with these public records is they’re not too specific, like, it says that he owns stock in Exxon Mobil, but when it says how much he actually owns, it just says $10,000 to $100,000. So that gives you this huge range, and that’s about as specific as it gets.
David: Right.
Hunter: There’s only a few public records that give us a glimpse into his finances.
David: These are not oil stocks that he inherited. What are the other stocks that he’s purchased?
Hunter: El Paso Pipeline, Enbridge Energy Partners, Energy Transfer Partners, Enterprise Product, OEG Resources, NuStar Energy, Plains All American Pipeline, Southwestern Energy.
David: These are the stocks that he purchased for $1.1 million in 2010. Correct?
Hunter: To $1.1 million, that’s the maximum it could be.
David: I’m sorry, when you say it’s the maximum it could be, what do you mean by that?
Hunter: With the very big range that he could have purchased, he doesn’t have to say exactly how much he got. And so, if you add up all the stocks that he purchased and the maximum amount that he listed he could have purchased it for, it totals to $1.1 million.
David: And if you were to give him the benefit of the doubt, what would the low end of that total purchase be?
Hunter: Just over $100,000.
David: In 2010?
Hunter: Mm-hmm. Correct.
David: It’s fair to say then that in 2010, he could have purchased anywhere between $100,000 to $1.1 million of stock in 11 oil/gas companies, correct?
Hunter: Correct.
David: And it wouldn’t be lower than $100,000?
Hunter: No.
David: So that’s just for 2010, alone. Caroline Kennedy (his first cousin), our ambassador to Japan, is also part of the Arctic Royalty Limited Partnership?
Hunter: Mm-hmm.
David: But this week she spoke out against the dolphin hunt going on in Japan.
Hunter: Yeah.
Bobby Shriver is running for a seat on the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors.
David: What is Bobby Shriver’s record on the environment? Even though he owns stock in these companies, could he still be an environmentalist?
Hunter: From 2001 to 2008, he was Chairman of the State Parks and Recreation Commission. While he was mayor of Santa Monica, he pushed for Measure V. Measure V was passed in 2006, and it raised property taxes for urban runoff, water quality and treatments. He does have a record of supporting environmental issues.
David: Well, Hunter Schwarz writes for BuzzFeed, and he’s been looking into Bobby Shriver’s investments. Thank you for doing that.
Listen to the original broadcast
What do you think? Can a politician own stock in oil companies and still protect our environment? Leave a comment down below.