{"id":20906,"date":"2010-08-26T08:15:52","date_gmt":"2010-08-26T14:15:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/?p=20906"},"modified":"2010-08-26T12:01:02","modified_gmt":"2010-08-26T18:01:02","slug":"ads-attacking-pearce-aren%e2%80%99t-entirely-true-or-false","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2010\/08\/ads-attacking-pearce-aren%e2%80%99t-entirely-true-or-false\/","title":{"rendered":"Ads attacking Pearce aren\u2019t entirely true or false"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Steve Pearce (Photo by Heath Haussamen)<\/p><\/div>\n

Controversy has swirled around two TV ads from Defenders of Wildlife Action Fund<\/a> attacking Republican congressional candidate Steve Pearce<\/a>, with Pearce and others calling the ads false and misleading and Defenders standing by the accuracy of its ads.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve been looking into the situation and found that the truth is somewhere in between. The ads aren\u2019t entirely true, but they\u2019re also not entirely false. You can view the ads here<\/a> and here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The central claim that\u2019s been disputed centers around Pearce twice being named by the left-leaning group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington<\/a> (CREW) as one of the most corrupt members of Congress. Regardless of whether the group\u2019s subjective characterization of Pearce as corrupt is fair, it\u2019s accurate to say the group calls him corrupt. But the House committee charged with ruling on ethical issues has rejected the claim at the heart of CREW\u2019s attack on Pearce.<\/p>\n

In 2007, Pearce made the group\u2019s list<\/a> of the most corrupt members of Congress primarily because of \u201chis failure to properly report a transaction on his financial disclosure report.\u201d<\/p>\n

The CREW complaint states that Pearce was president of Lea Fishing Tools, Inc. in the fall of 2003, and sold the company\u2019s assets to\u00a0Key Energy Services<\/a> for more than 540,000 shares of stock. Pearce failed to report that in his 2003 financial disclosure report, the complaint states.<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter selling Lea Fishing Tools\u2019 assets to Key Energy, Rep. Pearce was required to report the sale on his financial disclosure form as a transaction, but he failed to do so,\u201d the group\u2019s complaint stated. \u201cBy failing to list the sale, Rep. Pearce appears to have violated the\u00a0Ethics in Government Act<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

In 2008, Pearce ended up on CREW\u2019s list again based on the same allegations. Pearce was quick to release publicly, for the first time, a letter from the House Committee on Standards and Official Conduct stating that he was not required to report<\/a> the sale of Lea Fishing Tools.<\/p>\n

CREW admitted that it did not and should have known about the letter<\/a> \u2013 but it also rejected the committee\u2019s conclusion, standing by its allegation that Pearce was required to report the company sale and its inclusion of Pearce on its list of the most corrupt members of Congress.<\/p>\n

So the group twice listed Pearce as among the most corrupt members of Congress. It\u2019s a subjective list compiled by a subjective group \u2013 nothing more. Putting Pearce on that list the second time was something I questioned because of the committee\u2019s letter<\/a>. It\u2019s accurate to say that the committee has officially rejected CREW\u2019s allegation against Pearce.<\/p>\n

But it\u2019s also accurate to say \u2013 as Defenders does \u2013 that the group twice ranked Pearce as among the most corrupt members of Congress.<\/p>\n

On to other claims in the ads\u2026<\/p>\n

\u2018Over $1 million in campaign cash\u2019<\/h3>\n

The first ad from Defenders claims that Pearce \u201ctook over $1 million in campaign cash from big oil giants like BP and voted to give them billions in tax breaks.\u201d<\/p>\n

At the time the ad starting running a few weeks ago, OpenSecrets.org said Pearce had taken $998,178 in donations from the oil and gas industry \u2013 indicating that the claim that he had taken \u201cover\u201d $1 million not quite true.<\/p>\n

However, since then, the site has been amended, and it now states that Pearce has taken $1,015,178<\/a> from the oil and gas industry. I\u2019m not sure why it was changed, but we\u2019re almost splitting hairs on this point.<\/p>\n

Did Pearce vote to give such companies billions in tax breaks? Though I don\u2019t agree with parts of FactCheck.org\u2019s analysis<\/a> of the first Defenders ad, the Web site is right on when it comes to this point. The ads\u2019 claim is based on Pearce\u2019s vote in favor of the Energy Policy Act of 2005<\/a>.<\/p>\n

From FactCheck:<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile the bill did provide $14.5 billion in subsidies to energy companies, most of that went to electric utilities, nuclear power, energy-efficient cars and buildings, and renewable fuels research \u2014 not to oil and gas companies. In fact, tax increases imposed by the bill on the oil and gas industry exceeded the tax breaks, according to a\u00a0Congressional Research Service report<\/a> released in 2007.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2026 So while it\u2019s true that Pearce accepted roughly $1 million in donations from oil and gas companies over 19 years, his vote on the 2005 energy bill on balance did not give oil companies \u2018billions in tax breaks.\u2019\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Selling his business to a company \u2018that was lobbying his committee\u2019<\/h3>\n

The ad also states about the Lea Fishing Tools sale that Pearce \u201cgot rich selling his own company for twice its stated value to an oil company that was lobbying his committee.\u201d<\/p>\n

If there\u2019s an implication there that Pearce took action to benefit that company, Key Energy, it\u2019s not true. Roll Call reported in 2008 that it \u201cfound no evidence that Pearce has taken any legislative action to specifically benefit Key Energy Services.\u201d<\/p>\n

However, it\u2019s true that a company official testified before a task force on which Pearce sat (he was appointed by then-House Speaker Dennis Hastert). Defenders provided a document<\/a> proving that.<\/p>\n

Is testifying before a task force on affordable natural gas formed by the House speaker the same as lobbying the House Natural Resources Subcommittee on Energy and Mineral Resources? Mostly.<\/p>\n

\u2018Producers of the toxic chemical MTBE\u2019<\/h3>\n

The new claim in Defenders\u2019 second ad is that Pearce \u201ctook thousands from the producers of the toxic chemical MTBE<\/a> and then voted to protect them from liability for protecting New Mexico\u2019s drinking water.\u201d<\/p>\n

Asked for a response to the new ad, the Pearce campaign didn\u2019t refute the MTBE claim. According to the fact sheet<\/a> Defenders provided to back up the ad, Pearce voted in 2003 and 2005 in favor of bills that would have protected companies from lawsuits related to MTBE contamination.<\/p>\n

And, according to Defenders, Pearce has taken tens of thousands of dollars in contributions from the corporations producing the chemical \u2013 which, incidentally, includes Valero Energy Corp., a company whose board included Bill Richardson<\/a> before he became New Mexico\u2019s governor.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Controversy has swirled around two TV ads from Defenders of Wildlife Action Fund attacking Republican congressional candidate Steve Pearce, with Pearce and others calling the ads false and misleading and Defenders standing by the accuracy of its ads. I\u2019ve been looking into the situation and found that the truth is somewhere in between.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,1],"tags":[108,116],"class_list":["post-20906","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-and-analysis","category-uncategorized","tag-2010-election","tag-washington"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20906","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20906"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20906\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20906"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20906"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20906"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}