Whomp Whomp! $80 Billion WV Petrochemical Deal W. China Craters On Corruption, Trade War
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In total, China had pledged to invest $250 billion in the U.S. market at the November summit. Several fossil fuel industry executives attended the Chinese trade mission, including the CEOs of liquefied natural gas (LNG) exporting companies Cheniere, Delfin, and Texas LNG.
The first domino to fall in the investigation surrounding the MOU was Woody Thrasher, West Virginia's Secretary of Commerce. As the main regulator and promoter of business in the state, Thrasher was tasked by Governor Jim Justice with oversight of the China-West Virginia deal. (Thrasher is a former Democrat with a business background who converted to a Republican at an August 2017 Trump rally. However, Thrasher was forced to resign on June 14 at the governor's request for reported mishandling and misreporting of money for a state flood recovery program. But these incriminating details only came to light as a result of a broader investigation by Justice's office, when it discovered what it considered ethically dubious activities, centering around self-dealing, related to the MOU, according to the publication MetroNews.
As previously reported by DeSmog, Thrasher and his family business, The Thrasher Group, stood to gain economically from the MOU, and representatives from the company have attended business and industry meetings on creating a petrochemical hub in West Virginia and along the Ohio River Valley. Chad Riley, CEO of The Thrasher Group, spoke at the Northeast U.S. Petrochemical Construction Conference held in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, June 18-19.
The Thrasher Group provides architectural, engineering, and construction services for oil and gas field and pipeline projects. Woody Thrasher never divested from the company when he became Secretary of Commerce and maintained a 70 percent ownership stake.
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At a June 15 press conference, Governor Justice's legal counsel Brian Abraham said that the investigation has been referred to the U.S. Department of Justice. He also said that Governor Justice's investigation into the China deal came first and the flood recovery program probe was merely an offshoot of the broader China MOU investigation. “Investigators including former U.S. Attorney Mike Carey looked at six months of data and 10,000 emails,” MetroNews reported of the press conference. “Abraham said the findings contributed to this week’s forced departure of Commerce Secretary Woody Thrasher, as well as to the earlier departure of Deputy Commerce Secretary Josh Jarrell.” Carey, the West Virginia Governor's legal counsel, and the West Virginia Secretary of Commerce did not respond to a request for comment for this story.
Jarrell stepped down from the West Virignia Department of Commerce in May, according to his LinkedIn page, and now works at the firm Steptoe & Johnson. According to the Appalachia Development Group's archived website and as previously reported by DeSmog, the corporation's attorney Kathy Beckett also works at Steptoe & Johnson. Jarrell recently spoke in place of Thrasher, who was scheduled to speak before his resignation, at the petrochemical industry conference in Pittsburgh. Beckett and Jarrell did not respond to a request for comment for this story.
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https://www.desmogblog.com/2018/06/25/west-virginia-petrochemical-hub-china-trade-war-corruption-thrasher