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Bush Administration Overvalued Florida Land Rights, Report Says
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| Contributor | ArmyDem |
| Last Edited | ArmyDem Jun 08, 2005 12:39pm |
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| Category | News |
| News Date | Wednesday, June 8, 2005 06:00:00 PM UTC0:0 |
| Description | By Ryan J. Donmoyer
June 8 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. Interior Department inspector general concluded that the Bush administration offered in 2002 to overpay a prominent Florida family for oil and gas rights on Everglades land, according to people familiar with the matter.
In a report to the Senate Finance Committee to be made public today, Inspector General Earl Devaney says the department nearly tripled earlier estimates of the value of the mineral rights, the three people said. The agreement wasn't completed and the people familiar with the situation said Devaney's findings would scuttle it.
President George W. Bush announced in May 2002 that the federal government would pay $120 million in cash plus an undetermined amount in tax deductions to prevent the Collier family's privately held Collier Resources Co. from drilling for oil and gas on 400,000 acres of land it owns in what he called ``critical parts of the Everglades.'' Two previous government assessments valued the rights between $5 million and $68 million.
The report says that Ann Klee, a Bush administration political appointee, led the effort to reach an agreement with the Collier family shortly after she was named in January 2001 to administer the transition at the Interior Department between presidential administrations.
Klee, and two Interior Department lawyers, Barry Roth and Peter Schaumberg, relied on a private sector estimate that recommended the $120 million payment after soliciting several appraisals, all of which were lower, Devaney's report says. It also says at least one career Interior Department official contested the high estimate. |
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