Sunday, June 09, 2013

Pimp My Ride: Micciche's (Fairly) New Rig

Micciche's New Ride
The ink is barely dry on SB 21, the Oil Tax restructuring bill passed by the slimmest margins this last legislative session and someone has been driving around all Soldotna in his big rig celebrating the victory for Big Oil. That slim margin was thanks to Peter Micciche, who despite his obvious conflict-of-interest (he is a mid-level manager for Conoco-Phillips), not only voted to pass the bill, but served on the committee that re-wrote the legislation.  Mr Micciche drives the largest SUV on the market, a GMC Yukon XL, with a MSRP of around $65,000.

Peter, doesn't quite connect the dots here.  As a senate candidate, he reported the required estimated wages he earned from Conoco Phillips, but did not disclose his stock holdings (not required).  But of course, Peter promised to be completely transparent, whatever that means to him.   I wonder how much his stock dividends were after the generous package he arranged for his bosses?

ADDENDUM:  It was pointed out to me that Mr Micciche acquired the Yukon XL BEFORE he became the Alaskan Senator representing the Kenai.  The only thing brand-spanking new about the rig are the custom AK Senate license plates.  I apologize for that inaccuracy in my first post.

Everything else in the post is accurate.  The conflict of interest, not reporting stock holdings (as mentioned, this was not required - but Micciche did promise to be completely transparent).  I still wonder how much his net worth went up after the new tax scheme passed. Peter still doesn't connect the dots here.  Most folks struggle to pay the over $4 for a gallon of gas - most everyone I know is cutting back and that's a good thing.  Not Micciche - he's doing his part to keep up the demand for more oil development (does he have to pay to fill that beast up, or is free gasoline a perk of his job?). Of course, not much happened in the legislature this session for schools, domestic violence problems, public safety, health care, affordable energy in the bush and etc., but we now are moving ahead with two gas pipelines and with the billion dollar give-away to the oil companies, I'm not going to hold my breath that the republican controlled house, senate and governorship will do anything for any of those other issues.

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