Complaint filed over NorthernStar phone surveys
Wednesday, August 20, 2008 11:44 PM PDT
By Tony Lystra
Printable version
E-mail this articleOpponents of a liquefied natural gas terminal planned for the Columbia River said this week that they have filed a complaint with the Oregon Secretary of State’s office, accusing the terminal’s backer of illegally courting Clatsop County voters in an upcoming referendum on the project.
Two anti-LNG groups — Clatsop County Citizens for Common Sense and Columbia Riverkeeper — allege that NorthernStar Natural Gas is behind hundreds of so-called “push polls,” or fake phone surveys that are actually intended to promote a political position.
The activists acknowledged that they don’t know who exactly is making the calls. But, they wrote in their complaint, “NorthernStar has already spent considerable money opposing the referendum and it is likely that the campaign against the referendum, including the push polling, is funded by NorthernStar.”
Oregon election law, the groups contend, requires any organization spending money on an election campaign to register as a Political Action Committee. NorthernStar, the activists said, has not.
In a statement, the Houston company said it has done nothing wrong and that the groups are misinformed.
“We have not engaged in ‘push polling,’” NorthernStar said in the statement. “We routinely do surveys and we will report campaign expenditures as required.”
NorthernStar proposes building an LNG terminal in Bradwood, Ore., and stringing a pipeline across Clatsop, Columbia and Cowlitz counties. The company has secured land-use approvals from Clatsop County. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission is expected to decide the terminal’s fate soon.
In June, anti-LNG activists gathered enough signatures to place a measure on September’s ballot giving voters a chance to overturn Clatsop County’s decision to allow NorthernStar to run its pipeline across less than a mile of land zoned for parks and open space. If voters send the decision back to the county’s commissioners, the activists say, it could at least delay the terminal’s construction.
NorthernStar spokesman Joe Desmond said in June that the referendum “will have no material impact on our project.”
But this week, the two anti-LNG groups said voters had been receiving calls asking how they plan to vote on the referendum. The unidentified callers then suggest “that LNG will have a positive effect on Clatsop County,” the groups said in a statement.
The complaint asks the Secretary of State to impose a fine of $10,000 per expenditure against whoever is behind the calls to and level other fines for failing to register its PAC.
NorthernStar declined to say this week how much it has spent on the referendum campaign, but said it will report its expenditures under the state’s campaign finance laws. The company denied that it is required to form a Political Action Committee in order to participate in the campaign.
Related articles:
State questions Bradwood Landing review (Aug. 20)
Kulongoski's office expecting 'more of the same' as FERC decision on LNG nears (July 15)
Past Month's Most Commented Stories