American Crossroads creators Ed Gillespie, right, and Karl Rove

Three Republican groups have formed a super PAC called “Crossroads Generation” and given it $750,000 in seed money in an attempt to attract the youth vote, a population that has traditionally eluded the GOP.

Announced Monday, the group was created by the American Crossroads super PAC, the College Republican National Committee and the Young Republican National Federation. Each of the three groups gave $250,000.

The organization says it wants to bring in young voters disillusioned by high unemployment and the national debt.

“Crossroads Generation aims to give a voice to a generation of Americans who are much worse off than they were four years ago,” said Derek Flowers, formerly of the Republican National Committee, who serves as the group’s executive director.

The Republican Party has not done well lately attracting young voters.

In 2008, young Americans favored Barack Obama by a two-to-one margin. Youth voters tend to favor Democratic presidential candidates over Republican candidates, though the gap was unusually large in 2008. Since 1992, the majority of voters ages 18 to 29 have voted Democrat in presidential elections, according to Surbhi Godsay, a researcher at the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (CIRCLE), a research center based at Tufts University.

American Crossroads has raised $28 million for the 2012 election for spending on Republican candidates. The group was created by Republican operatives Karl Rove and Ed Gillespie. Super PACs can raise unlimited funds from wealthy individuals, corporations and labor unions to spend on advertising.

The other two founding groups report a membership of 350,000.

The super PAC debuted a website along with a Facebook page and Twitterhandle. Monday, it launched a $50,000 online campaign with ad buys in eight states targeted at young swing voters. It also plans to take advantage of the College Republican group’s presence on 1,800 campuses to promote its message.

Branded, “XG,” the splashy website asks, “Are you part of the Crossroads Generation?” and invites visitors to upload videos, photos and text stories about what it’s like being a young person in today’s economic environment.

As of Tuesday night, the Federal Election Commission had not posted a record of the group’s registration.

HHS headquarters in Washington, D.C. Photo: Matt Bisanz/Wikimedia Commons

Thousands of doctors across the country are billing Medicare for routine medical care at rates far above their peers, potentially costing taxpayers tens of millions of dollars in overcharges, according to a new government report.

The audit released Wednesday by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General stopped short of accusing the high-billing doctors of ripping off the government health plan for the elderly. But it stated that Medicare’s payment scales for doctors have been “vulnerable to fraud and abuse” in recent years.

The doctor payment scales are known as “Evaluation and Management” or E/M codes. Doctors choose from five escalating payment levels for treating patients based on the “amount of skill, effort, time responsibility and medical knowledge required for the service.” In 2010, almost 370 million E/M services were provided by about 442,000 doctors nationwide.

The code the doctor chooses can make a big difference to the bottom line. For instance, the Medicare fee for treating a new patient in 2010 ranged from $36.62 to $190.56, depending on the level of service provided by the doctor, and the code chosen for billing.

Using these codes, Medicare paid doctors and other health professionals $33.5 billion in 2010 for services ranging from routine office care to hospital or nursing homes visits.

That billing total represented a 48 percent jump since 2001, though the number of services delivered over the same time period grew only 13 percent. What the data reveal is that many doctors have been gravitating toward the codes that pay them higher fees for these routine services, a practice officials have struggled to understand and curb.

While billing for a higher code than warranted—a practice known as “upcoding” in medical circles—can be a crime, most of these cases are settled by asking the doctor to refund any overpayments. And given the sheer number of Medicare E/M claims, officials say they can do little more than trust the bills they receive are accurate and honest.

The inspector general’s audit suggests that officials have much work to do in policing the system and protecting tax dollars from doctors who take advantage of the lax oversight, however.

For instance, Medicare paid almost $108 million to some 1,669 physicians who billed the highest possible code for almost all of their visits in 2010, according to the audit. That amounts to a payment of $43 more than the average per service  —even though there was little difference in the ailments they treated or the sickness of their patients, according to the audit.

In the same report, the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services said it had identified 5,000 physicians across the country who have “consistently billed for high level” codes and would notify them this month in hopes of preventing “improper billing and payment in the future.”

Yet CMS officials noted that their inquiries were “not intended to be punitive, or as an indication of fraud.”

The inspector general audit, though it mentioned previous cases of fraud involving the E/M codes, offered no explanation for the upward shift in billing by so many doctors.

“We did not determine whether the E/M claims from these physicians were inappropriate,” the report said. It said that later evaluations “will determine the appropriateness” of these payments.

The auditors found abnormally high billing doctors in all parts of the country, but said they were most common in Florida, California, New York and Texas.

The audit comes amid growing controversy over how to compensate doctors, particularly those who provide routine medical services in their offices.

In 1989, as Congress was struggling to control rising physician fees, it set up a Medicare physician payment schedule that used a complex formula to hold spending in check. The rates are adjusted to reflect differences between spending targets and actual outlay.

But every year, in what is known as the “doctor fix” Congress steps in to prevent doctor fees from being reduced. Many critics argue that Medicare should move away from the system that pays doctors a fee for every service they provide and begin paying them based on the quality of care they provide.

The Center for Public Integrity is conducting an in-depth reporting project examining Medicare spending and its consequences for the quality of medical services to the elderly.

Hallandale Outpatient Surgical Center, from its web site

The owner of a private, for profit surgical center received two $100,000 taxpayer-backed business loans from Hallandale Beach after city officials changed guidelines that previously had allowed for only one such loan.

City records show the Hallandale Outpatient Surgical Center, 306 E. Hallandale Beach Blvd., benefitted from the second $100,000 loan after the city doubled a cap that had limited such loans to a total of $100,000. Who authorized raising the cap, and why, is not clear because city records are incomplete.

The city’s Community Redevelopment Agency (CRA) administers the $200,000 in loans. But nearly a third of that money – $65,000 – amounted to a gift from taxpayers because the city has said the surgical center does not have to repay it.

The city awarded the low-interest loans even though the surgical center’s owner/manager, Dr. Lance Lehmann, reported annual wage income averaging more than $700,000 for three years prior to obtaining the first development loan in 2005.

For nearly a year, Broward Bulldog has reported about questionable CRA business loans and land purchases. The city’s management practices, including those at CRA, are now under investigation by the Broward Inspector General’s Office, which sent several agents to Hallandale Beach City Hall on April 10 to meet with city officials.

Hallandale Beach’s redevelopment agency is funded by property tax dollars and funds are allocated for community and business improvements.

Lehmann did not respond to repeated requests for comment.  However, CRA director Alvin Jackson said the medical center, which opened in 2006, has been an asset, making its loan repayments on time, improving the area, increasing the tax base and providing jobs.

“That’s a fine example of what should happen,” said Jackson, who was named CRA director 15 months ago, after the surgical center loans were approved.

Nevertheless, the city’s generous terms coupled with a lack of documentation in city files raise new questions about its troubled business loan program. Why was Hallandale’s cap on loans was changed? How did the surgical center become eligible for additional funds when it was a party to the cap on its first loan?

A WINDING TRAIL OF PAPERWORK

The CRA’s file on the medical center is a winding, yet incomplete trail of letters and memos. The records clearly show the city commission, which also sits as the CRA’s board of directors, approved the first $100,000 loan. The second loan appears to have been OK’d by City Manager Mike Good.

Lehmann initially sought a city loan of $213,000 in May 2004 after acquiring the property the year before for $1.1 million. He explained the loan was needed because of rising construction costs.

The loans were not based on need and Lehman’s substantial prior income was not an impediment to obtaining the loan, according to CRA officials. Applicants are checked only to determine their ability to repay.

City staff recommended a $75,000 loan. On November 3, 2004, commissioners approved a $100,000 loan, adding a provision that only $50,000 would have to be repaid if the complex created 10 new jobs. The loan carried a 2 percent interest rate.

Lehmann’s representatives stated the business would have 24 employees, including 13 new positions. The following May, the city issued a check for $100,000 to LJL Hallandale Holdings LLC, which lists Lehmann as manager, according to state corporation records.

At the time, $100,000 was the largest city loan a business could get and the surgical center was the first to receive the maximum, according to one city memo.

A memo in February 2006 stated that Lehmann inquired about borrowing additional taxpayer money, saying he was told to submit the request to then city manager Good.

The medical center formally requested the additional $100,000 April 2006, seeking the same terms as the original loan.

STAFF CONCERN ABOUT A NEW LOAN

City staff, meanwhile, expressed reservations about additional funding for Lehmann’s project. In memos to Good in February and March that year, then Development Services Director Marc Gambrill said city policies prevented additional loans.

Gambrill cited two written policies, including one that stated “a business may only utilize a loan program once per property.” He noted Lehmann had already received $100,000 loan for site preparations.

A month later, that concern had dissipated. On April 14, Gambrill wrote another memo noting that the city had doubled the loan cap to $200,000. He recommended the city manger approve the additional loan for Lehmann’s business, and handwritten notes indicate that Good later approved it.

The file is not specific, but the policy change was apparently set in motion earlier by the city commission. On Dec. 1, 2004 – a month after it approved the first $100,000 loan for Lehmann’s project – commissioners authorized the city manger to change CRA policy “to administer and change grants, loans and finances charges for all CRA related programs.” The changes were intended to give the city manager new “flexibility in meeting the needs of the community.”

A city check for the additional $100,000, also made out to LJL Hallandale Holdings LLC, was issued July 7, 2006.

The surgical center borrowed a total of $200,000, but must only repay $135,000. The city forgave half of the first $100,000 loan, and 15 percent of the second loan.

The surgical center began paying back the $50,000 on the first loan at two percent interest on July 1, 2005, $1,382 monthly, with the final payment on the 10-year loan due on April 1, 2015.

It pays the city $2,588 a month on the second 10-year loan. The interest rate is four percent and the final payment is due on April 1, 2016.

Both loans are backed by promissory notes signed by the company to repay the city funds. The medical center also signed an agreement to use the property mortgage as collateral.

Contrary to expectations, the much-criticized court decisions that gave us “super PACs” have not led to a tsunami of contributions flowing from the treasuries of Fortune 500 corporations — at least not yet anyway.

What the Citizens United decision and a lower court ruling have done is make household names out of a bunch of relatively unknown, very wealthy conservatives. Of the top 10 donors to super PACs so far in the 2012 election cycle, seven are individuals — not corporations — and four of those individuals are billionaires.

The top 10 contributors gave more than a third, or $68 million of the nearly $202 million reported by the outside spending groups this election, according to a Center for Public Integrity analysis of Federal Election Commission records.

Rounding out the top 10 are two labor unions and a physicians’ medical malpractice insurance group.

The top donor list is mostly Republican, which is not surprising given the competitive GOP presidential primary season. Even so, Democrats have had less success in raising money for super PACs so far.

In 2010, the U.S. Supreme Court and a lower court set the stage for the new super PACs.

Such organizations can accept unlimited contributions from corporations, unions and individuals to spend on advertising supporting or opposing a candidate, but are not permitted to coordinate their spending with campaigns, though many employ former campaign operatives.

Top donors

No. 1 on the donor list by far is billionaire casino owner Sheldon Adelson and family, who gave $26.5 million. Nearly all of it was spent in a fruitless effort to elevate former House Speaker Newt Gingrich to the GOP presidential nomination through donations to the pro-Gingrich super PAC “Winning Our Future.” Another $5 million went to a group aimed at electing Republicans to the House.

Adelson, 78, ranks 8th on the Forbes 400 list of the nation’s richest people with a net worth estimated at $21.5 billion. He is an outspoken supporter of Israel and backed Gingrich’s comment that Palestinians are “an invented people.”

No. 2 Harold Simmons, an 80-year-old Texan, ranks 33rd on the Forbes list with a net worth estimated at $9.3 billion. He gave $16.7 million, which includes $3 million from Contran Corp., in which he has a 95 percent interest.

Simmons, and his wife, Annette, have given to six different super PACs this cycle, but the conservative group American Crossroads, co-founded by Karl Rove, former adviser to President George W. Bush, is by far his favorite. Simmons has given the super PAC $12 million in the 2012 election cycle.

Contran is in a wide range of businesses, including chemical manufacturing, metals and waste management. Simmons has been very public in his dislike of President Barack Obama calling him a “socialist” in an interview with the Wall Street Journal and “the most dangerous American alive … because he would eliminate free enterprise in this country.”

Third on the list is another Texan, homebuilder Bob Perry. Perry, one of the GOP’s most active and prolific donors over the past decade, is a relative piker compared to Adelson and Simmons. He’s not on the Forbes list. Of his $6.7 million in donations, $3.5 million has gone to the pro-Mitt Romney super PACRestore Our Future and $2.5 million has gone to American Crossroads.

Clockwise from left: Sheldon Adelson, Harold Simmons, Bob Perry, Foster Friess, William Doré and Peter Thiel

The other individual donors in the top 10 are:

• Peter Thiel (fifth), a libertarian, gave $2.7 million to super PACs supporting GOP presidential candidate Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas. Thiel co-founded PayPal. Forbes ranks him No. 293, with a $1.5 billion net worth.
• A. Jerrold Perenchio (sixth), gave $2.6 million, with $2 million going to American Crossroads. He is a longtime GOP donor and former owner of Spanish language network Univision. Forbes ranks him at 171 with a $2.3 billion net worth.
• William J. Doré, a Louisiana energy executive, and Foster Friess, an investor, tied for ninth at $2.25 million. The two men were responsible for most of the contributions to the pro-Rick Santorum super PAC, the Red, White and Blue Fund.

The National Education Association, the nation’s largest union, was fourth at $3.6 million. It gave $3 million to its super PAC, the NEA Advocacy Fund, which has yet to spend any money on advertising this year. Ranked eighth is the AFL-CIO, with $2.3 million in donations, virtually all of it going to its Workers’ Voices super PAC.

Rounding out the top 10 is an unlikely super donor, the Cooperative of American Physicians. The co-op gave all its money — nearly $2.6 million — to a super PAC of the same name. The group consists of California doctors who buy medical malpractice insurance through the organization. The doctors want lower malpractice insurance rates and smaller awards in medical malpractice judgments.

Courts change the game

This marks the first presidential election following the landmark Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission case, decided in January 2010. The conservative majority of U.S. Supreme Court justices ruled that spending on independent messages that support or oppose federal candidates by corporations and labor unions does not lead to corruption.

A few months later, a federal court cited this rationale in SpeechNow.org v. Federal Election Commission. That decision led directly to the creation of super PACs. It said that outside spending groups — like American Crossroads, for example — could accept unlimited contributions from corporations, unions and individuals to be spent on political ads.

Previously, if a group wanted to expressly advocate for or against a federal candidate, it could only collect $5,000 per person per year.

If an independent group were to raise $5 million for high-profile TV ad campaign advocating against the president or members of Congress, it would need at least 1,000 donors in a year to give the legal maximum. Now, one wealthy individual can single-handedly give a super PAC the cash it needs — and change the political dynamics of a race overnight.

Washington, D.C.-based attorney Dan Backer, a proponent of super PACs, suspects that much of the money flowing to these nascent groups will come from “the same folks who’ve always contributed,” though he also argues that super PACs will allow more people to get involved and have their voices heard.

Backer said the money “translates into information that empowers voters.”

No limits

Bob Edgar, a one-time Democratic congressman from Pennsylvania who now heads the advocacy group Common Cause, is among those who have railed against the prospect of deep-pocketed corporations and individuals spending big sums ahead of the 2012 election.

“There’s no limit on the amount of money that can enter a political campaign,” he said.

Edgar admits he is surprised that fewer corporations haven’t flexed their political muscle by giving to super PACs, but he predicts that a few “brand-sensitive” corporations will wade into the super PAC water.

“Corporations are discovering that they have to be careful,” he said. “They can tarnish their brands if they are seen as meddling in partisan politics.”

However, there is a way for donors to go unnoticed. Nonprofits organized under section 501(c)(4) of the U.S. tax code can accept unlimited contributions and spend the money on ads, just like super PACs, but they aren’t required to reveal their donors.

In fact, 62 percent of the $123 million raised by American Crossroads, the super PAC, and Crossroads GPS, the nonprofit, through the end of 2011 came from mystery donors, according to a Center for Public Integrity analysis of tax and campaign finance records.

So there may indeed be a flood of money from big corporations headed into the 2012 election — we just won’t see it.

Gerald Lelieve

A federal jury has awarded $175,000 to a former Miramar resident, now a state prisoner, who it found was brutalized while in Miami police custody in 2006.

Gerald Lelieve suffered severe internal injuries that nearly killed him when he was repeatedly kicked and stomped as he lay on the ground in handcuffs after his arrest on a drug charge, according to court documents and his Fort Lauderdale lawyer Greg Lauer.

The jury also determined the Miami Police Department set the stage for what happened through a “policy, practice or custom” of depriving suspects of their constitutional right to be free from its officers’ use of excessive or unreasonable force, and that the city was indifferent to the consequences.

On March 20, U.S. District Judge Cecilia Altonaga ordered the city to pay $100,000 in damages for Lelieve’s pain and suffering. The balance – including $50,000 in punitive damages – was assessed against Officer Odney Belfort for his use of excessive force “with malice.” Large damage awards against individual police officers are unusual.

Evidence focused on the city’s failure to adequately supervise and discipline Belfort. The city and Belfort, who denied assaulting Lelieve, have asked Altonaga for a new trial.

The jury of five men and three women listened to testimony for three days in mid-March, according to a transcript of the proceedings

They gave audience to Assistant Miami City Attorney Christopher Green as he declared in opening arguments, “This is a case about credibility, pure and simple.”

They watched as Miami Officer Odney Belfort took the witness stand and denied attacking Lelieve, and insisted he wasn’t even present during the arrest on Oct. 11, 2006 arrest.  “I was not there,” Belfort said.

They heard two other officers back Belfort up under oath – including Maj. Keith Cunningham, who now heads of MPD’s North District.

But in the end the jury didn’t believe the police. They believed Lelieve, who told a very different story about his arrest.

“Everything corroborated what my client had to say. Their story didn’t make sense,” said Lauer, who tried the case along with Fort Lauderdale attorney Dion Cassata.

“The police were busting drug dealers, but it got to the point where the felt they could do whatever they wanted to do in the pursuit of drugs, including injuring people. It was like the Wild West. There was no oversight,” Lauer said.

Miami Police spokesman Maj. Delrish Moss declined comment saying  the case remains in litigation. He referred questions to the City Attorney’s Office, which also declined comment.

Miami Police Major Keith Cunningham

COCAINE LED TO ARREST

Lelieve, 41, was an itinerant cab and passenger-van driver with a lengthy arrest record that includes mostly drug crimes, but also one serious assault. Public record show he has listed addresses in Miramar and Miami, although he gave an Orlando address at the time of his 2006 arrest.

Today, Lelieve is serving 6 ½ years in Florida’s Marion Correctional Institution for cocaine trafficking.  He sold no drugs, but according to police was holding 59.6 grams when they arrested him driving away from a Little Haiti drug house. That’s above the 28-gram threshold where possession becomes trafficking under Florida law.

Without a lawyer, Lelieve later sued the city and Belfort for violating his constitutional rights. His complaints were dismissed four times until it was reviewed by the federal Volunteer Lawyers Project, which offers free representation to the indigent, and found to have merit.

Belfort and his partner, Desreen Gayle, were undercover “eyeballs” that evening, police slang for officers who conduct surveillance. They radioed a description of Lelieve to fellow officers in the city’s Crime Suppression Unit who took him down, despite his strong protests of innocence.

Lelieve heard an officer radio Belfort, apparently double-checking that they’d gotten the right guy.

Soon,  Belfort appeared. “They asked him, ‘That’s him? He say yes,” Lelieve testified.

BEATEN SUSPECT HEARS A POP IN HIS STOMACH

Belfort was face up on the ground with his hands cuffed behind him as Belfort approached him.  “He say I think I am slick and he started kicking me,” Lelieve said in broken English. “When he kicked me I feel something pop in my stomach.”

Lelieve, a native of Haiti who stands six-foot-one and weighs more than 200 pounds, couldn’t defend himself. “I tried to move my side, but he keep on kicking me…about seven times.”

“I recognized Officer Belfort when he kicked me. I will always remember his face,” Lelieve said.

Other members of the city’s Crime Suppression Unit, an elite drug-busting squad, did nothing to stop Belfort. But when the beating was finished one asked, “Why did he do that?” said Lelieve.

Helped to his feet and into a police van, Lelieve complained of pain. He briefly saw a doctor. “He just touched my stomach and he say I am all right,” Lelieve said. “He don’t even do an x-ray or nothing.”

But overnight in a holding cell at the Miami-Dade County Jail, Lelieve lay on the concrete floor and threw up. The following afternoon, a nurse sent him to Jackson Memorial Hospital by ambulance. He told medics the police had hurt him.

Dr. Mauricio Lynn saw Lelieve. He diagnosed blunt abdominal trauma, and found enough blood in his belly to fill a two-liter bottle. He operated to repair a large tear in his patient’s abdominal cavity.  Lelieve spent more than a week in the hospital.

The city’s lawyers offered jurors no explanation as to how Lelieve came to be seriously injured while in police custody. Nor did they call to testify other officers who were present during the arrest.

The jury determined that Belfort acted with “malice or reckless indifference” when he employed excessive force on Lelieve. But it was their finding of Miami’s “policy, practice or custom” of allowing officers to get away with abusing suspects that formed the basis of the damage award against the city.

A HISTORY OF COMPLAINTS

Belfort, hired in 1994, has a history of complaints related to his use of force, abusive treatment, and improper procedures. His internal affairs profile lists 29 separate incidents from 1996 to 2007.

Most were not sustained. Lelieve’s lawsuit contended the city often failed to investigate such matters, routinely filing cases away as “information only” or “inconclusive.”

The jury heard details of three Internal Affairs cases in which charges against Belfort were sustained, but no discipline was imposed.  Prosecutors were not told about the cases, Lauer said.

In one 1999 case that was aggressively investigated, Belfort’s behavior was similar to what Lelieve said happened to him. Belfort was accused of pepper spraying two men who didn’t get out of his way fast enough as he drove by in his patrol car on NW 64^th Street at First Place.  Belfort denied it, saying he wasn’t in the area at the time.

But investigators later determined his pepper spray canister had been used and that he hadn’t reported it. They also found a witness who said he saw Belfort spray the men after punching one of them twice.

“You all can’t get out of the way? You all think I’m playing?” Belfort said, according to the witness.

Belfort was found to have violated Civil Service rules that were grounds for dismissal. Instead, it was recommended he forfeit 30 days of sick time. In the end, no punishment was imposed, nor were prosecutors notified of the attack or Belfort’s attempt to cover it up.

In its defense, the city presented no evidence that Internal Affairs ever investigated Lelieve’s injuries – even after being put on notice by the filing of the lawsuit.

“Everything is kept in house, swept under the rug,” Lauer told the jury.

In an interview, Lauer described MPD Internal Affairs as essentially a charade.

U.S. District Judge Marcia Cooke

“It is supposed to give the appearance that they are doing something and that they want to keep violent cops off the street, but if you really look at them what they are doing is protecting each other,” said Lauer.

MIAMI POLICE CRITICIZED BEFORE

Miami U.S. District Court Judge Marcia Cooke said something similar in a scathing 2005 order rebuking the city about its officers’ excessive use of force in another civil rights case a year before Lelieve was brutalized.

Her order focused on an apparent pattern in which Internal Affairs justified police shootings “despite evidence to the contrary.”

Wrote Cooke: “The court is perplexed as to how this shoddy police work and repugnant behavior can continue, unquestioned. The facts show that this behavior continues because it is condoned by MPD supervisors, internal affairs and comrades in arms.”

Juries typically don’t explain themselves when they make findings after listening to the evidence. But the jury that heard Lelieve’s complaint appears to have shared Cooke’s thoughts.

Lauer said his client is “just happy to get his day in court and tell the jury what this officer did to him.”

State records show that Lelieve is due to finish his sentence on December 3. But he won’t be a free man; the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement wants Lelieve detained while they move to deport him to Haiti.

Back in Miami, where the jury’s decision has gone largely unnoticed, a change in police culture does not appear to be on the horizon. City Hall hasn’t pushed for it. And the new police chief, Manuel Orosa, has a history that includes involvement in a notorious brutality case 23 years ago.

Orosa, a 31-year veteran on the force, was a sergeant in 1988 when a squad of Miami cops beat a drug dealer named Leonardo Mercado to death.

Orosa wasn’t on the scene of the beating, but he was the supervisor of six of the cops later charged in Mercado’s death. He was suspended with pay in 1989 for failing to preserve evidence in the case, and later testified for the defense in the cops’ trial.

Deputy Broward County Attorney Noel Pfeffer makes a point while Solid Waste Director Elliott Auerhahn listens during negotiations over new waste disposal contract.

The promise of the lowest price for waste disposal could be thwarted by a last-minute demand from top Broward County administrators.

The county was in the throes of negotiating a multi-million dollar waste disposal contract when suddenly the government issued a requirement that any company must provide a list of disposal sites.

“This is a big issue, a very big issue…Cities will have problems that they don’t know where their garbage is going,” Thomas Hutka, Broward’s public works director, explained during contract negotiations this week.

Newcomer Sun/Bergeron immediately complained that the new mandate favored Wheelabrator Technologies, the Waste Management subsidiary which has held a near monopoly on Broward’s waste disposal for over 20 years and already owns a landfill and a pair of waste-to-energy plants here.

“When Wheelabrator won this contract 20 years ago, they didn’t have a disposal site. We are newcomers,” said Aleida “Ali” Waldman, Bergeron’s general counsel.

Sun/Bergeron Vice President Phil Medico contended residents and businesses could get a better deal by disposing of the waste in whatever facility has the best price rather than tie themselves to one site for five years.

Under Sun/Bergeron’s proposal, waste would be sent to various transfer stations around Broward and then sorted through for recyclable material.  Anything that could not be recycled would be trucked to yet-unnamed disposal sites.

Wheelabrator proposes to continue disposing waste in its two company-owned existing sites. The waste is minimally processed for recyclables and is either burned or buried – in a landfill along Florida’s Turnpike in North Broward or in an incinerator just south of Interstate 595 in Davie. The burned trash at both locations is used to generate electricity.

The sites were built in the late-1980s under a contract with Broward County that will expire in 2013. Under its current agreement, Wheelabrator handles the disposal for 26 of Broward’s 31 cities.

Waste removal involves two separate jobs.  A hauler has a franchise with each city to pick up waste at homes and businesses. That waste is then hauled to a disposal site that tacks on a fee. The hauling and disposal fees are generally rolled into one fee paid by residents and business owners.

The current negotiations involve only disposal, but it is a contract worth tens of millions of dollars over five years.  Negotiators are working over details of the contract at this point and no final prices have been set.

DEAL TO MAKE OR BREAK TRASH MONOPOLY

With the end of its contract on the horizon next year, Wheelabrator at first proposed extending its monopoly for 20 years through 2033. Sun/Bergeron saw an opening and launched a lobbyist effort to block the renewal of the contract.

The lobbying worked. Enough cities, and eventually the Broward County Commission, voted to reject renewal with Wheelabrator. They gambled that better rates could be obtained by pitting Wheelabrator against Sun/Bergeron in competitive bids.

Miramar agreed to be the first city to ask for competitive bids from the two disposal companies. Wheelabrator’s bid was $52.50 per ton, compared with Sun/Bergeron’s $43.25 per ton. Sun/Bergeron got the nod, and a deal is being negotiated. The negotiations by the county and other cities is their attempt to fine-tune the Miramar bid to see if an even a better deal can be reached.

Sun/Bergeron is a joint venture, which is headquartered in Davie in an industrial area near I-595.  Sun Recycling, the operating partner, is a subsidiary of the veteran waste company Southern Waste Services of Lantana.  Bergeron Environmental and Recycling is the latest venture of Broward entrepreneur Ron Bergeron, who is already a dominant force in road building, storm recovery, real estate and rock pits.  Medico, a long-time waste industry executive, is the chief negotiator for Sun/Bergeron.

Medico told county negotiators that “supply and demand” would lower the price over the next five years because numerous new waste disposal sites are expected to open in South Florida, and there would be a “surplus of opportunities to dispose of waste.”

There sites in Miami-Dade, Lee and Okeechobee Counties. Palm Beach County is building a waste-to-energy incinerator that is scheduled to go online in 2015. Any site picked by Sun/Bergeron – like all legal disposal sites in Florida – would have gone through a rigorous permitting procedure by the state.

“Any waste will have a final resting place in a legally permitted class one facility,” Medico said.

MISSED OPPORTUNITIES?

Speaking to negotiators this week, Medico warned that Broward should not make the same mistake it did in the 1980s by binding disposal to one company’s sites. The county missed opportunities to lower prices because “you were tied up in a 25-year monopoly.  You didn’t have a choice” about what sites to use, Medico said.

Under the rules of the negotiating sessions, each company gets a day to be grilled and explain its position on why they should be chosen to dispose of Broward’s waste.  The discussion of the sites came on Thursday when county staffers and two city managers – Lee Feldman of Fort Lauderdale and David Rivera of Coconut Creek – were going over Sun/Bergeron’s proposal line-by-line.

Thursday was Sun/Bergeron’s day to be questioned. Wheelabrator’s Vice President of Operations Bill Roberts and Senior Legal Counsel Emily Kahn sat in the audience taking notes.

In an interview earlier with Broward Bulldog at Wheelabrator’s sprawling computerized incinerator plant in Davie, Roberts made his case for his company to continue the contract.

All waste delivered to Wheelabrator’s South Broward plant ends up in this gigantic bin. This is approximately 12 tons of garbage. Photos by: Buddy Nevins.

“We have a proven technology that’s reliable…The infrastructure exists. These facilities are strategically located,” Roberts said.

He added that having the disposal sites in Broward contributed $23 million in wages, goods and services and other indirect spending to the county’s economy.  He said disposing waste locally takes vehicles off the road because it doesn’t have to be transported to another county.

“Our system has worked very well for 20 years,” he said.

The county led negotiations are scheduled to conclude and go to the County Commission for its approval by May 8.  On paper the negotiations only involve the small slice of Broward that is unincorporated, but several cities are expected to piggyback on the agreement, hence the presence of Feldman and Rivera.

Deputy County Attorney Noel Pfeffer, who is leading the negotiations, said the company that is chosen is expected to go out and sell the agreement to the 26 cities now using Wheelabrator.  “There will be some period of time (built into the final contract) for the company to go out and market the agreement,” he said.

COMPETITION AND LOWER RATES

Competition has already driven down the price of disposing of garbage in Broward. More price pressure is likely. For instance, there is an overcapacity at Wheelabrator’s South Broward waste-to-energy plant.

The plant was built to handle 1.5 million tons a year. A few years ago it was processing 1.2 million tons. Today, it’s just 900,000 tons due to the failure to forecast increases in recycling and the struggling economy.

“In the end, they have to have waste to keep that facility going.  If they lose this contract and aren’t getting enough waste, they’ll cut the price and accept waste from other counties,” predicted a waste industry source.

Roberts confirmed that Wheelabrator’s local facilities would have to take waste from other counties if they failed to get enough from Broward.

One company that could conceivably help fill Wheelabrator’s plant is Sun/Bergeron,  if rates drop far enough.  Sun/Bergeron would collect the waste at transfer stations in Davie and elsewhere, then send it to the plant for disposal.

“We have a contract with them for disposal in other places,” Medico said.

The stump of one of more than 2,000 trees allegedly cut by a billboard company in North Florida. A grand jury said the state wrongly issued cutting permits.

Robert J. Barnhart was a crew chief for a billboard company, and a soldier in a war on trees.

Trees were the enemy if they spoiled the view of a billboard. On days of an attack, Barnhart, 27, would arrive by dawn at Lamar Advertising Co. in Tallahassee, Fla. After removing the magnetic Lamar logo from a company truck, he would set forth with a machete, a hospital mask and a container of what he described as a “pretty gnarly” herbicide.

It was all about being fast: Hack into the roots or base of the tree, douse the wound with herbicide, and get out of there. The Lamar executive who gave the orders, said Barnhart, called it “a hit and run.”

Barnhart’s account, detailed in court papers and in statements to investigators, is the focus of a criminal investigation. It also is the basis for a whistleblower suit in which Barnhart, who through his lawyer declined to be interviewed, maintains that he was fired because he would not keep poisoning trees. His claims are supported by sworn testimony from Barnhart’s former supervisor, Chris Oaks, who admitted that he, too, had illegally poisoned trees before Barnhart took over in 2009 as poisoner-in-chief.

As long as there have been billboards, trees have been getting in the way. And billboard companies have been removing them—sometimes legally, sometimes not. News archives are replete with accounts of mysterious tree disappearances near billboard sites. Usually, no one gets caught, due to lack of evidence or to officials failing to aggressively pursue those responsible.

Fewer trees means more viewing time for motorists, and more money for billboard operators. A 500- foot clearance in front of a sign creates more than five seconds of viewing time for a motorist going 60 mph.

It’s uncertain if the Tallahassee tree-poisonings were isolated, or reflect a pattern at Lamar. The Baton Rouge, La.-based company has nearly 150,000 billboards, more than any other U.S. outdoor advertising firm.

Barnhart and Oaks said they acted under orders from Lamar’s former regional manager, Myron A. “Chip” LaBorde, who ran company operations in Florida and Georgia and was past president of the Florida Outdoor Advertising Association LaBorde died of pancreatic cancer last summer.

Hal Kilshaw, a Lamar vice president and chief spokesman, declined to discuss the criminal investigation, but said “cutting of trees or poisoning of trees without the required permits would be contrary to company policy.”

Robert Barnhart and his wife, Kimberly. Barnart claims he was fired by Lamar Advertising last year when he refused to continue poisoning trees

Charges in the tree-poisoning case could be filed soon. Meanwhile, another tree-killing binge in the Florida panhandle has also drawn attention. In that episode, billboard operator Bill Salter Outdoor Advertising cleared more than 2,000 trees from public rights of way to enhance views of its signs.

Florida transportation officials acted “in flagrant violation of the law” in issuing permits for the cutting, a grand jury found in January, because, among other things, they did not require Salter to compensate the state for the loss of the trees, valued at $1 million to $4 million. The permits were issued to Salter after a state legislator, Greg Evers, intervened by making calls to the state Department of Transportation. The agency is currently negotiating with Salter for repayment.

Tree pruning also happens routinely, and legally, by arrangement between billboard operators and private landowners. The industry has lobbied for state laws to allow tree cutting along public highways under certain conditions. According to the Outdoor Advertising Assn. of America, the industry trade group, 29 states, including Florida, have “reasonable” regulations on clearing vegetation that blocks views of signs. The group says on its website: “The OAAA discourages vegetation control that is not in compliance with state and local laws and regulations.”

However, environmental groups have criticized these laws, asking why publicly owned trees that provide beauty and shade should be removed to accommodate advertising signs. Though billboard companies pay for the cutting, critics say permit fees and compensation for destroyed trees do not meet the real cost to taxpayers. Moreover, they note, in states that permit vegetation removal, illegal cutting still takes place.

Lamar’s Kilshaw said his company’s record is good. “We have over 150 offices, we have thousands of employees, we’ve been in business over 100 years,” he said. The record shows Lamar is “doing the right thing almost all the time, almost everywhere.”

“An Honest, Legitimate Mistake”

In 2008, Lamar was sued by the state of Connecticut after the company and a tree service trespassed on state land and removed 83 trees along Interstate 84, including oak, spruce, maple and birch trees up to 37 inches in diameter. They “swept a swath of destruction,” said then-Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, “obliterating a vital environmental buffer protecting homeowners from noxious noise and views.”

The problem was that Lamar had a permit to trim—not cut down—trees. It also felled trees outside the permitted area.

It was “an honest, legitimate mistake,” Kilshaw said, adding that a state transportation official had observed the work without raising objections. But a judge found Lamar liable in October, 2010. In lieu of paying damages, Lamar agreed to fund a replanting program for an estimated $181,000.

In 2009, Lamar was forced to pay about $182,000 to an irate Ohio couple for illegally felling 34 trees on their property to improve views of a sign.

The dispute began in the late 1990s when, according to John Blust, he and his wife rebuffed Lamar’s offer to plant a sign on land they owned in the Dayton suburb of Beavercreek.

A neighbor proved more obliging, and the billboard went up there. But it turned out that the Blusts’ trees were in the way. They lived a few miles from the property, and did not learn of the destruction of their woodland until alerted by a cousin.

Blust told FairWarning that he sought compensation, and “If they had sent me $3,000, it would have been all over.” But a Lamar executive “laughed at me over the phone from Baton Rouge, Louisiana,” said Blust, who then decided to sue.

A jury awarded the Blusts more than $2.2 million in punitive damages. Appeals dragged the marathon case into 2009, when an appeals court ruling led to Lamar paying damages and attorney fees.

“In that case, our contractor made a mistake,” Kilshaw said, “and simply went across a property line, and we ultimately paid on that.”

For his part, Blust, 76, said he was “satisfied that I caused them pain. Did we make a lasting impression on the management of Lamar? If they’re still cutting down trees, I guess we didn’t.”

What is unusual about these episodes is that someone got caught. More often, over the years, the culprits remained unknown or were not aggressively pursued by authorities.

For example, a 1985 report by the General Accounting Office cited dozens of incidents in Georgia of illegal tree cutters acting with impunity, including a case in which about 500 trees were poisoned near three signs along interstate highways.

In Louisiana, said the GAO, “over 2,000 feet of vegetation and trees were cut and cleared to enhance the visibility of two signs. We counted over 900 stumps from destroyed trees at this site.”

In a 1996 deposition, a former billboard company tree trimmer testified that he had cut down and poisoned trees in the Los Angeles area for many years, usually without the owners’ consent. The former employee, Fred Jackson, worked until the late 1980s for two large billboard companies, Foster & Kleiser and Patrick Media, that eventually merged and were absorbed by Clear Channel Outdoor.

Jackson said he occasionally was confronted about what he was doing, and would make up a lie. It might be “‘I’m working for the Edison Company,’” Jackson testified. “That was a great one.”

More recently, illegal tree clearing near billboards and “supergraphics’’—giant ads draped on buildings—has been a problem in Southern California, said Dan Freeman, an official with the state Department of Transportation, or Caltrans.

“The billboard industry—well, my impression of them is they’re kind of lawless,” said Freeman, Caltrans’ deputy director of maintenance for Los Angeles and Ventura counties. “They pretty much do whatever they want.”

“We’ve been victim a number of times to people who come in the middle of the night, with a chainsaw, and just kind of clear cut the area immediately in front of one of these supergraphics or a large billboard,” Freeman told FairWarning.

“And, of course, we call them [the sign company], and they say, ‘We have no idea who could have done it. My, what a terrible thing.’ They don’t own up to it. We have had a very, very difficult time in getting traction on prosecuting them.”

The Right To Be Seen

Billboard companies have sometimes claimed an inherent right to have unimpaired views of their signs. If revenues go down because of public trees, they have argued, public agencies should pay damages. This has been a hard sell.

For example, a Tennessee appeals court rejected an industry lawsuit against the state department of transportation over its failure to maintain unrestricted views of roadside signs.

“It is true that wild vegetation, as well as that planted by the State, has and will have a normal tendency to grow taller,” said the 1979 ruling. “Plaintiffs seem to insist that the licensing of a billboard confers some special right of visibility or imposes some special duty upon the State to maintain visibility of the licensed billboard. No authority has been cited or found to sustain this novel theory.”

In 2006, the California Supreme Court rejected claims of billboard operator Regency Outdoor, which had sued the city of Los Angeles, claiming it lowered the value of its signs by planting palm trees for a beautification project.

“The right to be seen from a public way…simply does not exist,” the Supreme Court ruled. “Regency cannot claim unfair surprise from the plantings. Local governments have long planted trees along roads for aesthetic reasons, to lessen the burdens of climate, and for other salubrious purposes.”

So the industry has turned to state legislatures to establish the right to be seen. Under laws or regulations of most states, billboard operators can legally cut back trees and other vegetation along state and federal highways. Typically, they must pay for a permit, file a work plan, and either replant or pay for lost trees.

The Outdoor Advertising Assn. of America failed to respond to interview requests, but in an email described vegetation control as “a common, longstanding practice along roadways for the sake of safety and visibility.”

Once state rules are in place, billboard companies often lobby state legislatures to relax restrictions and expand the freedom to cut. In the past year, for example, the industry pushed through such changes in Georgia, North Carolina and Wisconsin.

In Georgia billboard companies won more freedom to clear trees, though the new law is tied up in a court challenge. The industry’s legislative success followed years of cultivating lawmakers. From 2001 through 2010, billboard owners and the Outdoor Advertising Association of Georgia contributed at least $467,522 to candidates for state office, according to a report by the advocacy group Scenic Georgia.

The Outdoor Advertising Association also did some wining and dining, last year hosting 34 Georgia legislators and two board members of the state Department of Transportation at a golf outing at the Reynolds Plantation resort, according to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

A Georgia Department of Transportation spokeswoman said that in the past five years, the agency has completed investigations into 20 complaints of illegal tree cutting, and collected about $203,000 in compensation.

In North Carolina, the industry-backed law passed last July expanded the cutting area to up to 380 feet on each side of billboards—up from 250 feet before. This translates into extra viewing time of 1.5 seconds for motorists approaching billboards at 60 mph. State transportation officials estimated that up to 200,000 trees could be removed in the next five years as a result.

From 2005 through June, 2011, billboard interests donated at least $206,000 to state legislative and gubernatorial candidates in North Carolina, according to a report by the nonprofit group Democracy North Carolina, and research by FairWarning.

“They’ve got a lot of money, and it’s amazing how cheaply legislators can be bought,” said North Carolina resident Charles Floyd, a retired University of Georgia business professor who has written extensively about the billboard industry and is critical of the new law.

Even in states like North Carolina that provide a legal means to enhance billboard views, incidents of illegal cutting and poisoning still occur. In some respects, loosening restrictions is the path of least resistance, reducing the number of violations and need for enforcement.

“If you legalize vandalism,’’ Floyd complained, “that helps out a lot.’’

Poisoned trees near North Carolina billboard site in 2006. Courtesy of the North Carolina Department of Transportation.

Since July, 2006, the North Carolina Department of Transportation recorded 88 incidents of illegal tree removal near billboards, according to agency data reviewed by FairWarning.

The cost to the state was $923,000 under a formula based on the size of lost trees. Of that amount, records show, the state was able to collect only about $39,000. Without admitting liability, Lamar paid $18,487.50 to settle one of the cases.

 Criminal Probe in Florida

Soon after Barnhart filed his whistleblower suit in federal court in Tallahassee, he led state agriculture officials to an oak tree he claimed he had poisoned next to a CVS pharmacy in Tallahassee. When the lab results came back in October, they revealed a herbicide, Triclopyr, in soil and vegetation samples.

He told officials it was one of seven to 10 trees he had illegally poisoned since 2009. Sometimes, he said, he used a machete before pouring in the poison, other times drilled holes in a tree, and on still other occasions he simply cut them.

Barnhart has been granted immunity by Leon County State Attorney Willie Meggs. Asked to comment on the criminal probe, Meggs said his office is continuing to gather information.

In a deposition taken in the whistleblower case, Chris Oaks, Barnhart’s supervisor, confirmed Barnhart’s account. Oaks admitted to poisoning trees himself under orders from his boss, LaBorde.

Oaks, 35, claimed he initially balked, saying he thought Lamar must first get permits.

“And he (LaBorde) told me, he said to just jump over the fence and do what needs to be done and kick a little dirt over it,” Oaks testified, “and if you don’t know how to do that, I’ll take out my gun and I’ll shoot you in the head.”

Oaks figured LaBorde was joking. But “I felt then that I needed to do what the man was telling me for fear—not for death, I didn’t really think he would kill me, but I did feel like it was threatening to my job,” Oaks said.

“I just want to get it clear that none of this was me,” Oaks said. “I did not want to do any of this.”

Barnhart said fear of getting caught on a surveillance camera and, according to his lawyer, pressure from his wife led him to come forward. Barnhart said that after suffering a back injury and going on light duty, he told managers that he would no longer poison trees when he came back. In August, he says, he was fired.

Lamar contends it never fired Barnhart. The company’s response is less clear cut on the other alleged violations, such as criminal mischief and illegal handling of poisons.

“Any act or omission by Lamar was done in good faith,” the company said in court papers. “To the extent that the actions of any Lamar employee were, in fact, in violation…, those actions directly violated Lamar’s corporate policies and procedures and were, thus, beyond the course and scope of their employment.”

FairWarning (www.fairwarning.org) is a nonprofit, online investigative news organization focused on safety and health issues.

Support for this story came from the Fund for Investigative Journalism (www.fij.org).

Rothstein, Rosenfeldt & Adler publicity photo

TD Bank lost a $67 million jury verdict in January in a case related to the notorious Fort Lauderdale lawyer and swindler Scott Rothstein. Now, the Canadian-owned bank is accused of withholding evidence during the 70-day trial.

Coquina Investments, one of hundreds of reported victims of Rothstein’s $1.2 billion Ponzi scheme, has filed court papers in the case it won accusing TD Bank of “altering” its internal assessment that Rothstein’s law firm was a “high risk” for money laundering.  Keeping that secret could have shielded the bank from further liability.

Coquina, based in Corpus Christi, Texas, has asked the court to sanction the bank.

Coquina’s successful lawsuit argued the bank aided and abetted the enormous fraud. Rothstein testified in a December deposition that bankers were key to his scheme, and that he paid off TD Bank’s regional vice president, Frank Spinosa, according to the Sun-Sentinel.

Rothstein, who once lived a flashy lifestyle and hobnobbed with politicians, is currently serving 50 years in prison.

The alleged evidence of TD Bank’s duplicity at trial are 2009 “Customer Due Diligence” forms for Rothstein, Rosenfeldt and Adler. Such forms are used to evaluate the risk involved in dealings with customers and assessments.

Lawyers for Coquina assert the bank removed the warning “HIGH RISK” from the form and changed its coloring from red to black when presenting the evidence in court. At trial, the bank produced a money-laundering expert who stated that Rothstein’s firm was not a high risk, according to post-verdict court filings made late last month.

Coquina’s lawyers call that a “fraud on the court and jury” by TD Bank.

TD Bank acknowledged a mistake in its own court filings last week, but said it was a “copying error” by clerical staff that did not hurt the plaintiff’s case. It has apologized. The bank also said Coquina’s lawyers knew of the gaffe and referred to it in their closing arguments to the jury.

TD Bank declined requests for comment by ACFCS.org, citing its policy of not commenting on “pending litigation.”

FRAUD OR MISTAKE?

Coquina’s Miami lawyer David Mandel, a former federal prosecutor, filed court papers this week asserting the “the trial would have proceeded much differently had the defendant produced the true document.” Coquina’s $67 million verdict included $35 million in punitive damages. Mandel had asked the jury to award $140 million in punitive damages.

The jury may have awarded higher damages, Mandel argued, adding that the altered document affected cross-examinations.

TD Bank’s response did not address the testimony of their witness, money-laundering expert Ivan Garces.

Garces testified that the bank did not consider Rothstein, Rosenfeldt and Adler high risk.

“It’s your opinion, sir, that TD Bank did not consider RRA [Rothstein's law firm] to be a high-risk customer of the bank; is that right?” a Coquina lawyer asked Garces on the stand.

“Yes, ma’am. That’s correct” Garces replied.

Mandel has asked US District Court Judge Marcia G. Cooke to sanction TD Bank, and refer the matter to the US Department of Justice for possible criminal investigation. Federal law makes it a crime to intentionally alter a document for use in a trial.

Brian Kindle is editorial director for ACFCS.ORG, the Association of Certified Financial Crime Specialists, an independent research and information organization based in Miami whose members are financial crime experts in the public and private sector.

FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski

Television stations, which have been fighting a government proposal to make political ad data more accessible, came in for some harsh criticism yesterday at their annual trade show in Las Vegas. In a keynote speech Monday at the National Association of Broadcasters convention, Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski unleashed on the industry.

“[S]ome in the broadcast industry have elected to position themselves against technology, against transparency and against journalism,” said Genachowski, who favors the proposed rule, which would create an FCC website for political ad data.

The data is already public but kept only on paper at TV stations. (That’s why ProPublica has launched Free the Files. We’re inviting volunteers to visit the stations and help collect the data so anybody can see it. The data can provide information not available through traditional campaign finance filings.)

As we’ve previously reported, the National Association of Broadcasters, led by former Sen. Gordon Smith, has been lobbying the FCC to water down the proposed rule requiring stations to post the data. The commission will vote on it April 27.

Genachowski criticized television stations for opposing the transparency measure despite the “proud history of broadcast journalism.”

Genachowski also answered broadcasters’ objections point by point. Here’s the key portion of his speech:

The arguments, made in the public record, shouldn’t go unanswered.

First, cost. The argument is that meeting existing disclosure obligations online instead of on paper would be a heavy financial burden and indeed a “jobs destroyer.” But the facts demonstrate the unsurprising conclusion that the cost of online disclosure is nominal and that, indeed, once the transition from paper to digital is complete, it will save money — save money for broadcasters and for other stakeholders: including political candidates, journalists and the public at large.

It’s also noteworthy that any disclosure costs tied to putting the political file online relate directly to political advertising revenue received by broadcasters, which is estimated to be in the $3 billion range this year, up by large amounts over past years.

Another argument that’s been made: This isn’t an FCC issue. That argument is refuted by the plain language of the law. Congress explicitly requires broadcasters to “maintain, and make available for public inspection, a complete record of a request to purchase broadcast time that is made by or on behalf of a legally qualified candidate, etc.”

Congress placed this requirement in the Communications Act, and explicitly charged the FCC with the obligation to carry out these provisions. It gave both the FEC and the FCC roles, understanding the unique role broadcasters play and that some of the information Congress requires broadcasters to make public is never provided to the FEC, and what is provided is sent weeks or months later. The FCC’s role here is clear, essential and very longstanding.

Another objection is that the disclosed information is “proprietary,” particularly the rates broadcasters charge for political advertising. But, one, Congress explicitly requires broadcasters to disclose this information, and, two, broadcasters already do.

In other words, the argument against moving the public file online is that required broadcaster disclosures shouldn’t be too public. But in a world where everything is going digital, why have a special exemption for broadcasters’ political disclosure obligation?