Jackson Free Press

Mississippi environmentalists say former Gov. Haley Barbour isn't telling the whole truth about his eager boosterism for Mississippi Power Co.'s Kemper County Coal project.

After leaving the governor's office earlier this year, Barbour rejoined the lobbying firm he helped start. Barbour has been a huge supporter of the experimental 582-megawatt lignite-coal plant since Mississippi Power got the go-ahead to build it in 2010.

Supporters of the project say that Mississippi requires additional electricity and that mining and burning lignite, a soft coal that is abundant in the state, is the cheapest way to do it. They also point to the creation of thousands of jobs associated with constructing and running the plant as a boon to the state's economy.

But a new report the Sierra Club questions whether Barbour is motivated by something else.

"In his public relations efforts, Mr. Barbour has failed to disclose his financial ties to Southern Company and to the Kemper project. Mississippi Power customers, and the public at large, deserve to know the truth about Barbour 's financial ties to the project," states the report, released Dec. 10.

Specifically, the Sierra Club points to the hiring of BGR Group--a lobbying firm founded as Barbour, Griffith & Rogers in 1991--by Atlanta-based Southern Co., Mississippi Power's parent company.

When Barbour became governor in 2004 and relinquished his partnership in the firm he co-founded, he established a blind trust that his old company pays into annually. Barbour emphasized that he has no knowledge of what business dealings benefit the trust--a requirement of a blind trust, which allows the property owner (Barbour) to benefit from the property if he receives no information about how the property is being managed or benefited.

Since 2000, Southern Co. has paid BGR Group approximately $2.8 million, according to information from the Washington, D.C.-based government transparency watchdogs Center for Responsive Politics.

"Funny how the governor forgot to mention this in his recent op-ed and public statements attacking the Sierra Club," said Mississippi Sierra Club state Director Louie Miller in a statement on the report's release.

The Sierra Club maintains that lignite is dirtier than other varieties of coal and would harm the environment and that cost overruns and delays for which the utility's ratepayers will bear the burden of repaying.

But Barbour says he is thinking about the people.

"Look at the poor people in the Northeast with no electricity because of Sandy. Or remember the days after Katrina before our electricity was restored in a heroic performance by Mississippi Power and our co-ops," Barbour wrote in a Nov. 15 editorial that appeared in several Mississippi newspapers that faulted the Sierra Club's legal wrangling for any of Kemper's setbacks.

The Sierra Club has filed several lawsuits to block the Kemper plant and numerous other coal-fired power plants around the country from going forward.

"The reality is that Mississippi families and businesses will be forced to shell out billions to pay for a plant that is already hundreds of millions over budget and is not guaranteed to work on day one," Miller stated. "Once Mississippians start to pay, they will be paying for 40 years, even (when) vastly cheaper and cleaner energy options are available."