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An overzealous Pioneer, state Senator Teel Bivins wrote state legislators in 50 states in 1999, urging them to transfer $1,000 from their own war chests to Bush’s presidential campaign. Such diversions are illegal in at least four states. A big Texas Senate supporter of school vouchers, Bivins was rumored as a possible candidate for a Bush administration education post. “I’d lie to you if I said I hadn’t thought about that,” Bivins said of such ambitions in late 2000. Bivins went to Florida in 2000 to aid Bush’s recount efforts. He attended two White House birthday parties for President Bush and had a White House sleepover. After Bivins becoming one of the Texas regional chairs of Bush’s 2004 reelection campaign, President Bush, who nicknamed this senator “Biv,” nominated him be his Swedish Ambassador in 2003. Bivins acknowledged that big donors enjoy direct access to the president, noting in a 2001 BBC interview, “You dance with them what brung ya.” In 1994 Senator Bivins greased a hog deal that brought a flood of animal factories to the Texas panhandle. These flesh factories were fleeing other states that were putting restrictions on animal fecal pollution (see David Miner). Panhandle citizens were complaining about this problem to the state environmental agency. But Bivins and then-agency chair John Hall (who later became a lobbyist for polluters) decided to severely restrict the right of citizens to hearings where they could challenge feed-lot water pollution, hydrogen sulfide emissions and air-borne plumes of manure. By the summer of 1995, feed-lot inspectors were ordered to stop issuing citations. Bivins is a past director of the Texas Cattle Feeders Association (see Pioneer Don Powell) and his campaign is strongly supported by the industry. “I see no reason why this area should not produce 75 percent of the world’s pork,” Senator Bivins has said. Led by its Corsino Cattle Co., the Bivins family, including Teel’s brother and fellow Pioneer Tom Bivins, received $265,681 in federal agricultural subsidies from 1995 through 2002, according to the Environmental Working Group.
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Membership
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Of Special Interest
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| Profile last updated
Dec 8, 2003
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