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How far will an oil company go to get the politics they want? A bribery scandal in Alaska.
NOW shines a bright light on the scandalous connection between VECO
Corporation - an Alaska-based oil services company - and Alaska's
old-boy Republican network. Two state legislators have been
convicted in federal court for accepting bribes from VECO, while
one more awaits trial. The FBI has video and audio evidence that
reveal VECO executives shockingly handing out cash to those
legislators in exchange for promises to roll back a tax on the oil
industry. But that may only be the tip of the oily iceberg. NOW's
Maria Hinojosa learns that dozens more lawmakers are being eyed in
the growing scandal, including one of the country's most powerful
politicians, Alaska U.S. Senator Ted Stevens.
NOW investigates the bribes, the connections to big oil and the
payoffs to obtain friendly tax policies.
The NOW Web site at www.pbs.org/now offers a Web-exclusive
report detailing how the oil and gas industry navigated Washington
power structures during the past eight years. Using campaign
contribution and lobbying data, the article connects the dots
between the industry's biggest spenders and the favorable policy
outcomes they received. The report also exposes the connections
between Big Oil and 2008 presidential candidates.