http://www.truth-out.org/perry-hates-regulators-theyre-bad-his-business/1314798796-snip-
The outstanding example is Harold Simmons, a Dallas mega-billionaire industrialist who has donated well over a million dollars to Perry's campaign committees recently. With Perry's eager assistance -- and despite warnings from Texas environmental officials -- Simmons has gotten approval to build an enormous radioactive waste dump over a crucial underground water supply.
"We first had to change the law to where a private company can own a license, and we did that," Simmons boasted in 2006, after the Texas legislature and the governor rubber-stamped initial legislation and approvals for the project. "Then we got another law passed that said (the state) can only issue one license. Of course, we were the only ones that applied."
Most Americans have never heard of Simmons, despite his fantastic wealth, because he wisely keeps his head low, generally refusing press interviews and avoiding media coverage. Last year, a local monthly in his hometown published the headline "Dallas' Evil Genius" over a scathing and fascinating investigative profile that examined not only the peculiar history of litigation between Simmons and his children (who no longer speak to him), but his political machinations, corporate raiding and continuing corporate penchant for pollution.
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This year, officials on another Texas commission appointed by Perry -- who oversee low-level radioactive waste in the state -- voted to allow the WCS site to accept nuclear waste from 34 other states in a highly controversial decision later ratified by the state legislature and signed by Perry himself. Not long after that, according to the Los Angeles Times report, Simmons gave $100,000 to Americans for Rick Perry, an "independent" committee supporting his presidential candidacy. (Back in 2004, Simmons was a major contributor to another "independent" political committee, the notorious Swift Boat Veterans group that distorted Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry's war record in a series of TV ads.)
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cancer anyone?
Texas is where enough money will allow you to do anything - including slow murder by toxins.