Home > Political Insider > Archives > 2008 > July > 31 > Entry
DEL.ICIO.USChambliss grills a sugar official, and is grilled in return
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
U.S. Sen. Saxby Chambliss is getting some blowback for his harsh questioning of a whistle-blowing Imperial Sugar official who said, during a Senate subcommittee hearing, he warned the company of the hazardous situation at the plant — two weeks before it was ripped by an explosion.
In today’s Savannah Morning News, Larry Peterson reports this:
Near the end of the Tuesday session in Washington, the Georgia Republican lit into Graham H. Graham, Imperial’s vice president of operations.
“I believe Chambliss was espousing the company line in an effort to discredit and blunt Mr. Graham’s testimony,” the attorney, Philip Hilder, said Wednesday.
Chambliss denied that, saying he spoke on behalf of the families of the 13 people killed as a result of the Feb. 7 explosions and fire at the Port Wentworth refinery……
Hilder said he thinks Imperial suggested questions for Chambliss to ask Graham and accused the senator of a “cheap shot” against his client.
“He’s more interested in discrediting Mr. Graham than discovering the facts, and I think he’s the one who’s being insincere,” Hilder said.
Chambliss rejected Hilder’s claims.
“I ask my own questions,” the senator said. “That’s what lawyers are paid to say.”
….Imperial spokesman Steve Behm said the company suggested questions to subcommittee members, but none to Chambliss for Graham.
Tom Barton, editorial page editor of the local paper, weighed in with this criticism of Georgia’s senior senator.
We understand Chambliss has taken issue with portions of the column — including a reference to a $1,000 campaign donation to Chambliss made by Imperial Sugar last year, months before the explosion. The company has given $2,000 to Democrat John Barrow — half in 2007 and another grand in 2008. The list of Imperial contributions can be found here.
You can go here to see the video of the testimony. The exchange between the Scotland-born Graham and Chambliss begins almost exactly at the 2:00 mark.
Or you can click here for a rough, five-minute sound clip.
A partial transcript of the exchange appears on the jump.
And you can click here for Graham’s entire testimony.
Saxby Chambliss: You had this meeting with employees at the Port Wentworth plant in which you, Mr. Graham, had gone into this facility, and identified a shocking and dangerous facility in Port Wentworth. You made recommendations to the company which they followed.
You told these folks if they didn’t take some corrective action immediately, you told some of these folks they wouldn’t be back — they’d be in the morgue.
Why didn’t you, Mr. Graham, go to the management of Imperial Sugar Company and say, ‘By golly, if you don’t shut this plant down now and clean this up, you’re going to have a dangerous situation to occur — which did occur, two weeks after you said you made that statement.
Graham: I…
Chambliss: Why didn’t you do that?
Graham: I did do that. I told Mr. Sheptor that I was surprised we hadn’t killed anybody already, because the plants were so dangerous. I was told that my passion was extreme, and I had to temper it.
I was told to prepare a board presentation for the end of January, during which I was going to recommend asking for a significant change in the way were were operating the plant. And I was prevented from doing so.
Chambliss: Mr. Graham, here we are six months after the incident occurred and you’re still working for the same company that you say you gave that kind of mandate to. It gives me cause to question your sincerity and what you’ve had to say about this.
This has been a very emotional, tragic situation that occurred in south Georgia. And it’s one in which we want to get to the bottom of, obviously, from the standpoint of what happened. The ultimate result needs to be safety measures put in.
And I respect what you say about the fact that you made recommendations to them, but I really have reason to question your sincerity in that.
Because if you were, I can’t imagine — after what did happen and you said you made the statements you did — why are you still working for this company? Thank-you madam chairman.
(U.S. Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), who chaired the subcommittee hearing, offered Graham an opportunity to reply to Chambliss.)
Graham: All of the conditions I described pre-existed my appointment. My objective today was to bring forth the facts laid out before me so that we can collectively decide what needs to be done to prevent this sort of tragedy from happening again. The employees of both refineries and indeed in the industry deserve a safe working environment.
And the reason I’m still there is that I believe I can continue to contribute to achieving this goal. And I will be taking OSHA’s findings and moving forward to continue fixing deficiencies so we can bring these people into an environment that is safe and clean….
Services »
Comments
By RJ
July 31, 2008 4:53 PM | Link to this
Too little too late for this Bush lap dog. He needs to go!
By mickeyd
July 31, 2008 6:01 PM | Link to this
Saxby is catching a lot of heat here in Savannah for defending these corporate killers. I’ve had several normally GOP-friendly folks snarl when I mentioned today’s Savannah newspaper article to them. Saxby needs to distance himself from this issue.
By Taxpayer
July 31, 2008 6:45 PM | Link to this
Saxby is not worth the attention he’s getting. He obviously is an arrogant jack-a$$ judging by his rude and obnoxious line of questioning against someone that was trying to save lives. I’ll never vote for Chambliss.
By W*******
July 31, 2008 8:32 PM | Link to this
When hasn’t Saxby w******* himself for big business??? The company gave him a $1000 campaign contribution. That was more than enough for Saxby to turn it on. COmpanies know, give Sax some dough, and you got yourself a pit bull in the Senate.
By Ga Values
August 2, 2008 2:38 PM | Link to this
Som of Saxby’s Donations from the Agi industry PAC
Total Contributions
American Agrisurance Association $ 3,000
American Association of Crop Insurers 14,000
American Crystal Sugar Company 13,500
American Meat Institute 11,449
American Peanut 25,000
American Peanut Shellers Association 32,750
American Soybean Association 2,000
American Sugar Cane League of USA Inc. 12,500
American Sugarbeet Growers Association 8,500
Anheuser-Busch Companies Inc. 6,500
Archer Daniels Midland Company 7,000
Arizona Dairymen 2,000
Associated Milk Producers Inc. 6,000
Arizona Cotton Growers Association 3,750
BEEF-PAC 8,375
Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corporation Employees 25,500
California Cotton Growers Association 2,250
California Dairies Federal 10,000
California Rice Industry Association 8,500
Committee for/Adv of SE Cotton Southern Cotton Growers Inc./SE Cotton Ginners Assoc
17,000
Committee Organized for Trading of Cotton-Paciation of the American Cotton Shippers Association
7,500
Concagra Foods Good Government Association 11,500
Continental Dairy Products Inc. 2,000
Continental Grain Company 1,000
Cotton Warehouse Government Relations Committee 3,000
Croplife America 15,500
Dairy Farmers of America 29,000
Deer & Company 13,000
ELECT-the PAC of Alabama Farmers Federation 12,500
Farm Credit Council 29,000
Farmers Group, Inc. 1,500
Farmers Rice Cooperative Fund 9,998
Farmland Industries 1,300
Feed Industry/American Feed Industry Association 2,000
Florida Farm Bureau 1,000
Florida Sugar Cane League 6,500
Flowers Industries Inc. 35,000
Food Distributors Voice in Politics 3,000
Food Marketing Institute 20,209
Food Products Association 3,000
Golden Peanut Company, LLC 2,000
Great Lakes Sugarbeet Growers 2,000
Grocery Manufactures. Association 7,500
Ice Cream Milk & Cheese 16,944
Imperial Sugar Company 1,000
JBS Swift & Company 5,000
Land O’Lakes Inc./Agriliance 3,500
Livestock Marketing Association 3,750
Lorillard Tobacco Company Public Affairs Committee 11,000
Louisiana Rice 3,000
Maryland and Virginia Milk Producers Cooperative Association Inc.
3,000
Miller Brewing Company 7,500
Minn-Dak Farmers Cooperative 7,000
National Association of Wheat Growers 1,500
National Beer Wholesalers Association 40,000
National Cattlemen’s Association 21,375
National Chicken Council 15,000
National Corn Growers Association 1,000
National Cotton Council Committee for the Advancement of Cotton
27,965
National Council of Farmer Cooperatives 6,500
National Grain and Feed Association’s Fund for Better Government
1,000
National Meat Association 2,000
National Milk Producers Federation 6,000
National Pork Producers Council Pork 10,394
National Potato Council Potato 1,000
National Turkey Federation 4,500
North Carolina Cotton Producers Association 2,000
North Carolina Farm Bureau Federation Inc. 2,000
North Carolina Pork Council 2,000
Panhandle Peanut Growers 2,000
Peanut Buying Point (PBP-PAC) 10,500
Peanut PAC of Alabama 8,000
Pilgrims Pride Corporation 21,000
Plains Cotton Cooperative Association Employees 1,000
Producers Rice Mill Inc. 4,500
R. J. Reynolds; Reynolds American Inc. 24,500
Riceland Foods 7,500
Select Milk Producers 1,000
SmithField Foods Inc. 8,000
Southeast Milk Inc. 6,500
Southern Minnesota Beet Sugar Cooperative 11,500
Southwest Peanut 2,000
Sugar Cane Growers Cooperative of Florida 3,000
Texas Farm Bureau Friends of Agriculture Fund 6,000
Tobacco Institute 500
Tyson Foods Inc. 8,000
United Egg Assoc. 15,000
United Fresh Produce Association Fresh 6,000
United States Beet Sugar Association 3,000
U.S. Rice Produces 4,000
USA Rice Federation 5,000
Virginia-Carolina’s Peanut Membership Organization 1,250
Western Peanut Growers 27,000
Total$833,259
By Ga Values
August 2, 2008 2:58 PM | Link to this
Chambliss continues criticism Lawmaker says sugar refinery whistleblower is ‘on the hook’ Associated Press Saturday, August 02, 20084 WASHINGTON —- Sen. Saxby Chambliss — already facing heat for sharply questioning a whistleblower in a fatal sugar refinery accident outside Savannah — toughened his criticism by saying the employee is “on the hook” for the February explosion that killed 13 workers.
Associated Press Saxby Chambliss: Georgia senator has criticized a sugar refinery worker for not doing more before the blast that killed 13. Click photo for optionsAsked about the issue in the Capitol on Friday, the Georgia Republican suggested that the whistleblower is trying to deflect from his own failure to act by accusing Imperial Sugar Co. executives of resisting safety warnings about the company’s plant in Port Wentworth, Ga.
Mr. Chambliss said if vice president of operations Graham H. Graham knew the plant was so dangerous, he should have pressed more urgently.
“My question is if it was that bad, and you thought somebody was fixing to get killed, why in the world weren’t you more forceful?” he said. “Why didn’t he really do something? Because … as a result of his failure to do something, a serious accident did happen, in my opinion.”
“This guy Graham knows he’s on the hook,” Mr. Chambliss added.
Mr. Chambliss, who works closely with the sugar industry as the top-ranking Republican on the Senate Agriculture Committee, insists he is not trying to defend Imperial, which is among the largest U.S. sugar producers.
But his comments are the latest in which he has focused on Mr. Graham as a culprit instead of the company, despite a recent government investigation that accused Imperial of willfully and egregiously violating dozens of safety standards.
Mr. Graham’s supporters emphasize that Mr. Graham had worked at Imperial for just three months before the accident.
Mr. Graham’s attorney, Philip Hilder, called Mr. Chambliss’ criticism “absolutely nonsensical.”
“That plant has existed for some 90 years before Mr. Graham came,” Mr. Hilder said. “He was diligent in addressing the problems and got pushback from upper management, and for the senator … to suggest that he joined the company just a matter of weeks before the explosion and that fault lies with him — even though he saw the problem and tried to rectify it — is just the height of irresponsibility.”
Mr. Hilder and others had accused Mr. Chambliss of doing the company’s bidding Tuesday when he sharply questioned Mr. Graham at a Senate hearing. Mr. Chambliss’ questions raised eyebrows, because no one aside from Imperial had publicly doubted Mr. Graham’s claims. That includes Mr. Chambliss’ fellow Georgia Republican Johnny Isakson. The two rarely split, but Mr. Isakson says he has full faith in Mr. Graham’s account.
Some of Mr. Chambliss’ questions at the hearing were similar to a line of questioning that Imperial had suggested to lawmakers, but Mr. Chambliss said Friday he never saw any questions suggested by Imperial.
Mr. Chambliss also said he has not been influenced by any lobbyists for the Sugar Land, Texas-based company or by his son, Bo. The younger Mr. Chambliss is an in-house Washington lobbyist for the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, which also is represented by an outside firm that lobbies for Imperial Sugar.
By hizutxnvd tvrmb
September 6, 2008 9:03 PM | Link to this
hstiwlj rizt scjpg gkjrodqyc rympbwvxt voqrbpmcx jiqwg
By hizutxnvd tvrmb
September 6, 2008 9:04 PM | Link to this
hstiwlj rizt scjpg gkjrodqyc rympbwvxt voqrbpmcx jiqwg
By hizutxnvd tvrmb
September 6, 2008 9:05 PM | Link to this
hstiwlj rizt scjpg gkjrodqyc rympbwvxt voqrbpmcx jiqwg
By Tom GA Values Hunetr
September 7, 2008 4:34 AM | Link to this
All that said, I will still be voting for Saxby.
By Ga Values
September 7, 2008 5:40 AM | Link to this
Tom GA Values Hunetr / Churchill
September 7, 2008 4:34 AM
And OBAMA TOO??
By Churchill
September 7, 2008 9:27 AM | Link to this
Yes I am going to Vote for Obama & Chambliss. I hope that some day I will have enough money to buy Saxby’s vote like the other rich people.