Austin — Political squabbling over AN in Texas has also ratcheted up on another front. Texas Attorney General and Republican gubernatorial candidate Greg Abbott, who earlier this year directed several state agencies to stop disclosing to the public the location of sites that store AN in the state (GM June 23, p. 13), has faced criticism after media reports revealed that Abbot received more than $75,000 in campaign donations in 2013 from political interests affiliated with Koch Industries, including a $25,000 contribution from first-time donor Chase Koch, president of Koch Fertilizer and son of Koch Industries CEO Charles Koch. The Dallas Morning News first ran the story on July 1, also reporting that Abbott rode on a company jet to a Koch-related retreat in New Mexico in 2013 to meet wealthy donors. The newspaper followed that with a story on July 3 in which a Koch Industries spokesman denied any connection between the campaign contributions and Abbott’s ruling, and criticized the earlier story for creating “a vague and improbably quid-pro-quo linkage.” Abbott cited terrorism risks and the Texas Homeland Protection law of 2003 as the reason for his decision to prevent the Texas State Health Services Department (SHSD) and the Office of the Texas State Chemist to release AN storage information to the public, though the information is still available to fire departments and first responders. Critics of the decision say Texas law requires businesses that store AN to file Tier II reports with their local fire departments and the SHSD, and that this information should be available to the public under the Community Right-to Know Act. Abbott’s Democratic opponent in the gubernatorial race, Wendy Davis, has used the revelation to attack Abbott, and vowed to strengthen the Community Right-to-Know law if she is elected. Davis also said she would make Tier II chemical information availability an emergency legislative item during her first week in office.
Transparency Across the Fertilizer Value-Chain