As I recall, Clinton designated a huge deposit of low sulphur coal, located in Utah, as a national park. Riadi had control of a similar coal site in Indonesia.
Yes, BJ Clinton exercised a gross misuse of the “Antiquities Act” to set aside 1.8 MILLION acres of land in southern Utah (little of which had any conceivable connection to preserving “antiquities”). Previously the understanding of the designation of a “National Monument” was something far smaller than most National Parks, a unilateral exercise of executive authority to protect a relatively small, limited site of some major historical and/or archaelogical interest. Clinton showed how much the Demagogues love “unilateral” exercise of executive power when it suits them.....
I have seen it asserted that Clinton’s action gave Riady’s group a monopoly or near monopoly worldwide on a certain high-quality, low-sulfur coal. I have no way to now whether this is true or not - any experts here on FR? Here is what was on Worldnetdaily.com in 1998 (yes, I know they are not always a reliable source, that is why I emphasize that I have no idea what the truth of the coal issue might be in this matter):
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=16813
In addition to those two counts, Zeifman raises another little-understood scandal first reported by Land Rights Letter in 1996 by Sarah Foster, now a staff writer for WorldNetDaily. This was the executive order signed by President Clinton on Sept. 16, 1996 — six weeks before the presidential election — designating as “wilderness” some 1.7 million acres of federal land in southwest Utah.
By creating the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument as a wilderness area, Clinton effectively placed the area off-limits to mining, logging, road building, and any other development. This land contains one of the only known large deposits of clean-burning coal in the world — coal so low in sulfur and other pollutants it meets the strict environmental standards established during the Clinton administration by the Environmental Protection Agency. The New York Times reported that the deposits could be worth over $1 trillion.
The second-largest deposit of such coal in the world is in Indonesia, where development has been under way for several years.
Zeifman suggests there is a prima facie case for bribery — once again by Indonesia’s billionaire Riady family. The Riadys, who are suspected of spying for the Chinese government and are closely connected with Beijing (the Riadys are native Chinese, not Indonesian), stand to benefit big-time from Clinton’s executive order. China will be a major market for this clean-burning coal.
“With a stroke of his pen he wiped out the only significant competition to Indonesian coal interests in the world market,” Sarah Foster noted in 1996.
[As I recall, Clinton designated a huge deposit of low sulphur coal, located in Utah, as a national park. ]
Absolutely. Payback for millions in contributions/Swiss bank transfers.