The Office of Inspector General at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has recommended EPA seek to recover nearly $25.2 million of the $25.4 million given America’s Clean Water Foundation in three federal grants – $21.1 million of which went to Validus Services LLC, a for-profit subsidiary of the National Pork Producer Council.
There’s a small problem in getting the loot back, however.
Gone. July 14, 2006, the foundation’s attorney told EPA that the foundation had “dissolved” – vanished – along with its office, employees and board of directors.
America’s Clean Water Foundation and National Pork Producer Council have a short, profitable history; a history this space outlined twice in 2001 and 2002.
A Dec. 2001 column documented how the nonprofit National Pork Producer Council established a for-profit subsidiary – then called Environmental Management Solutions, LLC, now Validus – with the help of the nonprofit, Washington-based America’s Clean Water Foundation.
A Feb. 2002 column explained how National Pork Producer Council then became the “exclusive” license holder of producer checkoff-developed programs like the On-Farm Odor/Environmental Assistance Program, the Environmental Assurance Program and “all other [checkoff] environmental programs.”
Sweet deal. The deal was particularly sweet because National Pork Producer Council would make “no royalty payment” for the licenses to the checkoff for “years 0 to 5 inclusive” while allowing it to “grant sublicenses to ‘third parties, including a subsidiary Limited Liability Company
