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Out to Lunchwith Harley Williams, retired mine executiveIn this series of interviews, I talk to people in Summit County about how they feel and think about politics. This week I had coffee at the Sunshine Café with Harley Williams, who grew up in Golden, fished in Summit County with his dad in the ’40s, graduated from CU law school, was an adjudicator in the Air Force, went to work for Standard Oil as a natural resources lawyer, and later became the manager of a subsidiary coal company. Living in Summit County for 12 years, Williams has served about six of those as the chairman of the Republican Party, and recently handed it off to Marty Ferris.Talty: This has been on my mind, how are we getting a better deal on military expenses if we go with one company, like Haliburton, and don’t seek other bids? Williams: They’re unique, and don’t have much in the way of competition; they’re like IBM used to be, like Microsoft is. If the major oil companies want oil field service that’s who they would hire - Haliburton. Anyone else would be overwhelmed by the size of the job. Talty: Is anyone else capable of it? Williams: I can’t think of anyone, unless you’d go to a major oil company. If that were to be done, British Petroleum (or another oil company) would be owning and running the thing. It wouldn't be like the Iraqis owning the oil with Haliburton coming in to sort of rescue them. Talty: Apparently Haliburton got the no-bid contract to provide everything? Williams: If you have ever worked for the government, they come in and audit. And in this situation, it was ‘we want it done quick.” Money is not an option, so you’re going to get caught in an audit. That’s the way audits work. I don’t think there was any hanky-panky. I just think they got caught by the accountants, and that happens everyday. So, I think that choosing Haliburton - if you wanted to get those oil fields up and running - was a good idea. Talty: A private company, Instead of the government? Williams: Who would you pick? There aren’t any agencies that have that ability. Running an oil field is a pretty technical deal. You need people that really know what they’re doing. The thing with the civil service is government employees expect to be in the job a long time. When you’re trying to get something done in a hurry and do it right, it’s best to get the best people. The fact that Cheney was the chairman just looks bad. Talty: The relationship of government and business, what’s been your experience? Williams: I had a very telling experience when I was working at SOhio (Standard Oil of Ohio). We were trying to come up with a clean coal project. You burn coal right out of the ground - it goes through a wash plant that takes out very little. We discovered what we thought was a very good clean coal process - actually, Gulf Oil invented it. It needed to be demonstrated. We got 50 private companies to donate money, and for the first time, SOhio went to the federal government to work on this research project. We wrote up all the technical plans and we could have built it at our refinery for $780 million. We could have had the thing up and running in two years. It was process for refining coal, taking the sulfur out, but keeping it solid to run in most of the generating plants. The Department of Energy said, “no, we have to go out for bids on this process.” They ended up with a project in Southern Illinois, for $3.8 billion, that took a little over 12 years to develop. Talty: They didn’t pick the right bid? Williams: The thing was a total failure. I learned a lot about the way the civil service works in government. These guys didn’t want a two-year project, they wanted a career out of it. They wanted it to last 10 or 12 years. They didn’t want a $780 million project, when they had a shot at a $3.8 billion project, because the GS (government pay scale) level isn’t nearly as high at $780 million. They’re good people, but they have their own interests at heart. Talty: SOhio went to the federal government because they didn’t have enough money for the project? Williams: Yeah, that was the problem. The project did happen, but on refined coal by the Southern Company, a large utility company. It was successful, but the reason it didn’t go forward is that it couldn’t compete with (the price of) raw coal. Most utilities went to raw coal, and put in de-sulfurization facilities that take the sulfur out of the smoke (instead of out of the solid coal). Talty: What is better for the environment? Williams: The refined coal would have been much better, but now we have the impossible situation with global warming. Clean coal still produces CO2 and that’s what causes global warming. I think the way out of that is nuclear power. Except for the way the Russians did it, it’s the cheapest safest way to produce electricity. They’re not bringing the stuff in from the moon. The stuff they use in a nuclear power plant they take right out of the earth. Talty: Isn’t much of the concern about nuclear power the waste it generates? Williams: A lot of that is the clothing a guy would wear in the plant. This is the first industry set up with zero tolerance for risk. Burying the stuff back in the ground? For example, they found a uranium deposit in Canada that was so rich that in order to meet government regs, they had to put a lead plate on the bottom of the bulldozers. It was in the ground. We’re talking about putting waste way under ground, sealing it in glass. Talty: So what would you change? Williams: The first thing I would do is create scientifically-based restrictions for radioactivity. We get in our cars and drive on these icy roads, and we kill people every day. If we kill one person in the nuclear industry, we can’t do that. You have to have a reasonably based standard. Every industry assumes there’s some risk involved. Talty: We’re constantly trying to reduce risk to zero. Williams: Ideally, you want zero risk, but there is no such thing. Talty: Isn’t there a better way to write regulations? Williams: The government restrictions for building these plants were just ridiculous. I can tell you about one plant they built that had a men’s room - in an outbuilding - and the plumber that was putting the pipes together had to have nine inspectors, on site, before he could do anything. Nine, from nine different agencies. He’d show up to work and he couldn’t do anything. The cost of nuclear plants went through the roof, and nearly every utility in the county abandoned them. Talty: From your experience in oil and minerals, how would you improve regulation? Williams: I think you have to include industry in the policy making. For example, when the coal mine health and safety law was written, politicians said ‘we can’t have the Bureau of Mines involved because they’re too close to industry.’ The company I was with had no input, even the coal miners union didn’t have any input in it. Guess who wrote the Coal Mines Safety Act? Harvard law grads who had never been in a mine. And that isn’t unique to the coal mines. I think we need more scientific and more industry input into writing these regulations. When you have Enron (scandals) happening, people are going to say ‘you can’t have those guys involved.’ We need to get the real experts and scientists involved. Talty: And environmental policies? Williams: I think we’ve relied too much on emotion in setting our environmental limits. Of course, it’s been a great money maker for people in your business and public relations. I remember the Sierra Club was just a little club that took pictures of flowers and put out calendars. And the director of the Sierra Club got this idea, when they were going to build the Glen Canyon Dam. He came up with this slogan - Save The Grand Canyon, and he started a campaign to raise money. He had school children outside of movie theatres with cans in their hands with ‘Save the Grand Canyon’ on it. Well, anybody that would walk by would want to save the Grand Canyon, so they’d put some money in. That set up the mechanism for raising big money for people in the environmental movement. Talty: A vague slogan that can be interpreted in many ways? Williams: The fundraising. That’s been the heart and soul of the environmental movement. I’m not saying it’s been all harmful, but most people don’t realize that most of those spokespeople are in it for the money. Talty: Certainly less so than Kerr-McGee? Williams: I’m not saying that the environmental movement is bad, I’m just saying that we should recognize that it’s like Kerr-McGee or Wal-Mart. These guys are in it to make money. People need to know it’s the free enterprise system, just like anyone else. Talty: And like bureaucracy where the players continue to push an issue to create a career? Williams: You’ve got to recognize the human element. That’s why communism didn’t work. -- February 25, 2004 |
M More Out to Lunch
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