Florida Governor Held Stake in Pipeline

In 2013, Florida Gov. Rick Scott signed two bills into law that speeded up permits for the Sabal Trail Transmission, a 474-mile natural-gas pipeline. Construction of the project was formally approved a few months later by a commission he appointed. Now, a watchdog investigation has uncovered that Scott, a Republican, owned a $53,000 stake in the company that was chosen to build and operate the $3 billion pipeline. The governor’s financial records include several million dollars in securities of two-dozen entities surrounding natural gas, breaking ethics laws against public officials having stock in businesses they may have sway over. A spokesman for Scott says the governor did not know of the investment because it was made via a “blind trust.”