A veteran Republican operative in Louisiana is running a new dark money group that’s taking the state’s Democratic governor to task for efforts to woo a Chinese-owned company with ties to the Communist Party and plans for a chemical plant in St. James Parish.
The same Republican operative, Kyle Ruckert, is being paid to lobby for a different Chinese-owned company with ties to the Communist Party and plans for a chemical plant in St. James Parish.
“We Don’t Need A Communist Run Company Anywhere Near Our State!” declared a Facebook ad run by the group Louisiana Legacy this week. The ad linked to a story hammering Gov. John Bel Edwards over a package of state incentives for the construction of a new methylene plant by the publicly traded Chinese company Wanhua Chemical.
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In fact, Louisiana already has a Communist-run company in its state—in the immediate vicinity, as it happens, of Wanhua’s proposed plant. The company, Yuhuang Chemical, has received millions of dollars in state development grants to construct a methanol plant in St. James Parish. The plant is currently under construction.
Yuhuang is a wholly owned subsidiary of Shandong Yuhuang Chemical Co., a Chinese firm chaired by billionaire Communist Party official Wang Jinshu.
In late 2017, Yuhuang hired the lobbying firm Mercury to pursue vaguely defined “federal government relations priorities.” The Mercury lobbyist on the account, former Republican Louisiana Senator David Vitter, has reported contacting the White House, the Commerce Department, and both houses of Congress on Yuhuang’s behalf.
Last summer, Mercury brought on a subcontractor to assist on the account. It hired Ruckert, Vitter’s former campaign manager, via his firm Bold Strategies. Ruckert has reported lobbying Congress and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers on “Yuhuang Chemical business development.” Bold Strategies has received $40,000 for its work, according to lobbying disclosure filings.
Despite Yuhuang’s Chinese parent, Mercury’s lobbying registration form claimed that no foreign entity owned 20 percent or more of the company. The firm said it was moving to rectify the apparent oversight. “Because we take these matters seriously, in the last year or so we have taken steps to bolster our internal processes to avoid these kinds of administrative issues,” Mercury spokesman Michael McKeon told PAY DIRT in an email.
In 2018, YCI Methanol One, the Yuhuang subsidiary overseeing the project, became a joint venture co-owned by Yuhuang Chemical and Koch Methanol, a subsidiary of Koch Industries. Last week, Koch purchased a majority stake in the project. According to its website, YCI’s chief financial officer is a vice president of the Chinese parent company.
Ruckert did not respond to questions about his Yuhuang work, and whether it was consistent with Louisiana Legacy’s attack on Wanhua. Shortly after PAY DIRT emailed Ruckert on Wednesday, the Facebook ads in question, which began running on Aug. 25, were deactivated. None of the group’s other ads on the platform have run for less than a week.
Ruckert and another Bold Strategies employee, fellow Vitter campaign alum Andree Miller, are listed in corporate records as directors of Louisiana Legacy Policy Solutions, a non-profit formed in March. That group and Louisiana Legacy PAC, its political arm, both share an address with Bold Strategies.
The PAC has also steered regular consulting payments to another of Ruckert’s firms, Red November LLC.
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