By Liz McMahan
Phoenix Staff Writer
October 05, 2006 12:39 am
—
James Dunn, Republican candidate for state attorney general, said Wednesday his first priority if elected will be to get the state’s pending lawsuit against Oklahoma’s poultry industry dismissed.
Dunn made his remarks as he met with the Phoenix’s editorial board.
He said the poultry lawsuit is not about clean water, it’s about raising attorney fees for Mike Turpen, former attorney general. Turpen’s law firm received $100 million for representing Oklahoma in the tobacco lawsuit, Dunn said.
Dunn said that was $75 million more than they should have gotten.
A similar kind of fee is built into the poultry lawsuit, Dunn said.
“Why do you think that just to sit down at the table to discuss settlement (in the poultry case), he (Edmondson) demanded $45 million,” Dunn said. “It was for attorney fees.”
Forty percent or so of the phosphorous polluting the Illinois River watershed basin comes from sources other than poultry farms, Dunn said. Those other sources include leaking septic tanks, industrial sites and the municipal sewer systems.
The chicken litter being applied to land is not just dumped on the land, he said. Farmers who are using it are paying $30 an acre for the material. That’s much less than the $90 an acre commercial fertilizer costs. But commercial fertilizer would also be polluting if it were just dumped on the land.
“My position is clear. Agriculture is one-fifth of this state’s economy,” Dunn said. “It was here before oil and it will be here after oil if we don’t let him (Edmondson) get federal precedent that animal waste is hazardous material and it should be regulated by the EPA.”
While getting the poultry litter lawsuit dismissed would be his first-day priority, his first-year priority would be to set up a hotline for people to report corruption in office.
The attorney general’s office should take on those cases personally, Dunn said.
He also would fight the American Civil Liberties Union’s actions that have led to the abolition of prayer at football games and the fight by Haskell County to keep a monument with the Ten Commandments on the courthouse lawn, Dunn said.
“I don’t want the government to tell you, me or anyone else that we need to be Baptist, Protestants or anything else, but as part of our history, it’s part of our founding principles for this country,” Dunn said.
He said is opposed to giving government the right to take property for economic development. As an attorney, he has volunteered his time to fight eminent domain cases.
Reach Liz McMahan at 684-2926 or lmcmahan@ muskogeephoenix.com.
Copyright © 1999-2008 cnhi, inc.
Photos
Dunn