Obviously one area to focus on as the mystery surrounding Boyce Hudson unfolds is, whose bidding was he doing? If he was inclined to help expedite environmental permits in exchange for payoffs, then it likely follows that he would also be in a position to block or indefinitely delay permits for projects that he, or others in political power above him, did not favor. I and Don Carrington reported back in February 2003 that that’s exactly what happened with one project — an ethanol plant that Bill Horton of DFI Group has pursued for years in eastern North Carolina — that fell into disfavor:
Horton said (then president of North Carolina’s Northeast Partnership, Rick) Watson had told him to “stay under
the radar screen” on his project with SCANA (who had proposed to bring natural gas service into the state for Horton’s projects), and that DFI would not get
environmental permits from the state until the Utilities Commission
approved bond money for the (natural gas) pipeline (project favored by Watson and state Senate President Pro Tem Marc Basnight)….
Horton’s suspicions about other forces behind his permit troubles were
confirmed, he said, by two Martin County Economic Development
officials with whom he had dealt…who told him, “Until you work out
the gas ‘thing’ with Basnight, you get zero.”…
His vision for an ethanol plant in Martin County thwarted, Horton
turned his attention to a site in Beaufort County, which already had a
barging facility on the Pamlico River that could accommodate his plans
to transport liquefied natural gas. Still, he struggled with the
state’s environmental permitting process….
Bill Horton’s story has been rife with obstructions with regard to obtaining permits from DENR, not to mention repeated times when he’s had funding from financial institutions lined up, only to fall through at the last minute. It takes a pretty powerful person to be able to pull that off, and therefore I don’t believe the indictments will end with Boyce Hudson. The unraveling of this corruption story, I hope, is only just beginning.
