LINCOLN — When Nebraska Attorney General Jon Bruning gave $100,000 in public funds to an influential agriculture group last year, at least two lawmakers didn't like how it looked.
Those senators tried Wednesday to convince members of the Judiciary Committee that it's time to end the attorney general's practice of giving away court settlements collected from environmental lawsuits.
"I just think it has to be a very transparent process," said Sen. Ken Haar of Lincoln, who sponsored a bill to distribute the settlement money through the Nebraska Environmental Trust.
Sen. Health Mello of Omaha introduced another bill that would put the money in the state school fund. He told the committee he's not out to punish Bruning but to provide legislative oversight to a fund he and others just recently learned about.
"My underlying concern is there is not an unbiased, transparent procedure in place," Mello said.
But David Cookson, chief deputy attorney general, testified that the Nebraska Constitution gives the attorney general the authority to settle lawsuits involving the state. Taking away that authority would violate the constitution, he argued.
"We have followed the law — to the letter of the law and the spirit of the law — throughout this process," Cookson said.
What wasn't said was how the issue has become entwined with election-year politics.
Bruning, a Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate, presented the grant to the We Support Agriculture group late last year. The coalition was created by the politically powerful Nebraska Farm Bureau and other ag groups to combat animal-rights campaigns to reform livestock production.
Critics of the grant included the Nebraska Democratic Party, which prompted Bruning to say the issue was manufactured by his political adversaries. Both Haar and Mello are Democrats, although Mello's bill is co-sponsored by Republican Sen. Paul Schumacher of Columbus.
"This is all about the election," Bruning said in January. "It's silly season. They had nothing to say about this two years ago when I was running unopposed for attorney general."
The grants are funded by court-ordered settlements that stem from civil actions that the attorney general files against polluters. In every case, a settlement is tied directly to a fine for a violation of the state's environmental regulations, Cookson told the committee.
The parties in the settlement sometimes designate a specific environmental project, he said. In other cases, however, the money goes into a fund the attorney general distributes as environmental grants.
Since 2006, the office has given out close to $1.2 million for such environmental projects, Cookson said.
Over the same period, the environmental cases have generated about $7.2 million in fines, which go to schools in the county where the action was filed. Cookson said most of the cases are filed in Lancaster County.
That prompted two committee members to question whether the cases should be handled where the violations occur.
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