John Skvarla

I suppose if you're willing to wait 45 million years...

Making money from environmental damage:

What Skvarla does not have is an extensive environmental background – until he joined Restoration Systems in 2005. The firm restores damaged waterways, and has pioneered in North Carolina the niche of “mitigation banking” – collecting credits for improving one site that can be used to offset development elsewhere.

I'm not going to get into a deep discussion about environmental offsets. Suffice it to say it can be a (net) benefit, but it can also mask environmental degradation while flying a "green" banner. But while these words might sing in the ears of a business-worshipping Republican, they are wildly inappropriate:

This novel idea from John Skvarla is making the rounds on the intertubes.

Skvarla founded last spring the Alliance for Bonded Term Limits, which is trying to recruit candidates nationwide to sign legal documents pledging to give large amounts of their personal money to charity if they serve more time in Congress or a legislature than they promise.

The underlying premise is simple. Politicians should be thought of as self-interested whores. Now it's just a matter of negotiating the price.