Environment | National

Mary Pember: The man behind controversial Wisconsin mine

Friday, August 23, 2013

Mary Annette Pember reports on the man behind the Gogebic Taconite mine in northern Wisconsin:

At first glance, Chris Cline, owner of The Cline Group, the parent company of Gogebic Taconite (GTAC) would have been a perfect subject for the old TV show, “Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous.”
The popular 1990s the series featured the lavish, over the top lifestyles of wealthy entertainers and business moguls. Robin Leach, the shows host, offered no background on the source of his guests’ wealth, ill gotten or otherwise. Lifestyles celebrated the excess offered by wealth. Leach, in his distinctive working class cockney voice took us on a tour of the owners spoils, oooing and awing after each scene, vulgar and sublime alike. Like a butler gone awry, however, there was the tiniest tinge of disgust in his voice for the master’s holdings and the hint that not all was what it appeared to be. Even as Leach signed off with his signature phrase bidding his guests, “champagne wishes and caviar dreams,” we sensed that there might be an unsavory story behind those gilded mansion doors.
Although Cline’s lifestyle appears to be all about champagne and caviar, the basis of his wealth presents a far darker story than the golden-hued online tour of his 33,413 square foot mansion in North Palm Beach, Florida.
According to an extensive 2010 profile of Cline in Bloomberg Markets Magazine, he became “a billionaire by betting on a dirty fuel the world can’t get enough of.”

Get the Story:
Mary Annette Pember: Chris Cline, the New King Coal, Likes to Swing His Big Iron Fist (Indian Country Today 8/22)