A company that is negotiating with the state to mine for coal under public land has more than one link to the company largely owned by Gov. Bill Haslam and members of his family, reports Josh Flory.
Hillsborough Resources Limited is negotiating with the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency to do mining work under Catoosa Wildlife Management Area, the 82,000-acre game-management area on the Cumberland Plateau.
The company drew scrutiny last month when it was disclosed that Tom Ingram, a consultant to Haslam, had failed to register as a lobbyist for the company. Ingram has said the failure to register was an inadvertent oversight on the part of Marcelle Durham, president of The Ingram Group.
Ingram also does consulting work for Pilot Flying J, the Knoxville-based truck stop chain that is run by the governor’s family. (And for the governor personally.)
Hillsborough also has another tie to Pilot.
Hillsborough is a subsidiary of Houston-based Vitol Inc., according to Vitol spokesman Don Goldberg. Vitol’s president is Miguel Loya, a Houston businessman
…It’s not clear if Loya still has an ownership stake in Pilot — the company has refused to fully identify its current owners — but Ingram confirmed that Loya serves on the board of Pilot.
Goldberg, the spokesman for Vitol, said there is “zero relationship” between that role and anything related to the Hillsborough proposal.