Institute for Technology Development and Bigger Pie
Forum Respond to False Allegations Made by Kemper
Power Plant Proponents Representing Alabama
Interests
Jackson, MS – August 20, 2013 – The Institute for Technology Development (“ITD”) is
a 501(c)(3) Mississippi nonprofit corporation that since its formation in 1983 has promoted
economic development in Mississippi through a variety of means, including promoting and
coordinating university and private research in the 1980s and conducting applied
technological research under contracts with Federal agencies and private parties in the
1990s and 2000s. Throughout its history ITD has promoted public policies and a regulatory
environment that benefit economic development, with a special emphasis on the technology
sector. In the 1980s, ITD received a Federal grant and a State of Mississippi grant. ITD
also received a State of Mississippi grant in 1995. All Federal and State funds received by
ITD were completely spent in accordance with contract terms and these contracts were
satisfactorily closed in accordance with standard government procedures. ITD has no
taxpayer funds.
As authorized and encouraged by Federal and State law, including the Bayh-Doyle Act of
1980, and in accordance with ITD’s purpose of promoting economic development in
Mississippi, over the years ITD developed and commercialized technology in the areas of
microelectronics, space remote sensing, and infrared sensing technologies. The funds
generated from these activities have been carefully managed and invested by ITD and
constitute ITD’s only source of funds since the mid-1990s. As noted in ITD’s audited
financial statements, all of these funds are classified as “unrestricted” in accordance with
Statement of Financial Accounting Standards No. 117, Financial Statements of Not-forProfit Organizations.
In 2012, ITD formed Bigger Pie Forum ("BPF") as a Mississippi limited liability company
to continue its mission of education and promotion of economic development in Mississippi
by providing information to the public and public officials on policies that enhance
economic development and by opposing policies and projects that are detrimental to
economic development, such as the Kemper Power Plant project. In each phase of its
development, ITD has employed legal, tax and accounting professionals to ensure that its
activities and operations comply with the requirements applicable to nonprofit 501(c)(3)
corporations and the terms of any Federal and state grants or contracts.
Proponents of the Kemper Power Plant, including the Alabama organization JobKeeper
Alliance, have recently made a series of false allegations against ITD and Bigger Pie Forum.
JobKeeper Alliance represents Alabama coal companies and Alabama labor interests
hoping to profit from the Kemper Power Plant at the expense of Mississippi ratepayers. Its
founder and Chairman, Stewart Burkhalter, was President of the Alabama AFL-CIO from
1995 until he retired in October 2011. Similar attacks have been made by P.A.C.E., another
Alabama-based organization.
The most recent attacks were made in an August 16, 2013 editorial piece in The Clarion
Ledger by Patrick Cagle, the Montgomery, Alabama based Executive Director of
JobKeeper Alliance. Cagle is a graduate of Auburn University, and his father was employed
from 1982-2010 in a high level position with Alabama Power, part of the same corporate
conglomerate that is building the Kemper Power Plant.
In the editorial piece, Cagle claims that ITD was “subsidized by Mississippi taxpayers for
two decades to the tune of $32 million,” that Bigger Pie Forum was funded with taxpayer
money, and that ITD has been mothballed. All of these claims are blatantly false and are
reckless and irresponsible attempts to quiet opposition to the Kemper Power Plant through
intimidation and by misleading the public and public officials. Cagle further claims that the
Mississippi State Auditor can “recoup millions of taxpayer dollars” from ITD and Bigger
Pie Forum. There is no legal basis for this claim.
ITD and Bigger Pie Forum do not intend to allow lies, threats and attempts at intimidation
from powerful interests in Alabama and Mississippi to stop them from telling the truth about
the Kemper Power Plant project. The truth is Bigger Pie Forum’s only interest in Kemper is
a public one: to educate the public and public officials about the billions of dollars of
adverse economic consequences to Mississippians that will result if Mississippi ratepayers
are saddled with the costs of the Kemper Power Plant.
More information and analysis on why the Kemper Power Plant project is bad for the
Mississippi economy can be found at www.biggerpieforum.org.
Bigger Pie Forum is a non-profit and non-partisan, educational organization.