Hal Furman | |
---|---|
Born | Denver, Colorado, U.S. | June 2, 1955
Education | University of Southern California, B.A. 1977; University of Southern California Law Center, J.D. 1980 |
Occupation(s) | Businessman, consultant |
Known for | 1994 Nevada U.S. Senate Race, Government Official, Founder of The Furman Group, Inc. |
Website | http://www.furmangroup.com/ |
Harold Warren Furman II, "Hal" (born June 2, 1955) is an American businessman and a former U.S. government official. He co-founded and serves as the chairman and managing director of The Furman Group, a water infrastructure consulting firm based in Washington, D.C. [1]
In 1994, Furman ran for the United States Senate from Nevada. [2] While he won the crowded Republican primary, he lost the general election to the incumbent Senator, Richard Bryan. [3] [4]
Furman graduated from The University of Southern California with a degree in Political Science, and then went on to get his Juris Doctor from the University of Southern California Law Center. After graduating and passing the State Bar of Nevada, he briefly practiced law in Reno, Nevada with Woodburn, Wedge, Blakey, & Jeppson.
In 1981, Furman became Legislative Counsel to the United States Senator Paul Laxalt (R-NV); he then went on to become Special Counsel to the Commissioner of the United States Bureau of Reclamation, and in 1983, President Ronald Reagan appointed Furman as the Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Water and Science. In that capacity, he oversaw the U.S. Geological Survey, the Bureau of Mines, and the Bureau of Reclamation. [5] He served as the principal water policy advisor to three Secretaries of the Interior: James G. Watt, William P. Clark, and Donald P. Hodel. [6] During his tenure at the Interior Department, Furman worked to negotiate technical assistance agreements involving the reconstruction of the power plant at the Aswan Dam in Egypt and another involving the Three Gorges Dam in the People's Republic of China. [7] In recognition of his work on the latter agreement, Engineering News-Record named Furman one of its People of the Year in 1985. [8]
After leaving government service, Furman became a partner in the Washington, D.C. office of Heron, Burchette, Ruckert, & Rothwell working on behalf of clients that were building water infrastructure projects. While in government and shortly thereafter, he often was asked to testify before Congressional hearings on water issues. [9]
Furman is the chairman and managing director of The Furman Group, which he founded in 1992. [11] He advises clients in the area of water and sanitation on government affairs and specialized consulting services. Additionally, he heads Balboa Resources, Inc, which provides project consulting services to clients domestically and abroad in the area of water infrastructure development and public-private partnerships. [12]
Furman is a specialist in designing financing solutions involving both government and private financing for water and sanitation projects. In 1992, while representing several large southern California water agencies, he worked with the United States Congress and to create the Bureau of Reclamation Title XVI Program to encourage the development of water recycling and reuse projects. [13] [14] He later served as the executive director of the New Water Supply Coalition, an advocacy group consisting of some of the Nation's largest water utilities. The New Water Supply Coalition advocated the use of tax credit bonds to assist in the financing of qualified water supply projects. The concept was later incorporated into the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 as "Build America Bonds." [15]
In 1994, Furman was the Republican nominee for the United States Senate in Nevada. [16] He captured the party's nomination with 50% of the vote against a crowded field, but lost the general election to the incumbent Senator, Richard Bryan. [17] [18] [19]
In 1996, Furman chaired Senator Robert Dole's Presidential campaign in Nevada. He was a delegate to the GOP Convention in San Diego and served on the Platform Committee.
In 2000 and 2008, Furman served on the National Finance Committee for Senator John McCain's two Presidential campaigns. In 2008, he was a delegate to the Republican Convention in Minneapolis-St. Paul. [20] [21]
Hoover Dam is a concrete arch-gravity dam in the Black Canyon of the Colorado River, on the border between the U.S. states of Nevada and Arizona. Constructed between 1931 and 1936, during the Great Depression, it was dedicated on September 30, 1935, by President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Its construction was the result of a massive effort involving thousands of workers, and cost over 100 lives. In bills passed by Congress during its construction, it was referred to as the Hoover Dam, after President Herbert Hoover, but was named the Boulder Dam by the Roosevelt administration. In 1947, the name Hoover Dam was restored by Congress.
The Reclamation Act of 1902 is a United States federal law that funded irrigation projects for the arid lands of 17 states in the American West.
The Colorado River is one of the principal rivers in the Southwestern United States and in northern Mexico. The 1,450-mile-long (2,330 km) river, the 5th longest in the United States, drains an expansive, arid watershed that encompasses parts of seven U.S. states and two Mexican states. The name Colorado derives from the Spanish language for "colored reddish" due to its heavy silt load. Starting in the central Rocky Mountains of Colorado, it flows generally southwest across the Colorado Plateau and through the Grand Canyon before reaching Lake Mead on the Arizona–Nevada border, where it turns south toward the international border. After entering Mexico, the Colorado approaches the mostly dry Colorado River Delta at the tip of the Gulf of California between Baja California and Sonora.
The Bureau of Reclamation, formerly the United States Reclamation Service, is a federal agency under the U.S. Department of the Interior, which oversees water resource management, specifically as it applies to the oversight and operation of the diversion, delivery, and storage projects that it has built throughout the western United States for irrigation, water supply, and attendant hydroelectric power generation. It is currently the U.S.'s largest wholesaler of water, bringing water to more than 31 million people, and providing one in five Western farmers with irrigation water for 10 million acres of farmland, which produce 60% of the nation's vegetables and 25% of its fruits and nuts. The Bureau is also the second largest producer of hydroelectric power in the western U.S.
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Paul Dominique Laxalt was an American attorney and politician who served as the 22nd governor of Nevada from 1967 to 1971 and a United States senator representing Nevada from 1974 until 1987. A member of the Republican Party, he was one of Ronald Reagan's closest friends in politics. After Reagan was elected president in 1980, many in the national press referred to Laxalt as "the first friend". He was the older brother of writer Robert Laxalt and maternal grandfather of Adam Laxalt, who served as the 33rd attorney general of Nevada from 2015 to 2019.
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Francis Griffith Newlands was an American politician and land developer who served as United States representative and Senator from Nevada and a member of the Democratic Party.
Elwood Mead was an American professor, government official, and engineer known for heading the United States Bureau of Reclamation (USBR) from 1924 until his death in 1936. During his tenure, he oversaw some of the most complex projects the Bureau of Reclamation has undertaken. These included the Hoover, Grand Coulee and Owyhee dams.
Anthony Charles Beilenson was an American lawyer and politician who served as a Democratic Congressman from Southern California. He served ten terms in the United States House of Representatives from 1977 until 1997.
Dean Arthur Heller is an American businessman and politician who served as a United States senator representing Nevada from 2011 to 2019. A member of the Republican Party, he served as the 15th secretary of state of Nevada from 1995 to 2007 and U.S. representative for Nevada's 2nd congressional district from 2007 to 2011. He was appointed to the U.S. Senate by Governor Brian Sandoval and elected to a full term in the 2012 election. Heller unsuccessfully ran for a second term in 2018, losing to Democrat Jacky Rosen. He was an unsuccessful candidate for governor of Nevada in 2022, and is currently the last Republican to win a Nevada U.S. Senate seat.
The Colorado River Storage Project is a United States Bureau of Reclamation project designed to oversee the development of the upper basin of the Colorado River. The project provides hydroelectric power, flood control and water storage for participating states along the upper portion of the Colorado River and its major tributaries.
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