Sorry, maybe my post isn't clear. My question is why is the distrust only applied towards the big business side?
Notice how Zimmerman's integrity and past ethical performance of his job is called into question due to his current relationship to Nestle while Loe and Earney's integrity and past ethical performance of their jobs is not also questioned. How do we not know that Loe and Earney didn't attempt to sabotage Nestle's legal extraction of groundwater as quid pro quo for a post-retirement gig as an activist?
>How do we not know that Loe and Earney didn't attempt to sabotage Nestle's legal extraction of groundwater as quid pro quo for a post-retirement gig as an activist?
P(quid pro quo | quid∧quo)
>
P(quid pro quo | ¬quid∨¬quo)
Where in this case, "quo" is, "we'll pay you for 'consulting' after you retire" and "quid" is "I'll stop working on your permit review." The reason for the distrust has to be obvious, so maybe there's some other question you're trying to get at with your comments?
As to your question about who might be paying Loe and Earney, well, we don't know. We don't know that they're being paid at all, and there isn't anything anomalous about a biologist calling for environmental review. Conversely, we know Zimmerman is being paid, and we know that there were anomalies in the permit review process. So that objection basically boils down to, "If we suspect foul play in this one situation, why don't we suspect it in this completely different situation where the facts are not analogous." Well . . .
Go on, find an example of someone becoming a paid activist after retiring from a government gatekeeping position. Note that "activist" often means "unpaid".
Notice how Zimmerman's integrity and past ethical performance of his job is called into question due to his current relationship to Nestle while Loe and Earney's integrity and past ethical performance of their jobs is not also questioned. How do we not know that Loe and Earney didn't attempt to sabotage Nestle's legal extraction of groundwater as quid pro quo for a post-retirement gig as an activist?