The swamp is back: Trump adviser's company would save $200 million with his deregulation proposal

According to The New York Times, CVR Energy, an energy company owned by Carl Icahn, who is a top adviser for Donald Trump, would save $205.9 million dollars per year if a deregulation for the EPA Icahn is proposing is enacted.

The deregulation has to do with the the way in which corn ethanol and gasoline are mixed.

That's not all.

The NYT points out that Icahn has been talking about the EPA rule with different people in the Trump administration and with Trump himself.

It adds that Icahn's efforts are considered by experts as "the most troubling conflict of interest to emerge so far in the new administration."

Asked about the conflict of interests, Icahn was pretty cynical about it:

Mr. Icahn, 81, in a series of interviews in the last week, was unapologetic. He said he was not subject to conflict of interest rules because he is an informal, unpaid adviser to Mr. Trump, not an official government employee.

“I’m not making any policy,” Mr. Icahn said. “I am only giving my opinion.”

So there you have it. The swamp is back, right into Trump's White House.

Oh, and about being "unpaid", well, guess what?

The blitz has already generated at least one clear outcome: Since Mr. Trump was elected president with Mr. Icahn’s very vocal support and nearly $200,000 in political contributions to Republican causes — the stock price of CVR Energy has soared. By late December, it had doubled. It is still up 50 percent from the pre-election level, generating a windfall, at least on paper, of $455 million as of Friday.

So Icahn may not be getting a salary from the federal government, but his company sure got a pretty big economic benefit from his "opinion" being pushed with the Trump administration.