The state Finance, Ways & Means Committee will vote Wednesday on the latest effort by Campbell County developer Steve Pemberton to cash in on public land. Pemberton owns a marina on Norris Lake and wishes to build a lodge on state-park land adjacent to the marina.

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Pemberton got Campbell County officials on board with his scheme years ago, convincing them to declare the forested bluff a "central business improvement district" so his proposed lodge could qualify as a convention center and take advantage of the same financing and tax-recapture provisions that supported construction of the new Knoxville Convention Center on Henley St. Lobbying by former State Senator Bill Owen helped grease those wheels.

TDEC Commissioner Jim Fyke rejected the proposal in 2007, citing several concerns with how the lodge would be financed and operated, and when TVA, which owns the lake frontage, adopted its new land-use policy a couple of years ago, the project seemed dead.

Now State Rep. Chad Faulkner has introduced a bill asking the TVA board to approve an exception to its policy of prohibiting commercial development on its land. Pemberton's determination says a lot about how corrupt and corruptible our government is.