Geo Wash Univ GWU dc

see also WU in st Louis Mo

milken inst?

Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law for George Washington University

THEHILL

“We are the free world now.” Those words from Raphael Glucksmann, a French socialist member of the European Parliament, captured the pearl-clutching outrage of Europeans after the Trump administration did what no prior administration has ever done — stand up to Europe to defend the freedom of speech.

This week, Secretary of State Marco Rubiobarred five figures closely associated with European censorship efforts from traveling to the U.S. This includes Thierry Breton, the former European Union commissioner responsible for digital policy.

In a post on X, Rubio declared that the U.S. “will no longer tolerate these egregious acts of extraterritorial censorship” and will target “leading figures of the global censorship-industrial complex from entering the United States.”

Breton achieved infamy as one of the architects of the massive EU censorship system, which is now being globalized. Armed with the notorious Digital Service Act, Breton and others threatened American companies and officials that they would have to yield to European standards of free speech. After Breton learned that Musk was planning to interview Trump before the last presidential election, he even warned the X owner that he would be “monitored” and potentially subject to EU fines.

Socialist Glucksmann is now irate at “this scandalous sanction against Thierry Breton.”

“We are Europeans,” he declared. “We must defend our laws, our principles, our interests.” In other words, this is a war over whether Europe or the U.S. Constitution will dictate the scope of free speech for American companies and citizens.

Breton and his colleagues are finally being treated as what they are: a clear and present danger to the “indispensable right” that defines all Americans.

The EU has been enlisted by anti-free speech figures in the U.S. to force companies like X and Facebook to restore censorship of Americans. After Musk bought Twitter with a pledge to restore free-speech protections, Hillary Clintoncalled upon European officials to force him to censor under Europe’s Digital Services Act.

Nina Jankowicz, the former head of Biden’sinfamous Disinformation Governance Board, appeared before the European Parliament. She called upon the 27 EU countries to fight against the U.S., which she described as a global threat.

The E.U. enthusiastically took up the challenge. This year, I spoke in Berlin at the World Forum, which boosted the slogan, “A New World Order with European Values.” Bill and Hillary Clinton and other Americans cheered on the European efforts.

The Digital Services Act bars speech that is viewed as “disinformation” or “incitement.” When it was passed over the condemnations of many of us in the free speech community, European Commission Executive Vice President Margrethe Vestagercelebrated by declaring that it is “not a slogan anymore — that what is illegal offline should also be seen and dealt with as illegal online. Now it is a real thing. Democracy’s back.”

It is indeed a “real thing.” In my forthcoming book, Rage and the Republic: The Unfinished Story of the American Revolution, I discuss the challenges facing our republic in the 21st century, including the EU and its transnational governance model. Many on the left are supporting the erosion of national laws and values in favor of standards set by global experts and elites.

This cadre of American enablers has been increasingly vocal in Europe. Notably, late-night ABC host Jimmy Kimmeldelivered a Christmas Eve address in Great Britain denouncing the U.S. as a global threat. He declared that “from a fascism perspective, this has been a really great year. Tyranny is booming over here.”

It was crushingly ironic. Many of us have been writing for years about how free speech has been eviscerated in the United Kingdom, where people are being prosecuted for “toxic ideologies” and an ever-lengthening list of unacceptable political viewpoints.

Justice Amy Coney Barrettissued a warning this week about the collapse of free speech in the United Kingdom. Yet that is where a comedian, who is paid millions and attacks Trump nightly, went to complain about the threat to free speech in the U.S.

Both Vice President JD Vance and Secretary Rubio have delivered major speeches warning the EU about its effort to export censorship systems, particularly targeting American citizens and companies. After years of encouragement and enabling from the Obamaand Bidenadministrations, the U.S. government is finally in this fight.

That is why Europe is up in arms, denouncing the move to bar these officials as an attack on its own sovereignty. In other words, an effort to defend our own free speech values is a threat to the proclaimed “New World Order with European Values.”

In reality, I do not like travel bans. I prefer that these figures come to this country and face free-speech advocates. Yet despite our calls for Congress to get into this fight, it has done nothing due to opposition from Democratic members. We cannot wait as the EU weaponizes and globalizes censorship.

Glucksmann is right about one thing. This is a fight over who today can be rightfully called the “free world.” In the U.S., we continue to cling to the quaint notion that the free world should be based on … well, freedom.

*Jonathan Turleyis the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University. He is the author of the forthcoming “Rage and the Republic: The Unfinished Story of the American Revolution” on the 250th anniversary of the American Revolution.

===

OOPS 2X ANNO

:{https://www:(style="background-color:#ffffff;"):}::{.counterpunch.org/2021/10/29:(style="background-color:#ffff66;"):}::{/despite-cutbacks-exxonmobil-continues-to-fund-climate-science-denial/:(style="background-color:#ffffff;"):}:

In a secret video recording made public in late June, a top ExxonMobil lobbyist—Keith McCoy, who was fired soon afterward—not only conceded that the oil giant’s support for a carbon tax is a sham, but he also admitted that the company quietly financed climate science denier groups to stave off government action and maximize its profits—a fact that my organization, the Union of Concerned Scientists, and others revealed more than a decade ago.

“Did we aggressively fight against some of the science? Yes,” McCoy, then ExxonMobil’s senior director of federal relations, said during the interview. “Did we join some of these ‘shadow groups’ to work against some of the early efforts? Yes, that’s true. But there’s nothing illegal about that. We were looking out for our investments. We were looking out for our shareholders.”

For all his candor, McCoy got at least one thing wrong. ExxonMobil did “join”—in other words, pay—denier groups to spread disinformation to blunt initial government attempts to curb carbon emissions. But McCoy inaccurately used the past tense. In fact, the company continues to fund them.

That videotaped interview caused some major heartburn for McCoy’s boss, ExxonMobil CEO Darren Woods, especially since the House Committee on Oversight and Reform has invited Woods—as well as top executives from the American Petroleum Institute, BP America, Chevron, Shell Oil and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce—to testify at a hearing on October 28 on the “long-running, industry-wide campaign to spread disinformation about the role of fossil fuels in causing global warming.”

ExxonMobil has been at the heart of that campaign. Since 1998, the company has paid a network of seemingly independent think tanks and advocacy groups more than $39 million to manufacture doubt about climate science and stymie government action. Only Charles Koch and his late brother David, owners of the coal, oil and gas conglomerate Koch Industries, are known to have spent more.

In 2020, according to ExxonMobil’s most recent corporate grantmaking report, the company spent $490,000 on three grantees—the American Enterprise Institute ($100,000), the Regulatory Studies Center at George Washington University ($140,000), and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce ($250,000). That amount is down from the $790,000 the company reported it spent on nine climate science denier groups in 2019 and a fraction of what it spent in the past, but there’s a catch.

True, the company lost more than $22 billion in 2020 and cut back its grants across the board. But another factor for this decline is that ExxonMobil changed how it reports grants. As first reported by Salon, the company only listed grants of $100,000 or more in its 2020 annual giving report. In previous years, it included grants of $5,000 or more. The change reduces transparency and ultimately means there is no way to tell how much the company spent in smaller donations to support climate disinformation in 2020 or compare the grants it made in 2020 with previous years.

Only three denier groups—the same three named in the 2020 grantmaking report—received $100,000 or more from ExxonMobil in 2019. That year, their grants collectively amounted to $625,000. The other six denier groups the company funded in 2019—the Center for American and International Law ($5,000), the Federalist Society ($10,000), the Hoover Institution ($15,000), the Manhattan Institute ($90,000), Mountain States Legal Foundation ($5,000) and the Washington Legal Foundation ($40,000)—collectively received $165,000. None of those grants, even if ExxonMobil continued them, would wind up in the 2020 report, given the company’s new threshold.

Still, it’s worth taking a closer look at where the bulk of ExxonMobil’s self-reported climate disinformation budget did go in 2020.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce

Since 2014, ExxonMobil has given more than $5 million on top of its annual dues to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce—a major player in blocking action on climate change for decades. A few years after becoming an ExxonMobil grantee, the Chamber gained some unwanted notoriety by financing a widely debunked report that then-President Trump cited as a primary rationale for pulling the United States out of the Paris climate agreement.

In 2019, however, the Chamber appeared to flip 180 degrees, declaring on its website, “Our climate is changing and humans are contributing to these changes. Inaction is simply not an option.” The assertion that human activity is merely contributing to climate change is inaccurate, given that burning fossil fuels is the primary cause, but the statement did represent a quantum leap from when the association spuriously maintained in comments submitted to the Environmental Protection Agency in 2009 that “a warming of even 3 [degrees Celsius] in the next 100 years would, on balance, be beneficial to humans.”

That said, the Chamber vowed in an August 24 press release to “do everything [it] can to prevent” the proposed $3.5 trillion reconciliation bill—which would slash carbon emissions from the electric power and transportation sectors—“from becoming law.” And in a section on its website addressing climate change, the Chamber calls for “the increased use of natural gas” to make “further progress.”

Increase the use of natural gas?! That runs counter to what climate science says about the need to swiftly decarbonize the energy sector, essentially trading one major carbon pollution source—coal—for another—methane, which is 86 times more potent than carbon dioxide in warming the planet. Moreover, according to a December 2019 study in the scientific journal Environmental Research Letters, the carbon dioxide emissions attributable to the boom in natural gas use over the last decade alone have now surpassed the emissions avoided by closing coal-fired power plants.

The American Enterprise Institute

Economist Benjamin Zycher might be considered the climate science denier in residence at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), which has received $4.86 million from ExxonMobil since 1998. Zycher insists that a carbon tax would be “ineffective,” has called the Paris climate agreement an “absurdity,” and rejects the scientific consensus about the causes and seriousness of global warming.

Zycher published his most recent broadside against climate science in the Summer 2021 issue of National Affairs, a formerly independent conservative policy quarterly that AEI brought in-house in 2019. In his essay, “The Case for Climate-Change Realism,” he falsely argued that the “available science” does not support the notion that human activity is “the single most significant cause of climate change” and the “available data” undercut the assessment that extreme weather events are “evidence of an ongoing climate crisis.”

As he has in previous articles, Zycher cited roundly debunked hypotheses for the primary causes of climate change, including a shift in northern Pacific Ocean circulation patterns called the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, which scientists have determined is incapable of causing a long-term warming trend, and “changes in solar activity,” when, in fact, the sun’s energy has declined since the 1980s while average global temperatures have continued to climb.

This summer was not a fortuitous time to be peddling discredited theories. On August 9, less than two months after Zycher posted his essay, the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released a landmark, nearly 4,000-page “code red for humanity” report warning that the climate crisis is close to spiraling out of control and human activity is “unequivocally” to blame.

Zycher’s main objective? To make a case, no matter how specious, for continued reliance on fossil fuels, which he falsely claimed are less expensive than renewables. Proposals to cut carbon emissions, including the Paris agreement, would have little real impact, he argued, and could “be accomplished only by substituting expensive energy for cheaper energy.” In fact, according to a recent analysis by Bloomberg, it is “now cheaper to build and operate new large-scale wind or solar plants in nearly half the world than it would be to run an existing coal or [natural] gas-fired power plant.” To be sure, no one would confuse Zycher for a scientist or National Affairs for a peer-reviewed journal. But he serves ExxonMobil’s interests as a seemingly independent expert who continues to express doubt about climate science and the viability of renewable energy, thereby providing cover for climate science deniers in Congress.

George Washington University’s Regulatory Studies Center

The relatively unknown Regulatory Studies Center at George Washington (GW) University received $140,000 from ExxonMobil in 2020 and $1.2 million from the company since 2013. Director Susan Dudley founded the center in 2009 after serving as President George W. Bush’s “regulatory czar” at the Office of Management and Budget and, before that, running the Regulatory Studies Program at Koch-financed Mercatus Center at George Mason University. She currently serves in various capacities for other longtime climate science disinformation groups, including the Koch-founded Cato Institute, the Federalist Society, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

The Regulatory Studies Center portrays itself as an “objective, unbiased” policy shop, but—like the Mercatus Center—its primary raison d’être is to weaken and quash government regulations, according to a 2019 analysis by the consumer advocacy organization Public Citizen. The GW center’s main tools are reports and public comments it submits to Congress, and although it does not get much mainstream news media attention, it has found a receptive audience on Capitol Hill—and in the previous administration. Much of the Trump administration’s deregulatory agenda, Public Citizen found, echoed the center’s recommendations, including “dramatically reducing the cost that the government attributes to carbon emissions.”

But should the Regulatory Studies Center be lumped in with climate science disinformation groups? In response to the Public Citizen report, as well as criticism from UnKoch My Campus and GW student groups, the center issued a statement in February disputing the charge that it rejects climate science. “Contrary to unsubstantiated claims, no one in the Regulatory Studies Center questions climate science,” it said. “In fact, most of the Center’s scholars do not focus on environmental or energy issues at all.Those who have written on climate issues address economic and legal questions, not the science.”

Whether or not the center directly disputes climate science is beside the point.In the face of incontrovertible scientific evidence, most ExxonMobil-funded disinformation groups have revised their position on the reality of climate change. Instead of challenging the science, their efforts now tend to focus on denigrating renewable energy, overstating the costs of transitioning to a clean energy economy while ignoring the benefits, and preventing government action. That is exactly what the Regulatory Studies Center does. In recent years, for example, it has published papers and filed public comments opposing stronger efficiency standards for home appliances and vehicles that would dramatically reduce carbon emissions.

The center also has enlisted the help of unabashed climate science deniers. In the fall of 2018, for example, it tapped Julian Morris to file a public comment supporting the Trump administration’s proposed rollback of Obama-era standards for cars and light trucks designed to increase fuel economy and, for the first time, substantially reduce tailpipe carbon emissions. Morris, president and founder of the International Policy Network and vice president of research at the Reason Foundation—two libertarian, climate science denier organizations—falsely declared in a paper published in March 2018 that the “effects of climate change are unknown—but the benefits may well be greater than the costs for the foreseeable future.”

Millions More for Disinformation

The money ExxonMobil donated in 2020 to AEI, the GW Regulatory Studies Center and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce represents only a small percentage of the company’s recent outlays to sway public opinion and blunt government climate action. It is difficult to document all of the company’s related expenditures, but they include:

+ More than $5 million on Facebook ads in 2020, which is more than half of the $9.6 million that the U.S. oil and gas industry spent on the ads, according to an analysis by the think tank InfluenceMap that reviewed more than 25,000 ads on Facebook’s U.S. platform. Many of the ads described natural gas as a “green” fuel source and argued that cutting carbon emissions would drive up energy costs.

+ An estimated $10 million in annual dues to the American Petroleum Institute (API) (based on how much Shell Oil recently revealed it paid). The U.S. oil and gas industry’s oldest and largest trade association, API is working overtime to block stricter methane emissions standards. McCoy indirectly referenced API during the secretly taped interview when he said ExxonMobil relied on third parties to publicly represent its interests in Congress. “We don’t want it to be us, to have these conversations, especially in a hearing,” he said. “It’s getting our associations to step in and have those conversations and answer those tough questions and be, for the lack of a better term, the whipping boy for some of these members of Congress.”

At least $100,000 in annual dues totrade associations(based on what it reported it spent in 2019) that have a long track record of peddling climate disinformation, including the National Association of Manufacturers and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

Nearly $834,000 during the 2018 and 2020 election cycles to 118 of the 139 climate science deniers currently in Congress. Over that same time period, the company reportedly spent nearly $41 million to lobby in Washington, but neither McCoy nor ExxonMobil’s other in-house lobbyists have broached the topic of a carbon tax—the company’s avowed top priority—with legislators since 2018, according to its quarterly lobbying reports.

So while ExxonMobil CEO Darren Woods and his colleagues proclaim that they fully understand the threat posed by climate change and are “committed to being part of the solution,” the evidence shows they continue to spend tens of millions of dollars every year to promote gridlock in Congress on the issue. The future of the planet as we know it hangs in the balance, but as McCoy acknowledged in his interview, ExxonMobil was—and still is—looking out for its investments and its shareholders’ short-term interests, regardless of the long-term consequences.

This article was produced by :{Earth | Food | Life:(style="margin:0px;padding:0px;word-break:break-word;overflow-wrap:break-word"):}:, a project of the Independent Media Institute.

Elliott Negin is a senior writer at the Union of Concerned Scientists.

negin imi

https://www.alternet.org/2021/10/exxonmobil-climate-science-denial/

no lnx

The truth about ExxonMobil's campaign to fund climate science denial

Elliott Negin and Independent Media Institute October 26, 2021

In a secret video recording made public in late June, a top ExxonMobil lobbyist—Keith McCoy, who was fired soon afterward—not only conceded that the oil giant's support for a carbon tax is a sham, but he also admitted that the company quietly financed climate science denier groups to stave off government action and maximize its profits—a fact that my organization, the Union of Concerned Scientists, and others revealed more than a decade ago.

"Did we aggressively fight against some of the science? Yes," McCoy, then ExxonMobil's senior director of federal relations, said during the interview. "Did we join some of these 'shadow groups' to work against some of the early efforts? Yes, that's true. But there's nothing illegal about that. We were looking out for our investments. We were looking out for our shareholders."

For all his candor, McCoy got at least one thing wrong. ExxonMobil did "join"—in other words, pay—denier groups to spread disinformation to blunt initial government attempts to curb carbon emissions. But McCoy inaccurately used the past tense. In fact, the company continues to fund them.

That videotaped interview caused some major heartburn for McCoy's boss, ExxonMobil CEO Darren Woods, especially since theHouse Committee on Oversight and Reform has invited Woods—as well as top executives from the American Petroleum Institute, BP America, Chevron, Shell Oil and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce—to testify at a hearing on October 28 on the "long-running, industry-wide campaign to spread disinformation about the role of fossil fuels in causing global warming."

In 2020, according to ExxonMobil's most recent corporate grantmaking report, the company spent $490,000 on three grantees—the American Enterprise Institute ($100,000), the Regulatory Studies Center at George Washington University ($140,000), and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce ($250,000). That amount is down from the $790,000 the company reported it spent on nine climate science denier groups in 2019 and a fraction of what it spent in the past, but there's a catch.

True, the company lost more than $22 billion in 2020 and cut back its grants across the board. But another factor for this decline is that ExxonMobil changed how it reports grants. As first reported by Salon, the company only listed grants of $100,000 or more in its 2020 annual giving report. In previous years, it included grants of $5,000 or more. The change reduces transparency and ultimately means there is no way to tell how much the company spent in smaller donations to support climate disinformation in 2020 or compare the grants it made in 2020 with previous years.

Only three denier groups—the same three named in the 2020 grantmaking report—received $100,000 or more from ExxonMobil in 2019. That year, their grants collectively amounted to $625,000. The other six denier groups the company funded in 2019—the Center for American and International Law ($5,000), the Federalist Society ($10,000), the Hoover Institution ($15,000), the Manhattan Institute ($90,000), Mountain States Legal Foundation ($5,000) and the Washington Legal Foundation ($40,000)—collectively received $165,000. None of those grants, even if ExxonMobil continued them, would wind up in the 2020 report, given the company's new threshold.

Still, it's worth taking a closer look at where the bulk of ExxonMobil's self-reported climate disinformation budget did go in 2020.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce

Since 2014, ExxonMobil has given more than $5 million on top of its annual dues to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce—a major player in blocking action on climate change for decades. A few years after becoming an ExxonMobil grantee, the Chamber gained some unwanted notoriety by financing a widely debunked report that then-President Trump cited as a primary rationale for pulling the United States out of the Paris climate agreement.

In 2019, however, the Chamber appeared to flip 180 degrees, declaring on its website, "Our climate is changing and humans are contributing to these changes. Inaction is simply not an option." The assertion that human activity is merely contributing to climate change is inaccurate, given that burning fossil fuels is the primary cause, but the statement did represent a quantum leap from when the association spuriously maintained in comments submitted to the Environmental Protection Agency in 2009 that "a warming of even 3 [degrees Celsius] in the next 100 years would, on balance, be beneficial to humans."

That said, the Chamber vowed in an August 24 press release to "do everything [it] can to prevent" the proposed $3.5 trillion reconciliation bill—which would slash carbon emissions from the electric power and transportation sectors—"from becoming law." And in a section on its website addressing climate change, the Chamber calls for "the increased use of natural gas" to make "further progress."

The American Enterprise Institute

Economist Benjamin Zycher might be considered the climate science denier in residence at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), which has received $4.86 million from ExxonMobil since 1998. Zycher insists that a carbon tax would be "ineffective," has called the Paris climate agreement an "absurdity," and rejects the scientific consensus about the causes and seriousness of global warming.

Zycher published his most recent broadside against climate science in the Summer 2021 issue ofNational Affairs, a formerly independent conservative policy quarterly that AEI brought in-house in 2019. In his essay, "The Case for Climate-Change Realism," he falsely argued that the "available science" does not support the notion that human activity is "the single most significant cause of climate change" and the "available data" undercut the assessment that extreme weather events are "evidence of an ongoing climate crisis."

As he has in previous articles, Zycher cited roundly debunked hypotheses for the primary causes of climate change, including a shift in northern Pacific Ocean circulation patterns called the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, which scientists have determined is incapable of causing a long-term warming trend, and "changes insolar activity," when, in fact, the sun's energy has declined since the 1980s while average global temperatures have continued to climb.

This summer was not a fortuitous time to be peddling discredited theories. On August 9, less than two months after Zycher posted his essay, the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released a landmark, nearly 4,000-page "code red for humanity" report warning that the climate crisis is close to spiraling out of control and human activity is "unequivocally" to blame.

Zycher's main objective? To make a case, no matter how specious, for continued reliance on fossil fuels, which he falsely claimed are less expensive than renewables. Proposals to cut carbon emissions, including the Paris agreement, would have little real impact, he argued, and could "be accomplished only by substituting expensive energy for cheaper energy." In fact, according to a recent analysis by Bloomberg, it is "now cheaper to build and operate new large-scale wind or solar plants in nearly half the world than it would be to run an existing coal or [natural] gas-fired power plant." To be sure, no one would confuse Zycher for a scientist or National Affairs for a peer-reviewed journal. But he serves ExxonMobil's interests as a seemingly independent expert who continues to express doubt about climate science and the viability of renewable energy, thereby providing cover for climate science deniers in Congress.

George Washington University's Regulatory Studies Center

The relatively unknown Regulatory Studies Center at George Washington (GW) University received $140,000 from ExxonMobil in 2020 and $1.2 million from the company since 2013. Director Susan Dudley founded the center in 2009 after serving as President George W. Bush's "regulatory czar" at the Office of Management and Budget and, before that, running the Regulatory Studies Program at Koch-financed Mercatus Center at George Mason University. She currently serves in various capacities for other longtime climate science disinformation groups, including the Koch-founded Cato Institute, the Federalist Society, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

The Regulatory Studies Center portrays itself as an "objective, unbiased" policy shop, but—like the Mercatus Center—its primary raison d'être is to weaken and quash government regulations, according to a 2019 analysis by the consumer advocacy organization Public Citizen. The GW center's main tools are reports and public comments it submits to Congress, and although it does not get much mainstream news media attention,it has found a receptive audience on Capitol Hill—and in the previous administration. Much of the Trump administration's deregulatory agenda, Public Citizen found, echoed the center's recommendations, including "dramatically reducing the cost that the government attributes to carbon emissions."

But should the Regulatory Studies Center be lumped in with climate science disinformation groups? In response to the Public Citizen report, as well as criticism from UnKoch My Campus and GW student groups, the center issued a statement in February disputing the charge that it rejects climate science. "Contrary to unsubstantiated claims, no one in the Regulatory Studies Center questions climate science," it said. "In fact, most of the Center's scholars do not focus on environmental or energy issues at all. Those who have written on climate issues address economic and legal questions, not the science."

Whether or not the center directly disputes climate science is beside the point. In the face of incontrovertible scientific evidence, most ExxonMobil-funded disinformation groups have revised their position on the reality of climate change. Instead of challenging the science, their efforts now tend to focus on denigrating renewable energy, overstating the costs of transitioning to a clean energy economy while ignoring the benefits, and preventing government action. That is exactly what the Regulatory Studies Center does.In recent years, for example, it has published papers and filed public comments opposing stronger efficiency standards for home appliances and vehicles that would dramatically reduce carbon emissions.

The center also has enlisted the help of unabashed climate science deniers. In the fall of 2018, for example, it tapped Julian Morris to file a public comment supporting the Trump administration's proposed rollback of Obama-era standards for cars and light trucks designed to increase fuel economy and, for the first time, substantially reduce tailpipe carbon emissions.Morris, president and founder of the International Policy Network and vice president of research at the Reason Foundation—two libertarian, climate science denier organizations—falsely declared in a paper published in March 2018 that the "effects of climate change are unknown—but the benefits may well be greater than the costs for the foreseeable future."

Millions More for Disinformation

The money ExxonMobil donated in 2020 to AEI, the GW Regulatory Studies Center and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce represents only a small percentage of the company's recent outlays to sway public opinion and blunt government climate action. It is difficult to document all of the company's related expenditures, but they include:

More than $5 million on Facebook ads in 2020, which is more than half of the $9.6 million that the U.S. oil and gas industry spent on the ads, according to an analysis by the think tank InfluenceMap that reviewed more than 25,000 ads on Facebook's U.S. platform. Many of the ads described natural gas as a "green" fuel source and argued that cutting carbon emissions would drive up energy costs.

An estimated $10 million in annual dues to the American Petroleum Institute (API) (based on how much Shell Oil recently revealed it paid). The U.S. oil and gas industry's oldest and largest trade association, API is working overtime to block stricter methane emissions standards. McCoy indirectly referenced API during the secretly taped interview when he said ExxonMobil relied on third parties to publicly represent its interests in Congress. "We don't want it to be us, to have these conversations, especially in a hearing," he said. "It's getting our associations to step in and have those conversations and answer those tough questions and be, for the lack of a better term, the whipping boy for some of these members of Congress."

At least $100,000 in annual dues to trade associations (based on what it reported it spent in 2019) that have a long track record of peddling climate disinformation, including the National Association of Manufacturers and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.[ipaa]

Nearly $834,000 during the 2018 and 2020 election cycles to 118 of the 139 climate science deniers currently in Congress. Over that same time period, the company reportedly spent nearly$41 million to lobby in Washington, but neither McCoy nor ExxonMobil's other in-house lobbyists have broached the topic of a carbon tax—the company's avowed top priority—with legislators since 2018, according to its quarterly lobbying reports.

So while ExxonMobil CEO Darren Woods and his colleagues proclaim that they fully understand the threat posed by climate change and are "committed to being part of the solution," the evidence shows they continue to spend tens of millions of dollars every year to promote gridlock in Congress on the issue.The future of the planet as we know it hangs in the balance, but as McCoy acknowledged in his interview, ExxonMobil was—and still is—looking out for its investments and its shareholders' short-term interests, regardless of the long-term consequences.

Elliott Negin is a senior writer at the Union of Concerned Scientists in Washington, D.C.

FROM YOUR SITE ARTICLES

'It looked like an atomic bomb': Welcome to our very own not-so-slow ... ›

How Trump Ally Myron Ebell Spread Misinformation for Big Tobacco ... ›

The truth behind ExxonMobil's claims to support a carbon tax ... ›

Our 2017 Research Focus

Promoting best practices for regulatory analysis
- Benefit-cost analysis
- Regulatory risk assessment
- Competition analysis
- Public interest comments on proposed regulations

Improving regulatory institutions & incentives
- Focus on outcomes
- Reforms to align private and public interests
- Improving retrospective review for better feedback & evaluation
- Reducing international trade & investment barriers by improving understanding of regulatory practices & effects

Serving as a source for objective information on regulatory matters
- Regulation Digest
- Measures of regulation & regulatory effects
- Regulatory Policy Commentaries
- Publications in scholarly and popular media
- ---

off bs capt 12/17 lots of agr chem?

dudley big booster of trump dereg

Recent working papers and published articles from Center scholars

President Trump signing EO

2017 Regulatory Year in Review

December 18, 2017

By Zhoudan Xie & Sofie E. Miller

This Regulatory Insight highlights ten important regulatory and deregulatory themes that garnered attention—and changed the regulatory landscape—in 2017. Regulatory policy was a focal point of 2017, and notable executive orders, rulemaking, and legislation all contributed to this theme--including the Congressional Review Act, net neutrality, the President's deregulatory agenda, and more.

Internet privacy

Measuring Costs and Benefits of Privacy Controls: Conceptual Issues and Empirical Estimates

November 06, 2017

By Joseph J. Cordes, Co-Director & Daniel R. Pérez, Policy Analyst

As personal information becomes increasingly available to internet providers, the government, and employers, a lively debate has emerged about the role of public policy in ensuring a proper balance between parties who benefit from greater access to information and the protection of individual rights to privacy. Additionally, emerging technologies such as highly automated vehicles and unmanned aircraft systems bring privacy concerns to the forefront—particularly regarding the proper role of federal regulatory agencies. Agency rulemaking requires a thorough analysis of regulatory benefits and costs. Our paper hopes to contribute to the development and greater use of empirical measures of consumer privacy.

Corn production

Regulatory Impact on Corn Farming: Transatlantic Agriculture & Regulation Working Paper Series: No. 5

October 24, 2017

By Daniel R. Pérez, Aryamala Prasad, & Zhoudan Xie

The final chapter of the five part series with the USDA and the GW Regulatory Studies Center examines the impact of environmental and food safety regulations on corn production in the U.S. and EU. Using France and Spain as case studies to illustrate the differences that result from EU member states’ translation and implementation of agricultural regulations at the country level, the chapter identifies and discusses regulations affecting corn production and estimates the economic impact of each regulation at the farm level. The use of a typical farm approach demonstrates relative differences in outcomes for farms among different jurisdictions.

pesticidesspray

Water Pollution from Agriculture: Transatlantic Agriculture & Regulation Working Paper Series: No. 4

October 12, 2017

By Peter Linquiti & Zhoudan Xie

Part four of the five part series with the USDA and the GW Regulatory Studies Center analyzes how the U.S. and EU regulate water pollution from agriculture. Linquiti and Xie first review the core environmental problem—the process by which nutrient pollution occurs and the adverse environmental and human health consequences it causes. It also provides an overview of the institutions and policy frameworks that shape water quality polices and proceeds by characterizing the specific policy instruments used in the U.S. and the EU to implement these policy frameworks.

US and EU trade

Transatlantic Approaches to Agriculture Policy: Transatlantic Agriculture & Regulation Working Paper Series: No. 3

October 04, 2017

By Susan E. Dudley, Lydia Holmes, Daniel R. Pérez, Aryamala Prasad, & Zhoudan Xie

Part three of the five part series with the USDA and the GW Regulatory Studies Center presents several notable differences in policy approaches towards agriculture between the U.S. and EU. It first provides an overview of the U.S. and EU procedures for developing and implementing regulation and how they differ. It then describes how the jurisdictions approach regulation affecting the agricultural sector. Finally, it discusses and compares five areas of agricultural policy in each jurisdiction: (i) agri-environmental regulations, (ii) organic farming, (iii) genetically modified organisms, (iv) pesticides, and (v) fertilizers.

Agriculture trade

Agricultural Productivity and the Impact of Regulation: Transatlantic Agriculture & Regulation Working Paper Series: No. 2

September 26, 2017

By Aryamala Prasad & Zhoudan Xie

Part two of the five part series with the USDA and the GW Regulatory Studies Center focuses on the impact of agricultural policy, specifically regulation, in influencing agricultural productivity across jurisdictions. It begins by tracing agricultural growth in the EU and U.S. to illustrate their respective trends for agricultural productivity. Then, drawing from the literature, it identifies measures and methodologies used to estimate the impact of regulation on productivity. Finally, it outlines important differences regarding how regulations can affect agricultural productivity and other measures of agricultural performance such as output and production costs in the EU and the U.S.

US and EU

Agricultural Statistics: Transatlantic Agriculture & Regulation Working Paper Series: No. 1

September 20, 2017

By S. Dudley, L. Holmes, P. Linquiti, B. Mannix, D. Pérez, A. Prasad & Z. Xie

As part of a cooperative agreement with the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), the George Washington University Regulatory Studies Center produced a five-chapter report on regulatory differences between the United States (U.S.) and the European Union (EU) and their effects on agricultural productivity. This chapter provides an overview of key statistical comparisons between the agricultural sectors of the U.S. and the EU. It highlights key economic indicators, describes the role that agriculture plays in each economy, and illustrates differences in each jurisdiction’s respective factor endowments and trade patterns.

CPSC Logo

CPSC Hearing on Safety Standard Addressing Blade-Contact Injuries on Table Saws

August 14, 2017

By Sofie E. Miller & Jacob Yarborough

In a testimony before the Consumer Product Safety Commission, Miller and Yarborough discuss three components of the Commission's proposed performance standard for table saws: 1) there is not a clear market failure to justify the rulemaking, 2) the rule will have negative effects on competition by creating a legal monopoly, and 3) the benefits that the Commission expects to result from its standard are uncertain.

JBCA cover

Consumer’s Guide to Regulatory Impact Analysis: Ten Tips for Being an Informed Policymaker

August 02, 2017

By S. Dudley, R. Belzer, G. Blomquist, T. Brennan, C. Carrigan, J. Cordes, L. Cox, A. Fraas, J. Graham, G. Gray, J. Hammitt, K. Krutilla, P. Linquiti, R. Lutter, B. Mannix, S. Shapiro, A. Smith, W. .Viscusi & R. Zerbe in the Journal of Benefit-Cost Analysis

Regulatory impact analyses (RIAs) weigh the benefits of regulations against the burdens they impose and are invaluable tools for informing decision makers. We offer 10 tips for nonspecialist policymakers and interested stakeholders who will be reading RIAs as consumers.

Table saw

Public Comment on the CPSC’s Proposed Rule: Safety Standard Addressing Blade-Contact Injuries on Table Saws

July 27, 2017

By Sofie E. Miller and Jacob Yarborough

The CPSC’s proposed rule mandates that all table saws sold in the U.S. be equipped with Active Injury Mitigation (AIM) technology. Miller and Yarborough argue that this rule would lead to a monopoly of the table saw market. This monopoly would reduce consumer choice, dramatically raise costs, and stifle innovation. In addition, they question the underlying assumptions and models that the CPSC uses to conduct their benefit-cost analysis and argue that the benefits may be overstated and the costs understated.

Reg budget cover

Regulators’ Budget Reflects President Trump’s Priorities

July 18, 2017

By Susan E. Dudley & Melinda Warren

This year's annual report finds that although President Trump has made reducing regulatory burdens a priority, he proposes to increase the regulators' budget in FY 2018. Some agencies are budgeted for significant increases in both expenditures and staff, while others face dramatic cuts. In addition, this report finds that while spending and staffing at federal agencies has generally increased over the 59-year period covered by this report, the focus of those resources and the rate of increase have varied with the perceptions of public policy issues and the philosophies of elected officials in the executive and legislative branches.

FCC seal

Public Comment on The Federal Communications Commission’s Proposed Rule: Restoring Internet Freedom

July 11, 2017

By Gerald Brock, Ph.D, Co-Director

As an independent regulatory agency, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is not required to perform a Regulatory Impact Analysis (RIA) of major regulations. In this public interest comment on the FCC’s “net neutrality” rule, Brock argues that it is desirable to conduct RIA voluntarily because they have become the standard method of ensuring careful analysis of proposed regulations in the U.S. and other major countries.

rick perry

Public Comment on DOE’s Request for Information on Reducing Regulation and Controlling Regulatory Costs

July 07, 2017

By Sofie E. Miller

This comment provides the Department of Energy with recommendations on how to reduce regulatory burdens pursuant to Executive Orders 13771 and 13777. Miller recommends that DOE establish consistent internal standards for determining whether a rule is "economically justified," including using a threshold to limit the proportion of consumers who bear net costs. DOE should also review each rule before increasing the stringency of its standards, and consider surveys or other measures of actual consumer behavior to ensure that its assumptions about household appliance energy use are accurate.

Executive Order 13771 - Wikipedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_Order_13771

:{:(style="border-color:#006621;;border-style:solid;border-width:5px 4px 0px;width:0px;height:0px;margin-left:3px;top:7.5px;margin-top:-4px;position:absolute;left:0px"):}:

:{:{Executive Order 13771:(style="font-weight:bold"):}: —entitled "Reducing Regulation and Controlling Regulatory Costs"— is an:{executive order:(style="font-weight:bold"):}: signed by U.S. President Donald Trump on January 30, 2017. It directs agencies to repeal two existing regulations for every new regulation, and to do so in such a way that the total cost of regulations does not ...:(style="word-wrap:break-word"):}:

**Signed by**‎: ‎Donald Trump on January 30, 2017

Publication date‎: ‎February 3, 2017

139 - Executive Order 13777—Enforcing the Regulatory Reform Agenda

www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=123412

:{:(style="border-color:#006621;;border-style:solid;border-width:5px 4px 0px;width:0px;height:0px;margin-left:3px;top:7.5px;margin-top:-4px;position:absolute;left:0px"):}:

:{Feb 24, 2017 - (d) Each Regulatory Reform Task Force shall evaluate existing regulations (as defined in section 4 of :{Executive Order 13771:(style="font-weight:bold"):}:) and make recommendations to the agency head regarding their repeal, replacement, or modification, consistent with applicable law. At a minimum, each Regulatory Reform Task ...:(style="word-wrap:break-word"):}:

Enforcing the Regulatory Reform Agenda, Executive Order 13777 ...

www.usace.army.mil/.../enforcing-the-regulatory-reform-agenda-executive-order-137...

:{:(style="border-color:#006621;;border-style:solid;border-width:5px 4px 0px;width:0px;height:0px;margin-left:3px;top:7.5px;margin-top:-4px;position:absolute;left:0px"):}:

:{:{Executive Order 13777:(style="font-weight:bold"):}:, signed by President Trump on February 24, 2017, requires federal agencies to review all existing regulations; identify those that meet specific ... :{13771:(style="font-weight:bold"):}:, 1-30-17, Reducing Regulation and Controlling Regulatory Costs (eliminate two regulations for every new regulation, control costs);:{13777:(style="font-weight:bold"):}:, 2-24-17, ...:(style="word-wrap:break-word"):}:

Regulatory Reform | Laws & Regulations | US EPA

https://www.epa.gov/laws-regulations/regulatory-reform

:{:(style="border-color:#006621;;border-style:solid;border-width:5px 4px 0px;width:0px;height:0px;margin-left:3px;top:7.5px;margin-top:-4px;position:absolute;left:0px"):}:

:{In accordance with :{Executive Order 13777:(style="font-weight:bold"):}:, “Enforcing the Regulatory Reform Agenda,” EPA requested input on regulations that may be appropriate for repeal, ... :{Executive Order 13771:(style="font-weight:bold"):}: (82 FR 9339, February 3, 2017) on Reducing Regulation and Controlling Regulatory Costs directs all agencies to repeal two existing ...:(style="text-decoration-line:none;display:block;padding:7px 18px;outline:0px;word-wrap:break-word"):}:

Federal Register :: Enforcing the Regulatory Reform Agenda ...

https://www.federalregister.gov/.../enforcing-the-regulatory-reform-agenda-departme...

:{:(style="border-color:#006621;;border-style:solid;border-width:5px 4px 0px;width:0px;height:0px;margin-left:3px;top:7.5px;margin-top:-4px;position:absolute;left:0px"):}:

:{Jun 28, 2017 - Pursuant to :{Executive Order 13777:(style="font-weight:bold"):}:, the Department of Justice's Regulatory Reform Task Force is publishing this Notice to solicit public suggestions for ... in Section 4 of :{Executive Order 13771:(style="font-weight:bold"):}:) including State, local, and tribal governments, small businesses, consumers, non-governmental :(style="text-decoration-line:none;display:block;padding:7px 18px;outline:0px;word-wrap:break-word"):}:

:{coc tracking --> https://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/whitehouse.gov/files/omb/memoranda/2017/M-17-23.pdf:(style="display:block;padding:7px 18px;outline-color:initial;outline-style:initial"):}:

:{Primer in Korean:(style="display:block;padding:7px 18px;outline-color:initial;outline-style:initial"):}:

Regulation: A Primer (Korean edition)

July 06, 2017

Susan Dudley and Jerry Brito's book, "Regulation: A Primer" has been translated in Korean. This primer provides an accessible overview of regulatory theory, analysis, and practice. It examines the constitutional underpinnings of federal regulation and discusses who writes and enforces regulation and how they do it. It also provides insights into the different varieties of regulation and how to analyze whether a regulatory proposal makes citizens better or worse off.

Structured to Fail? Regulatory Performance under Competing Mandates

July 03, 2017

By Christopher Carrigan, Ph.D, Senior Scholar

Commentators often point to the structure of regulatory agencies charged with overseeing the associated industries in the wake of a national crisis, noting that the need to balance competing regulatory and non-regulatory missions undermined each agency's ability to be an effective regulator. Carrigan challenges this critique by employing a diverse set of research methods, including an in-depth case study of US regulatory oversight of offshore oil and gas development leading up to the Gulf oil spill, to systematically evaluate the benefits and concerns associated with either combining or separating regulatory and non-regulatory missions. His analysis shows why assigning competing non-regulatory missions to regulatory agencies can still be better than separating them in some cases.

---

2/21/17 - *Forbes*,Downsizing Regulation, by Susan E. Dudley

12/15/17 - The Hill,Trump’s deregulatory promises are coming true and saving $570 million, by Susan E. Dudley

12/13/17 - Regulation Digest, Vol. 6, No. 47

12/11/17 - Forbes, One-Hundred-and-One Lawyers to Recommend Changes to Regulatory Practice, by Susan E. Dudley

12/6/17 - Regulation Digest, Vol. 6, No. 46

11/29/17 - Regulation Digest, Vol. 6, No. 45

11/28/17 - The Hill, Boosting integrity of federal policymaking is an easy win for Congress, by Susan E. Dudley & Daniel R. Pérez

11/9/17 - Society for Risk Analysis, The Society for Risk Analysis Presents New Research on Who Really Benefits from Energy Efficient Manufacturing, quoting Sofie Miller

11/8/17 - Regulation Digest, Vol. 6, No. 43

11/8/17 - New Implications of the Congressional Review Act, by Susan E. Dudley

https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/sites/default/files/omb/inforeg/2014_cb/comments/dudley-mannix-miller-2014-omb-report-to-congress.pdf

testimony mr dudley

Susan E. Dudley, Director

Bio

sdudley@gwu.ed

Gerald Brock, Co-Director

Bio

gbrock@gwu.edu

Prior to joining the GW faculty in 1990, Professor Brock served as Chief of the FCC Common Carrier Bureau from 1987-89. His research focuses on telecommunication policy, including the interaction of regulatory and other policy decisions with economic efficiency and technological progress. His current research examines the relationship between the regulated voice communication sector and the unregulated data communication sector, looking for insight regarding factors that facilitate technological progress and flexibility in economic institutions. He is the author of four books, of which the most recent is The Second Information Revolution (Harvard University Press, 2003). Professor Brock received both his BA (Applied Mathematics), and PhD (Economics) from Harvard University.

Gerald Brock CV

Publications

Public Comment on the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s Draft Regulatory Basis: Financial Qualifications for Reactor Licensing, Gerald Brock, Submitted July 30, 2015

Commentaries

Vague Net Neutrality Rule Impedes Innovation, Gerald Brock, April 21, 2015

Joeseph Cordes, Co-Director

Bio

cordes@gwu.edu

Professor Cordes is a nationally-recognized scholar on the measurement of benefits and costs of government programs. He has developed and taught a one semester course on benefit cost analysis and has directed several PhD dissertations and over 100 level graduate student projects involving the application of benefit cost analysis to wide range of public and nonprofit sector programs, including government regulations. He has also received research grants from the Department of Homeland Security on measuring costs of homeland security regulations. He is a founding member of the board of directors of the Society for Benefit Cost Analysis. Professor Cordes earned a BA (Economics) from Stanford University, and a PhD (Economics) from the University of Wisconsin Madison.

Joe Cordes CV

Publications

Recent Research

Joseph Cordes & Blake Taylor, “The CPSC’s Off-Road Adventure.” Regulation Magazine, Spring 2015.

Brian F. Mannix, Research Professor

Bio

bmannix@gwu.edu

aka mr dudley , Brian Mannixis a recognized national expert on energy and environmental policy and regulation. From 2005 to 2009 he served as the Environmental Protection Agency's Associate Administrator for Policy, Economics, and Innovation; earlier he served as Deputy Secretary of Natural Resources for the Commonwealth of Virginia. He has held appointments at a number of other federal and state agencies, and has held research positions at several public policy think tanks. From 1987 to 1989 Mr. Mannix was the Managing Editor of Regulation magazine at the American Enterprise Institute. Mr. Mannix earned A.B. and A.M. degrees from Harvard University in Mathematics and Chemistry, and an M.P.P. from the Harvard Kennedy School of Government.

Brian Mannix CV

Education

A.B. and A.M. degrees from Harvard University in Mathematics and Chemistry

M.P.P. from the Harvard Kennedy School of Government

Publications

Recent Research

Regulatory Reforms to Enhance Competition: Recommendations for Implementing Executive Order 13725, by Sofie E. Miller, Daniel R. Pérez, Susan E. Dudley, & Brian Mannix, May 11, 2016

Are Future Lives Worth More, Today, Than Our Own – Simply Because of Income Growth? Brian Mannix, March 7, 2016

CAFE and the Tension Between Optimization and Competition in Rulemaking, Brian F. Mannix in Regulation, Winter 2015-2016

Public Comment on OMB’s 2015 Draft Report to Congress on the Benefits and Costs of Federal Regulations, Sofie E. Miller, Susan Dudley, Brian Mannix, December 15, 2015

Public Comment: EPA’s Proposed Rule: Federal Plan Requirements for :{Greenhouse Gas Emissions From Electric Utility Generating Units:(style="background-color:#ffff66;"):}:, Brian Mannix, November 19, 2015

Public Comment on the EPA and NHTSA’s Proposed Rule: Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Fuel Efficiency Standards for Medium and Heavy-Duty Engines and Vehicles – Phase 2, Brian Mannix, October 2, 2015

The Limits of Irrationality as a Rationale for Regulation, Brian Mannix & Susan E. Dudley, Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, Vol. 34 Issue 3, 2015.

“Please Don't Regulate my Internalities,” Brian Mannix & Susan E. Dudley, Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, Vol. 34 Issue 3, 2015.

The Social Cost of Carbon, Susan E. Dudley & Brian Mannix, Engage Volume 15 Issue 1, 2014

Making the Social Cost of Carbon More Social, Susan E. Dudley, Brian F. Mannix, & Sofie E. Miller, Regulation, Winter 2013-2014

Recent Commentaries

Beyond the Speed Bump: The New IEX Stock Exchange, and What Happens Next?, Brian F. Mannix, June 22, 2016

Are Future Lives Worth More Than Our Own? Brian F. Mannix, March 14, 2016

Space-Time Trading: Special Relativity and Financial Market Microstructure, Brian F. Mannix, March 14, 2016

Are Chemical Risk Assessment and Benefit-Cost Analysis Compatible? Brian F. Mannix, January 6, 2016

The Tension between Optimization and Competition in Rulemaking: The Case of Proposed Fuel-Efficiency Standards for Trucks, Brian F. Mannix, October 8, 2015

"Alaska is Exempt!", Brian Mannix, Federalist Society Executive Branch Review Blog, September 8, 2015

Misbehavioral Economics?, Brian Mannix, June 17, 2015

In the News

FedSoc Executive Branch Review Blog,"Alaska is Exempt!", by Brian Mannix, September 8, 2015

The Hill,Debating the Nanny State, by Stuart Shapiro citing Susan Dudley & Brian Mannix, August 5, 2015

The Federalist Society, The Highs–and Lows–of High-Frequency Trading - Podcast, interview with Brian Mannix, August 5, 2014

Reuters, Antisocial genesis of the social cost of carbon, by Susan Dudley, Brian F. Mannix, & Sofie E. Miller, October 10, 2013

PODCAST: The Highs–and Lows–of :{High-Frequency Trading:(style="background-color:#ffff66;"):}:, withRSC ScholarBrian Mannix, Federalist Society, August 5, 2014

PODCAST: Benefit-Cost Analysis in Rulemaking: Ready for Prime Time? with RSC Research Scholar Brian Mannix, Federalist Society, May 21, 2012

Sofie E. Miller, Senior Policy Analyst

Bio

sofiemiller@gwu.edu

why leave mercatus? koch big funder

dudley hubby: pol appt epa:

AB, Harvard University, 1972; Master of Arts, Harvard University, 1974; Master of Public Policy, Harvard University, 1978.

Career

Environmental scientist United States Environmental Protection Agency, Washington, 1977-1978. Economist United States Department Energy, 1978-1979. Senior economist United States Council on Wage and Price Stability, 1979-1981, United States Office Management and Budget, Washington, 1981-1987.

Resident fellow American Enterprise Institute,1987-1989. President Buckland Mill Associates, since 1989. MemberRecombinant DNA Advisory Committee, National Institutes of Health,Washington, 1987-1992.

Brian Mannix is a research professor at the Regulatory Studies Center, George Washington University. He has served as Associate Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency for Policy, Economics, and Innovation (2005-2009); earlier he served as an economist in OMB’s Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (1981-1987), and as Virginia’s Deputy Secretary of Natural Resources (1996-1998). Brian was managing editor of Regulation magazine at the American Enterprise Institute (1987-1989). He has degrees in Mathematics, Chemistry, and Public Policy from Harvard University.

http://www.gwhatchet.com/2014/04/14/100000-donation-from-koch-brothers-supported-research-fellowships-internships-at-gw/

The Charles Koch Foundation donated more than $100,000 to support research fellowships in the GW School of Business and to the University's regulatory policy center in 2012, marking one of the largest donations to a University that the billionaire-backed organization gave that year.

The gifts were large enough to name GW as the charity’s 10th largest gift recipient that year, according to a report that the Center for Public Integrity released last month. For the past two years, the University hasn’t landed a gift from the organization, led by billionaire Charles Koch.

Susan Dudley, the director of the Regulatory Studies Center, said the funds help graduate students in the Trachtenberg School of Public Policy and Public Administration afford unpaid internships in the federal government. Before Dudley came to GW, she directed the George Mason University’s Mercatus Center, which received $8.4 million from Koch in 2012.

wiki

The George Washington University (GW, GWU, or George Washington) is a private, coeducational research university located in the Foggy Bottom neighborhood ofWashington, D.C.. The university was chartered by an Act of Congress on February 9, 1821, as the Columbian College in the District of Columbia.^[4] In 1904, it changed its name to the George Washington University in honor of George Washington, the first President of the United States.

The university awards undergraduate and graduate degrees in several disciplines through all of its ten different schools. GWU's Columbian College of Arts and Sciences,School of Business, Elliott School of International Affairs, Milken Institute School of Public Health, School of Engineering and Applied Science, and the School of Nursing offer undergraduate and graduate degrees. The Graduate School of Political Management, the only school of applied politics in the nation's capital, The George Washington University Medical School, The George Washington UniversityLaw School, and Graduate School of Education & Human Development offer graduate degrees. Its Law School, Business School and School of International Affairs that are consistently ranked highly by several national and international publications.

GWU is consistently ranked by The Princeton Review in the top "Most Politically Active" Schools. Many of the university's graduates have gone on to high positions within both the United States Government and in foreign governments. Notable alumni include US Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, former Secretary of State Colin Powell, former First-Lady Jacqueline Kennedy, and US House of Representative Majority Leader Eric Cantor. There are currently four George Washington University alumni serving in the United States Senate, nine serving in the United States House of Representatives, and ten serving as United States ambassadors.

The sports teams and current and former students in general are called "Colonials".

1 History
- 1.1 Founding and early history
- 1.2 Expansion

2 Campuses

3 Organization
- 3.1 University
- 3.2 Schools and colleges

4 Academics
- 4.1 Admission

- 4.2 Tuition

5 Student life
- 5.1 Student organizations and government
  - 5.1.1 Controversies

6 Athletics and spirit programs

7 Notable alumni, faculty and degrees
- 7.1 Notable alumni
- 7.2 Notable faculty

Controversies

The Program Board had, in years past, scheduled an X-rated film to show as part of their semester series. The film was usually partnered with a discussion of theFirst Amendment or a seminar on the sociological underpinnings of pornography. One year in the mid-1990s, "Porn Night" garnered national press coverage along with an ensuing protest. The film shown that night was John Wayne Bobbitt Uncut. The organized protest brought together College Republicans with College Democrats, Christians, Jews and Muslims and a bevy of diverse student organizations to speak out against pornography. A number of university administrators appeared that night to show their support of the students' right to assemble - on one hand to view the film and on the other to protest using student fees to show the film in the first place.^[81]

A number of posters in October 2007 surfaced at GW satirizing the "Islamofascism Awareness Week," which was assumed to have been from the GW Young American's Foundation.^[82] On October 9, The Daily Colonial reported that the posters were not the work of the YAF, but rather an attempt to discredit the YAF for their involvement in promoting the Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week.^[83] Later that day, seven students advocating against alleged racism inherent in Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week emailed their statement of responsibility regarding the posters to the GW Hatchet.^[84] WhileYAF and other conservative groups demanded that the students be expelled, the university's judicial services found the students in violation of only GW's postering policy and the students were put on disciplinary probation and fined $25 for the satirical fliers.^[85]

GW Hatchet, The Daily Colonial and The GW Patriot.

---

Eric Katz joined Government Executive in the summer of 2012 after graduating from The George Washington University, where he studied journalism and political science. He has written for his college newspaper and an online political news website and worked in a public affairs office for the Navy’s Military Sealift Command. Most recently, he worked for Financial Times, where he reported on national politics.

epa porn and 3 other stories picked up by Issa in hearings, according to ebell story 7 may 2014 http://www.govexec.com/federal-news/fedblog/2014/05/porn-fedblog/83980/

june 25 http://www.govexec.com/federal-news/fedblog/2014/06/epa-employees-told-stop-pooping-hallway/87223/?oref=recentposts

Saturday, Sept. 25, 2010 3:56 p.m.

Extremist group plans protest at GW, students organize counter protest

by Lauren French

The arch-conservative Westboro Baptist Church plans to demonstrate at GW Nov. 11, to protest the “God-hating heathens” they believe college-age students have become.

Nov. 11 is Veterans Day but according to the church’s website the protest is to “remind this nation that this next generation of young people have been raised for the devil himself.”

The Kansas-based group, known nationally for demonstrating at military funerals and for their “God Hates Fags” signs, drew ire from GW studentsin 2009 when they protested at the White House and other locations around D.C.

The GW Patriot – a non-partisan blog run by GW students – planned a counter protest against the Westboro group. Almost 300 people say they plan to attend the rally, according to the Facebook group promoting the event. The Patriot first broke the news about the Westboro Baptist Church protest.

“Take a stand against the WBC’s hateful and provocative protest. Join our peaceful, non-violent counter-protest to show WBC the meaning of sane, rational discourse,” the Patriot posted on Facebook.

Questions to a University spokesperson about the two protests were not answered Saturday afternoon.

Tuesday, Aug. 10, 2010 3:21 p.m.

Conservative group finds that GW has liberal bias

by Gabrielle Bluestone

Conservative organization CampusReform.org released a report Tuesday that found GW’s on-campus organizations, professors and classes have liberal leanings, but provides little evidence to support most of the claims.

According to the report, of the University’s on-campus organizations, 13 are “left-leaning,” and six are “right-leaning.” The report also found that 87 percent of donations made by GW faculty and staff in the 2008 presidential election went to Democratic candidates, and an “equal 87 percent” of the total dollars donated by GW faculty and staff went to Democrats.

In 2008, The Hatchet found that University employees overwhelmingly supported Democratic candidates during that election, with more than 40 percent of all campaign contributions going to Illinois Democratic Sen. Barack Obama.

The leftist groups named are Allied in Pride, College Democrats, Colonials Against State Execution, Feminist Majority Leadership Alliance, NAACP, GW Students for Fair Trade, NOW-GW, Progressive Student Union, Roosevelt Institute, STAND, Students for Justice in Palestine, Voices for Choices and The Daily Colonial. The right-leaning groupsidentified in the report are Colonials for Life, College Republicans, GW Republican Women, GW Student Alliance for Israel, GW Young America’s Foundation Chapter and the GW Patriot.

GW has more than 430 official student organizations.

The report also cites students as reporting a liberal bias in the classroom citing one professor for being “well-known” for her work on Marxism and feminism, and quotes “right-leaning” GW Young America’s Foundationformer president Travis Korson as saying, “I’ve had professors openly criticize conservatives in the classroom while denying that the academy leans strongly to the left.”

Tuesday, June 1, 2010 10:04 a.m.

Alumnus sentenced to two years probation after pleading guilty to phone tampering plot in Louisiana Senator’s office

by Emily Cahn

GW alumnus Stan Dai was sentenced to two years probation by the U.S. Attorney’s Office Eastern District of Louisiana last week, after he and three other conservative activists pleaded guilty to attempting to bug the office of Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La. earlier this year.

Dai, who graduated from GW in 2006 with a degree in political science, was also ordered to perform 75 hours of community service and pay fines of $1,500 for his involvement in the phone tampering plot in January.

According to court documents, Dai aided three other men – Joseph Basel, Robert Flanagan and James O’Keefe – in the plot by remaining “outside of the building to provide support” for his friends while they disguised themselves as telephone repairmen to enter and bug Landrieu’s office in the Hart Senate office building.

Before graduating GW in 2006, Dai was involved with an array of conservative groups including The GW Patriot – a conservative publication on campus - the GW College Republicans and Colonials For Life, according to a biography of Dai found at The Phillips Foundation. Dai graduated from the University as a member of the Phi Beta Kappa honor society.

Permalink

The GW Patriot is a non-partisan publication dedicated to promoting the free exchange of ideas in an environment at The George Washington University where ideological diversity and serious debate that are often lacking. As a journal of politics and culture, The GW Patriot challenges the liberal orthodoxy of university life by exploiting topics often ignored under the status quo.

By giving voice to the endangered species of conservative and libertarian thought in our commentary, The Patriot seeks to articulate alternate viewpoints for a truly balanced education. They defend individual freedom, intellectual diversity, and fundamental human rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. The GW Patriot strives to inform, engage, and perhaps even amuse readers. They invite the active participation of any students who share a their vision.

Former GW Patriot Editor John McCormack is currently Online Editor of The Weekly Standard.

===

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/multimedia/epa-corporate/

In September 2010, scientists at the Environmental Protection Agency came to a startling conclusion: Even a small amount of a chemical compound commonly found in tap water may cause cancer.

The compound, hexavalent chromium, gained infamy in the Oscar-winning film Erin Brockovich, based on the David-vs.-Goliath legal duel between desert dwellers in Hinkley, Calif., and Pacific Gas & Electric Co. The film ends in Hollywood fashion, with the corporate polluter paying $333 million to people suffering from illnesses.

But in real life, the drama continues. More than 70 million Americans drink traces of chromium every day, according to the Environmental Working Group, a nonprofit research organization.

TOXIC INFLUENCE is an ongoing series of reports exploring the nexus between industry, science and policy.

This story is being produced in partnership with the Center for Public Integrity.

And now, more than a decade after the film, EPA scientists cite “clear evidence” that the chemical compound, also known as chromium (VI), can cause cancer. The federal agency was poised to announce its findings in 2011, a step almost certain to trigger stricter drinking-water standards to prevent new cancers and deaths.

The chemical industry’s trade association and chief lobbyist, the American Chemistry Council, urged the EPA to wait for more research, a common practice to delay action on toxic chemicals. However, Vincent Cogliano, the soft-spoken head of EPA’s chemical-assessment program, rebuffed the powerful group, writing in an April 2011 letter that “strong” new research was already available.

Ten months later, the EPA reversed itself, quietly posting a notice on the Internet that it was pushing back the release of its findings for at least four more years. Environmentalists were stunned at the reason: The agency would wait for the results of new studies costing $4 million and paid for by the American Chemistry Council.

The EPA decided to wait at the urging of a panel of scientists chosen to give an unbiased review of the chromium findings. But the EPA doesn’t vet these scientists directly, instead handing the task over to outside contractors. An investigation by the Center for Public Integrity found that several of the panelists had worked on behalf of PG&E to defend the company in the Brockovich lawsuits.

President Obama pledged during his 2008 campaign to halt meddling and interference in government science. The president put restoring integrity to science on his short list of priorities in his first inaugural address, right after fixing the economy and before health care reform. “We'll restore science to its rightful place,” he said.

Ouster of Scientist from EPA Panel Shows Industry Clout

The story of chromium (VI), full of twists and turns, offers a case study in how the Obama administration has failed to shield science at the EPA from industry influence.

Companies with a stake in chromium have borrowed from the Big Tobacco playbook, using science to create doubt. Ever since the brassy Brockovich knocked on doors in Hinkley to organize a class-action lawsuit, scientists paid by industry have tried to convince the courts and regulators that chromium (VI) poses no health risk.

Some of those scientists ended up on the panel chosen to review the EPA’s chromium findings, the Center for Public Integrity found:

Three of the five panelists who urged delay had worked on industry's behalf in the Hinkley court cases.

One of those scientists was retained by PG&E in the company’s ongoing chromium cleanup in Hinkley at the same time he was serving on the EPA panel.

Another scientist who urged the EPA to wait for the American Chemistry Council studies served as a consultant on those studies.

“You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to realize that this is corrupt and unacceptable,” contends Rena Steinzor, a law professor at the University of Maryland and president of the Center for Progressive Reform, a think tank that recently published a report on the chemical industry’s influence.

Companies with a stake in chromium have borrowed from the Big Tobacco playbook,

using science to create doubt.

Those members served on the EPA’s toxic-chemical-assessment program, the Integrated Risk Information System. IRIS, as it is known, is the pure science upon which clean air and water rules are based. But IRIS has become a major bottleneck, delaying new federal and state air and water standards amid industry influence and other factors. Critics say the EPA has only itself to blame.

Since October, EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson has declined interview requests to discuss IRIS or loopholes that open the door for potential conflicts of interest. Yet Jackson is pushing reform before she leaves office this week that would address some of the conflicts unearthed in the Center’s review, and cited by environmental activists.

And recently the EPA decided to move up its timetable to complete its chromium assessment to later this year.

Case study of industry’s muscle

The issue of scientists with industry ties serving on special EPA peer review panels goes beyond chromium. One out of every six scientists appointed to such panels since Obama took office had been a primary author of research articles funded by the American Chemistry Council over the past dozen years.

In all, 11 of the 68 members appointed to EPA panels assessing chemical health hazards were significant authors on studies funded by the ACC, a review of the council’s research database reveals. That number does not capture all scientists backed by industry, just those with work funded by the ACC. The authors of the hexavalent chromium studies, for example, are not included.

One scientist who has served on several EPA panels and co-written more than a dozen ACC-funded studies said that working with industry does not necessarily suggest a conflict.

“Scientists by and large want to get at the truth, so this really becomes more a matter of a perception of a problem than a real problem, in my opinion,” said Frederick J. Miller, an independent consultant who once worked at the Hamner Institutes for Health Sciences, a North Carolina research institute formed in the 1970s by leaders from 11 major chemical companies.

“The people that serve on these panels ... know if somebody is trying to make an argument that doesn’t hold water,” said Miller, who began his career in government.

However, studies have shown that when industry pays for research, it may influence the outcome. A 1998 analysis of more than 100 articles published on secondhand smoke reported that 37 percent found no health risk. At least 74 percent of the articles exonerating cigarette smoke were written by scientists with ties to the tobacco industry.

The American Chemistry Council has a stake in the outcome of research. Lobby disclosure forms from 2011 reveal that the ACC lobbied the EPA on its assessments of three highly controversial chemicals: dioxin, formaldehyde and chromium (VI). The group boasts on its Web site that “in 2012, we helped defeat or amend 281 chemical regulation and product ban proposals.”

The ACC, whose members such as ExxonMobil, Dow Chemical, Merck and Procter & Gamble are a who’s who of the Fortune 500, is one of the freest-spending lobby groups on Capitol Hill. In 2011, it laid out $12.6 million on lobbying, four times the amount spent by the National Rifle Association.

David Fischer, a senior director at the ACC, defended the group’s research program. “We feel we have an obligation to step up and fund studies to assist the agency — whether it’s EPA or others — to answer questions that might be posed about chemicals that we manufacture,” he said.

Asked if any of the ACC’s studies had ever shown that a chemical was more toxic than previously thought, Fischer replied, “I'm not aware of one right at this moment.”

The ACC said it was not involved in selecting the peer reviewers studying chromium (VI). “EPA’s peer reviewers were selected by EPA. They were vetted in the normal peer review process from EPA and we from the ACC do not have any direct links to these people,” said Ann Mason, the ACC scientist who commissioned the group’s new studies on chromium.

However, few scientists in the world specialize in chromium, a compound used to add color to paints, make stainless steel, add finish to chrome and inhibit rust. During its lawsuits, PG&E hired several of these scientists as expert witnesses; some say the debate over the compound’s toxicity caused lasting splits in the tight-knit scientific world.

One of PG&E’s key experts was Steven Patierno, a former professor of pharmacology at the George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences who had conducted numerous studies on the metal. Patierno, now the deputy director of the Duke Cancer Institute, has been an expert defense witness in seven chromium lawsuits. He hasn’t wavered in his view that drinking low doses of chromium (VI) does not cause cancer.

By early 2011, Patierno was selected for the peer review panel critiquing the EPA’s chromium (VI) findings. At a public meeting on May 12, 2011, he revealed a potential conflict of interest. There’s no recording or transcript of the meeting. Nothing in the EPA’s public record reveals the conflict. Two EPA officials who were there say they cannot recall what Patierno said. Patierno himself declined requests for an interview.

Jennifer Sass, a senior scientist at the nonprofit Natural Resources Defense Council, took notes at the meeting and said that Patierno revealed he was an investigator — though not a principal investigator — on the American Chemistry Council studies.

Asked if any of the ACC's studies had ever shown that a chemical was more toxic than previously thought, Fischer replied, "I'm not aware of one right at this moment."

The ACC’s Mason disputes that Patierno was involved. But Travis O’Brien, one of the principal investigators on the studies and a former colleague of Patierno’s atGeorge Washington University, told the Center for Public Integrity that Patierno was a consultant on the research.

Max Costa, now a professor at New York University’s medical school, knows Patierno well. When Costa taught at the University of Texas Medical School, Patierno worked in his laboratory. The two published research together. Costa said they became rivals when they took opposite sides in the PG&E lawsuit.

He argues that Patierno’s opinions are not credible because he works for the chrome industry. “He’s been a paid a large amount of money by them, and he’s totally biased because of that.”

Patierno levels the same charge against Costa, attacking his conclusions in a lawsuit as “unsubstantiated” and “severely flawed.” Patierno criticized the EPA for even citing Costa’s papers among hundreds of others in its report. In his peer review comments, Patierno said two of Costa’s articles should not be taken seriously because “they were written and published at a time when the senior author was actively engaged as an expert witness for the plaintiffs in high-profile hexavalent chromium lawsuits.”

Patierno was an expert witness for PG&E in the same lawsuits. When he was asked in a 2006 lawsuit if he discloses his expert-witness work for industry when submitting articles on chromium (VI), he answered no. Patierno said his articles were based on laboratory studies that were not relevant to his legal work.

Costa was originally listed as a candidate for the EPA peer review panel, according to documents obtained by the Center through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request. Costa says he disclosed his work in the PG&E lawsuit but doesn’t know if that work disqualified him. An EPA official said privately said that Costa’s work as an expert witness may have kept him off the panel.

Industry ties and EPA panel

Patierno was not the only defense litigation expert who served on the EPA's IRIS panel. Two others were John P. Wise Sr., a toxicology professor at the University of Southern Maine, and Joshua Hamilton, a chief academic and scientific officer at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Mass., which is affiliated with Brown University.

Wise, who worked in Patierno's laboratory as a graduate student, said that in 1997 he worked for a consulting firm and was assigned to do research for an industry client in the Hinkley lawsuit — but that he has not accepted industry money in the past 15 years. Wise said he does not believe that "such limited contact so long ago" influenced his opinion.

Hamilton was a defense expert in a PG&E chromium lawsuit that settled in 2006 and worked for the company as a consultant again starting in 2009, according to PG&E. PG&E acknowledged that it hired Hamilton in May 2011 — the same month the EPA panel met — to consult on the ongoing chromium cleanup in Hinkley. PG&E said it paid him $110,000.

Hamilton appeared before a California Regional Water Quality Control Board on June 8, 2011, to speak on behalf of PG&E about its cleanup of Hinkley. The EPA peer review panel issued its final comments one month later, on July 6, 2011.

In 2001, Hamilton said he was surprised to get a $100,000 check in the mail before doing any work as an expert witness.

Hamilton’s consulting work included criticism of the California EPA’s own scientific assessment of chromium (VI), which was nearly identical to the EPA’s.

In an eight-page statement to the water board dated July 9, 2011, Hamilton wrote that the state agency’s findings did not represent “established science.” He described California’s regulations as “overly protective.”

The PG&E director in charge of the Hinkley cleanup, Sheryl Bilbrey, said Hamilton’s work should not have affected his objectivity. “PG&E expects all of our experts to give us unbiased advice,” she said. “So we would never ask anyone to change their scientific opinion to fit something that we would want.”

Asked whether it was appropriate for an EPA peer reviewer to be working simultaneously for PG&E, the ACC’s Fischer said, “That sounds like a conflict of interest to me. Generally, the way you get around it is you just — you don’t appoint that particular scientist to that particular panel.”

It was not the first time Hamilton had been paid a substantial sum by PG&E. In 2001, Hamilton said he was surprised to get a $100,000 check in the mail before doing any work as an expert witness. According to his deposition, Hamilton talked to PG&E’s lawyers about the check and learned that it was on top of his hourly fee. PG&E ultimately paid Hamilton nearly $300,000 for his work on the lawsuit.

“That’s completely outrageous,” said Francesca Grifo, director of scientific integrity at the nonprofit Union of Concerned Scientists. “I don’t know how anybody could stand up logically and say I got $100,000 but it didn’t affect how I handled this.”

Hamilton declined interview requests.

EPA farms screening to consultants

Working for a chemical company appears to violate the EPA’s guidelines on conflicts of interest. The EPA’s Peer Review Handbook says peer reviewers should appear to be impartial, defined as not having anything that “may cause a reasonable person with knowledge of the relevant facts to question the expert’s ability to carry out official duties without bias or influence.”

The handbook offers, as an example of a conflict, a scientist paid to be an expert witness for a chemical company in a class-action lawsuit.

Yet, the EPA doesn’t ask scientists if they’ve worked as expert witnesses or have taken money from industry. Instead, it turns that job over to private companies, which handle conflict-of-interest reviews in secret. All of the information the vendors collect, including financial disclosure forms, is “considered private and non-disclosable to EPA or outside entities except as required by law,” the EPA policy says.

The contractor examines candidates’ published work, and prospective panelists fill out a questionnaire detailing potential conflicts. Once the panel is picked, the contractor certifies to the EPA that “no unresolved actual or potential conflict of interest issues” remain.

What’s more, the ethics guidelines are not binding on contractors, and the EPA handbook says the agency should not override decisions on conflicts of interest. “EPA should not attempt to make any changes in the contractor’s conclusions as this would compromise the independence of the peer review conducted by the contractor,” the handbook says.

The EPA said it set the system up this way to ensure impartiality. But, the Center found, this structure helps shield the very conflicts the agency aims to avoid.

A year ago, the Center sought information on the screening of IRIS panelists through a FOIA request. The EPA withheld most documents, including emails between the vendors and agency.

Officials at Eastern Research Group Inc., the Massachusetts firm that vetted the peer reviewers on the chromium (VI) panel, did not return emails and phone calls. An official at another company handling peer reviews, Versar Inc., said he was prohibited by EPA from talking.

The EPA’s administrator, Jackson, and its chemical-assessment officials declined requests for on-the-record interviews. But an EPA official acknowledged privately that the agency was not fully aware of the chromium (VI) peer reviewers’ ties to PG&E. The official defended the use of private vendors, contending that if the EPA chose peer reviewers, it could pick scientists it knew would be friendly.

However, the EPA routinely selects scientists for other advisory panels. Critics said it’s not clear how checking financial disclosure forms would taint the process. The Peer Review Handbook does note that checking disclosure forms would activate the Federal Advisory Committee Act, a law meant to make panels more open.

“It’s bizarre,” Grifo said of the EPA’s secretive screening process. “At its core it’s supposed to increase the public trust in the system. If it looks like the whole system is rigged to begin with, then why should a citizen trust it?”

The EPA said it was working to reduce the potential for conflicts. “We are exploring the best ways to provide for public review of contract-managed peer review panels and ensure that contractors are held accountable for their assessment of any conflicts of interest,” the agency said in a statement.

The ‘pure science’ bottleneck

Some 700 new chemicals hit the market each year, adding to the tens of thousands already in use. Yet the EPA has assessed only 557 chemicals since the IRIS program began in 1985. A typical review takes six to eight years, sometimes much longer. It took 27 years for the agency to issue a partial assessment of dioxin, a byproduct of plastics manufacturing and burning.

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) concluded in 2008 that the IRIS program was so bogged down that it was in danger of becoming obsolete.

In 2009, EPA Administrator Jackson made bold promises within her first weeks in office to fix the program. She pledged to finish many more assessments and to try to complete each one within two years. Since May 2009, the EPA said it completed 24 IRIS assessments, “double the number” completed in the same time period prior to May 2009.

Yet its overall progress remains slow, and in the past two years, the program produced as few assessments as ever. Last year, the EPA planned to complete 40 assessments. It finished three.

The reasons for the logjam are complex. But it has become common for industry and its allies inside the federal government to push for delay. “Even a single delay can have far-reaching, time-consuming consequences, in some cases requiring that the assessment process essentially start over,” the GAO reported.

Some 700 new chemicals hit the market each year. Yet the EPA has assessed only 557 since the IRIS program began in 1985.

In the case of chromium (VI), evidence shows that industry worked closely with the EPA as the agency conducted its assessment. On Oct. 8, 2009, a scientist at a law firm representing chemical companies complained in an email that the EPA was pushing ahead on its assessments without waiting for studies to address “gaps” in the science.

“EPA moved Chrom VI up by about two years after ‘we’ entered into a process of planning research with them to address gaps,” wrote Richard Canady, a former scientist at the White House’s Office of Management and Budget (OMB), who was then working at the private law firm of McKenna, Long & Aldridge. “I’d like to make a case for EPA planning ahead in cooperation with industry.”

Canady’s email was sent to Nancy Beck, a toxicologist at OMB who reviewed the EPA’s findings. Beck referred Canady to an American Chemistry Council official for help in gathering data. A 2009 investigation by a subcommittee of the House Science and Technology Committee criticized Beck for improperly interfering with IRIS assessments during the George W. Bush administration. Beck now works for the ACC. She did not return a call last week seeking comment; an ACC spokesman said Tuesday he would seek her perspective.

In a recent interview, Canady said he could not recall the precise details from his email and declined to reveal clients for which he was working. But Canady said he thought the process of planning research with the EPA “wasn’t that formal.” Instead, industry scientists would call EPA scientists to find out what new data would help them in their chromium (VI) assessment, he said.

His 2009 email also said, “Peter made a point to me the other day about how boron and methylene chloride were good examples of working together on developing data ahead of assessments in ways that influenced the outcome.”

Canady said this was a reference to Peter Preuss, then the director of the EPA’s National Center for Environmental Assessment, which oversees IRIS.

The EPA originally planned to issue its chromium (VI) assessment last summer, giving the ACC time to finish its new studies. However, under Jackson’s imperative to quicken assessments, the EPA moved up its timeline by six to nine months.

When the EPA’s Cogliano rebuffed the ACC’s request for a delay, the trade association turned its attention to the peer review panel.

Critics say the industry uses comments on chemicals that are under review to overwhelm the agency.

Of the 49 public comments submitted to the EPA on chromium, the American Chemistry Council and its research partners authored 29 of them, totaling 1,661 pages.

“There’s a very elaborate process that involves multiple opportunities for industry to pick away and blast away and confuse and overload the staff of IRIS, and the IRIS staff reacts by trying to address each and every one of industry’s concerns,” said law professor Steinzor.

“The chemical industry has made IRIS its leading target, one of its leading targets, for spoil in the current age of greed,” Steinzor said

Of the 49 public comments submitted to the EPA on chromium before the peer-review panel met, the American Chemistry Council and its research partners authored 29 of them, totaling 1,661 pages. In addition, 10 other comments totaling 137 pages came from industry urging the EPA to wait for the ACC studies.

As the EPA stood poised to announce potential new safeguards for chromium (VI), the ACC had hired a scientific consulting firm, ToxStrategies, to manage the $4 million studies of mice and rats given the chemical for 90 days.

The panel met May 12, 2011, at a Hilton hotel near Reagan National Airport. Patierno was highly critical of the EPA’s findings and suggested the agency “absolutely consider the extensive new data being provided.” Hamilton and Wise agreed.

In a recent interview, Wise said he wasn’t entirely familiar with ToxStrategies’ findings, which hadn’t yet been published. But he assumed the delay would be short, only a few months. The EPA initially said the delay would take four years. Later, the agency said the assessment would be done this year.

Anatoly Zhitkovich, a professor at Brown University who chaired the EPA peer review panel, was upset with the results and wrote his own review published in the journal Chemical Research in Toxicology, according to Costa, a close colleague. Zhitkovich declined an interview request, but his article supported the findings of the EPA.

In lobbying for delay, the American Chemistry Council quietly enlisted the help of a small office within the U.S. Small Business Administration.

SBA Chief Counsel for Advocacy Winslow Sargeant, an electrical engineer by training, submitted a comment to the EPA on Oct. 5, 2011, challenging its scientific conclusions and urging it to delay its chromium assessment pending completion of the ACC studies. Winslow cited the peer review comments from Hamilton and Wise to support his argument.

But emails obtained through FOIA by the advocacy group Center for Effective Government revealed that the ACC helped shape the SBA letter. An ACC lobbyist, Randy Schumacher, sent an email to Sargeant’s office on June 28, 2011, asking for its help.

“Administrator Jackson calling upon her to stop the Cr6 risk assessment process to do exactly as EPA’s peer reviewers deemed advisable,” Schumacher wrote. “Since it appears EPA needs to hear from more constituents for it to listen to its own peer review team, would SBA be willing to send a letter to Ms. Jackson to weigh in on this matter?”

Later emails from Schumacher suggested editing changes to Sargeant’s letter. The SBA official has not responded to interview requests.

Frustration prompts reform push

Now the EPA is in the process of revamping its IRIS program once more. Cogliano has proposed releasing the names of prospective peer reviewers in advance, giving the public an opportunity to explore conflicts. “This will improve transparency in the peer review process,” the EPA said in a statement. The changes could be formally announced this week, as Jackson departs.

In 2001, siblings lean against the entrance to one of the houses which were bought and razed by Pacific Gas & Electric after the company was found to have polluted the ground water. David McNew/Getty Images

The ACC’s Fischer says he’s in favor of a conflict-of-interest policy that allows industry to participate on peer review panels. “Bias in and of itself should not necessarily disqualify a particular scientist from serving on the panel,” he said. “Industry perspective is a bias but so [is] every other perspective.”

The EPA is also weighing whether to set “stopping points” for new research, a deadline after which no additional studies would be considered. Kenneth Olden, a senior EPA official who oversees IRIS, has proposed announcing assessments two years in advance, giving industry time to complete new studies.

Such proposals drew criticism at an EPA meeting in November, with an environmental group’s scientist stating bluntly that industry seeks delays because it wants IRIS to fail. His comments drew faint gasps from a conference room filled almost entirely with industry consultants.

“The practice of waiting for one more study to be completed, as has happened repeatedly under IRIS — especially when that study is to be conducted by an entity with a vested financial interest in tilting the outcome — simply must stop,” said the scientist, Richard Denison, with the nonprofit Environmental Defense Fund. “Simply put, a decision delayed is health protection denied.”

The Center for Public Integrity is a non-profit independent investigative news outlet.

For more of its stories go to publicintegrity.org.

This story has been clarified to reflect that, as an employee of a consulting firm, John P. Wise Sr. worked for an industry client in the PG&E lawsuit but that he was never told the identity of the client.