How a Clean Water Advocate and Senator Became a Chemical Industry Lobbyist

By David Corn, Mother Jones. Posted February 23, 2009.

The best lobbyists in Washington affect the workings of government with hidden hands. Even staffers in both Sen. Boxer's office and Rep. Solis' office are unaware of what took place behind the scenes, though they heard that lobbyists for the perchlorate manufacturers were trying to gin up opposition to their bills. "The rocket-fuel companies have their lobbyists," says the congressional aide who follows the subject. "They are working with the DOD against the EPA moving forward, and they go around to the more conservative members of Congress." (Sen. Reid's office declined to say whether Bryan ever contacted his old friend to discuss the perchlorate matter.)

In 2008, someone in the Senate did the perchlorate makers and the Pentagon a big favor. After the Senate environmental committee, which Boxer chairs, approved her bill in July -- over Republican objections -- an unidentified member of the Senate placed a hold on it, blocking it from coming to a vote. (Anonymous holds are permissible under Senate rules.) With the Senate bill stalled, the House energy and commerce committee didn't bother to move ahead with Solis' legislation.

Meanwhile, in October, the EPA issued a preliminary decision not to regulate perchlorate -- over the objections of the agency's own scientists. In an unusual move, an EPA advisory board on children's health issues posted a letter of protest on the EPA's website. "This decision," the letter said, "does not recognize the science which supports the exquisite sensitivity of the developing brain to even small drops in thyroid hormone levels" that could be caused by perchlorate. At risk, these scientists noted, were "millions of pregnant women and their fetuses, and lactating women and infants across the country." The EPA's Science Advisory Board also pushed back [PDF]. Noting perchlorate's "wide occurrence and well-documented toxicity to humans," this group of scientists contended that the agency had acted hastily and had not developed a sound basis for giving the chemical a pass. Environmentalists, too, cried foul, with the Environmental Working Group, a nonprofit outfit, charging that the EPA had relied on research conducted by a firm funded by the chemical industry and had ignored a recent Centers for Disease Control study showing that millions of women were at risk of potentially dangerous perchlorate exposure.

The perchlorate makers and their lobbyists had prevailed. But with the election of Barack Obama, the perchlorate debate is not over. Environmentalists and scientists championing regulation are likely to get another shot. In 2008, months before Obama tapped her to be his EPA administrator, Lisa Jackson, as head of New Jersey's Department of Environmental Protection, backed a five parts per billion standard. And in November, she met with EPA senior staff and questioned them about the agency's actions on perchlorate. "We were delighted," says Anila Jacob, a senior scientist at the Environmental Working Group. "We expect perchlorate to be a priority." But that isn't necessarily bad news for Bryan and other perchlorate lobbyists. It will mean more wrangling -- and more lucrative work for them.

See more stories tagged with: water, clean water, drinking water, perchlorate, rocket fuel, safe drinking water

David Corn is the Washington bureau chief of Mother Jones and the co-author of Hubris: The Inside Story of Spin, Scandal, and the Selling of the Iraq War and is the author of The Lies of George W. Bush. He writes a blog at davidcorn.com.

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