Industry Writes the Laws

By David Sirota and Christy Harvey and Judd Legum, The Progress Report. Posted February 3, 2004.

It's little wonder that the White House can propose slashing funding at the EPA by 7.2% -- in this Administration, industry lobbyists are in charge of environmental regulations. The WP compared the EPA's new mercury emission rules with two memos sent to federal officials by Latham & Watkins, the lobbyists for Cinergy Inc. and other major energy companies, and found "at least a dozen paragraphs were lifted, sometimes verbatim, from the industry suggestions" -- not shocking, considering the two EPA air quality officials overseeing the mercury rule changes previously worked at Latham & Watkins. It is also not surprising, considering that since 2000, employees of Latham & Watkins have contributed over $68,000 to President Bush, while Cinergy has contributed $19,750 to the President. The new EPA mercury rules -- which particularly affect children -- abandon plans to require coal and oil-fired plants to reduce mercury pollutants, instead adopting a more flexible "cap-and-trade" program favored by industry that could precipitate higher levels of mercury in some localities. Claudia M. O'Brien, who wrote the memos for Latham & Watkins, said it was 'gratifying' that the EPA found the firms' analysis persuasive.

BUSH ENERGY PLAN WRITTEN BY LOBBYISTS:

This isn't the first time the Administration has been caught plagiarizing from industry wish lists. In March 2002, a court ordered the Department of Energy to release documents related to the secret White House energy task force. An analysis of the documents by lawyers for the Natural Resources Defense Counsel reveals that industry lobbyists essentially wrote significant sections of the Administration's energy policy. Specifically, Executive Order 13211 was "nearly identical in structure and impact to [an American Petroleum Institute] draft, and nearly verbatim in a key section." Also, an Administration proposal to weaken the Clean Air Act was lifted from an e-mail to the Department of Energy written by a lobbyist for the Southern Company. Southern Company has contributed $44,800 to President Bush over the last four years.

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