EOP Group is funded by:

Reaching the bottom of the pits

The 'Washington Representatives' (1996, Columbia Books, Washington DC) listing of registered lobbyists, reveals Milloy was actually employed at that time by the EOP Group. This organisation is another Reagan Republican offshoot, which works with GCC and APCO Associates, and has many major US polluters as clients. (American Petroleum Institute, the Business Roundtable, the Chlorine Chemistry Council, Edison Electric Institute, National Mining Association and the Nuclear Energy Institute, to name just a few).

One of Milloy's claims to fame in Washington lobbying circles is that of creating the Information Council for the Environment (ICE), a front organisation for the coal industry (National Coal Association, the Western Fuels Association, and Edison Electrical Institute). ICE was later run by Bracy Williams & Co., a Washington, DC-based PR firm, but back in 1996 it launched a half-million dollar advertising blitz to assuage public fears about global warming.

[Note this claim is now suspect. Milloy was definitely associated with these activities, but he may not have actually created ICE.]

Both ICE and the campaign collapsed after leaks of strategic-planning memos revealed that they had been paying-off scientists to support their cause.

ICE appears to be directly associated with the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) a conservative Washington think tank that focuses on "free-market environmentalism". The CEI has taken a front position belittling what it calls "hypothetical risks to human health" from environmental pollution.

At a recent Congress hearing their representative stated that global climate change politics were fallaciously built on the assumption that humans are changing climate, and that this change will necessarily result in catastrophic events.

He then refuted all such criteria (and there are some scientist who would agree with this position) however he then emphasized the importance of wealth in addressing extreme events, such as hurricanes and floods. His comparison, as presente to the Congressional hearing, was between the loss of life in Florida and that in Bangladesh after similar storms. The implication was that it is better to pollute -- then to combat the problems you create later, by being wealthy enough to fix the damage.

The position of the CEI is that the first world should not attempt to control energy use and therefore make developing countries poorer, but rather, allow them to develop their economic base for technological advancement and resilience to battle such hurricans and floods.

The claim has a certain glimmer of rationality, until you find out who funds the propaganda; it is a creature of the energy and mining industries, and one of the major funders is the Mississippi Valley Coal Trade & Transport Council.

The CEI are also 'collaborating' with Australia's Western Mining Corporation, The Australian Government (major coal exporters), Ford Motors, American Petroleum Institute and the US National Mining Association on the Kyoto issue.

Consumer Alert

The CEI is also linked to a "free market" outfit called Consumer Alert, which is actually an industry-funded front-group (astroturf organisation) supported by the Chlorine Chemistry Council. This is itself an arm of the Chemical Manufacturers Association (the descendent of the Manufacturing Chemists Association which led the attack on Rachael Carson in 1962).

A secretary at Chlorine Council inadvertently revealed to a reporter that the group has a $13.5 million annual budget including more than $2 million a year for "communications". Consumer Alert has been vocal in its dismissal of the recent book 'Our Stolen Future' following the pattern which was established when the chemical industry went after Rachael Carson's 'Silent Spring'.

After ICE collapsed, it was replaced by the Global Climate Coalition (GCC) as the 'grassroots' organisation supporting the oil, coal, power and electricity distribution industry on environmental issues, and Milloy was working with the GCC during Kyoto. PR Watch reported "TASSC attempted to stimulate anti-treaty email to President Clinton by promising to enter writers' names in a $1,000 sweepstakes drawing."

On the eve of the Conference in December 1997, Milloy, on behalf of TASSC, Phillip Morris, and other corporate funders, announced that more than 500 physicians and scientists had signed an open letter to world leaders opposing any climate change treaty. When asked to provide the signers' names and credentials, Milloy told the authors that he had not had time to "compile" the hard-copy list. (See: Sierra release)

Milloy's employment by the EOP Group Inc. dates back to before 1995, and it includes a record of lobbying on behalf of the Fort Howard Corporation, the International Food Additives Council, Monsanto Co. and Edison Electrics.

Milloy denies he is a lobbyist: Steve Fordyce wrote to Milloy and asked him if he was a lobbyist in Jan 1998. This was the reply: "Thanks for the note. I do not lobby for ANYONE. Before I became executive director of TASSC, I did some technical consulting for a D.C. firm which had the policy of registering all its employees and consultants as lobbyists (whether or not they lobbied) pursuant to a new law passed in 1995. I am aware of the listing and have asked it to be corrected since I no longer work for that firm. I challenge anyone to produce any evidence that I have ever lobbied any government official for anything." Steve

SEE THE PROOF

And if you believe anyone can be accidentally registered as a lobbyist, then you'll believe anything.

The EOP Group publications: "PMA Value to Taxpayers and Customers," (Washington: Edison Electric Institute April 1995) is probably one of his works, as is "Measuring Up to the Year 2000 Aim of the Framework Convention on Climate Change".

More recently, the EOP Group's boss Mike O'Bannon has been implicated in a bribery and corruption scandal involving Clinton's Secretary for Agriculture, Mike Espy (of the USDA). Among the 30-odd charges was one related to Espy's acceptance from the EOP Group of $US2,200 worth of tickets to the 1994 Super Bowl, and a job for Espy's girlfriend Patricia Dempsey.

The Washington Post (Nov 98) reported the arrangement in this way:

Another friend of Espy's, lobbyist Michael O'Bannon, likewise denied doing anything improper by giving him a ticket to the 1994 Super Bowl game. At the time, O'Bannon was working on behalf of Oglethorpe Power, which wanted to repay a $3 billion USDA loan earlier than scheduled but also wanted to avoid paying $300 million in penalties. Although Espy and others at USDA sided with Oglethorpe, the Treasury Department rejected the arrangement.

O'Bannon also helped Patricia Dempsey. In early 1994, he hired her to work as a training and events coordinator for his company, EOP Group Inc., a job that paid $35,000 a year. O'Bannon testified that Dempsey's performance was "sporadic at best," and said his partners and clients complained about her. She resigned from the firm in March 1995, after Espy had left USDA. O'Bannon testified that he hired Dempsey because the firm needed help and not in any way to curry favor with Espy. "I don't do favors in hiring," he said.

END.

The sources of this material are extensive, but much of it came directly or indirectly from PR Watch and from John Stauber and Sheldon Rampton (See also their book 'Toxic Sludge is Good For You'). Check also PR Watch.

I've also spent a lot of time at the Philip Morris site looking at the released tobacco documents, and checking out what all these bastards have been up to over the years.

There is also a bit from Dave Shenk's Data Smog' which is highly recommended.

You should also buy and read Washington on $10 million a day subtitled "How Lobbyists Plunder the Nation" (1998, Ken Silverstein, Common Courage Press).

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