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Lobbying the EPA Takes Money - and Connections - 71 companies spent more than $1 billion and hired former agency officials By Anupama Narayanswamy Data analysis by Helena Bengtsson
WASHINGTON, April 26, 2007 - Companies linked to more than 600 of the nation's most dangerous toxic waste sites have spent more than $1 billion lobbying Congress, the Environmental Protection Agency and other agencies in the federal government from 1998 through 2005, a Center for Public Integrity investigation has found.
The Center study showed that 71 companies on the EPA's list of about 100 companies connected to the largest number of Superfund sites lobbied Congress and the White House on a variety of issues, including the environment and Superfund. More than 55 lobbied the EPA directly.
The 71 companies hired a total of nearly 550 lobbying firms and also often employed former EPA officials as lobbyists, according to disclosure forms filed with the Senate Office of Public Records.
Political Power
Since 1998, corporations in general have hired at least 100 former government employees who worked on environmental issues - including 33 who worked for the EPA.
"The objective of the companies through lobbying is to influence and to channel regulation to win government contracts or get out of liabilities," said Craig Holman, legislative representative for Public Citizen's Congress Watch, a nonprofit public interest group. "It's not surprising that they are the ones trying to influence EPA."
Although the forms don't disclose how much each company spent to lobby specifically on Superfund, the fact that these companies spent more than $1 billion from 1998 through 2005 on lobbying the federal government on many issues reveals a significant investment in developing ties to policymakers.
The companies on the EPA list, their PACs and their employees have also spent more than $123 million in campaign contributions from 1998 to 2006, according to data provided by the Center for Responsive Politics.
About 10 of the companies on the EPA's list of about 100 firms linked to the most Superfund sites disclosed that they reported lobbying on issues relating to the environment and Superfund in more disclosure filings than on any other issue from 1998 to 2004. The Center obtained the EPA list from a government source. (See related story.)
Meanwhile, only about 100 of the more than 600 Superfund sites linked to the 71 companies have been cleaned up enough to be removed from the Superfund site list, according to the Center's investigation.
Leading the lobbying charge among the companies on the EPA's list was General Electric Co., which spent more than $116 million on lobbying from 1998 through 2005. EPA ranked GE first on its list because the agency connected it to the most Superfund sites.
GE employed more than 70 lobbying firms to influence the government on more than 50 different issues. The technology conglomerate filed the most lobbying disclosure forms on environment and Superfund than any other issue for seven years of the eight-year study period followed closely by BP p.l.c., according to LobbyWatch, an earlier Center study.
According to the EPA, GE is responsible for America's largest Superfund site, the Hudson River, where the company over decades dumped more than a million pounds of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), which are considered probable human carcinogens. The issue of liability for the river's pollution problems is frequently the subject of lobbying by GE, according to disclosure forms filed with the Senate Office of Public Records.
In October 2005, more than 20 years after the EPA designated the Hudson River among the worst Superfund sites, GE agreed in a settlement to begin dredging the river. The EPA estimated that dredging the toxic sediment would cost $700 million by the time the project was complete.
But the agreement obligates GE for costs only in the first year, which could allow the company to avoid $600 million in cleanup costs, according to Leo Rosales, who was an EPA spokesman at the time. After the first year, he said, an outside panel will evaluate where things stand and the EPA will specify how the remainder of the cleanup should proceed.
Alan Hanley, a spokesman for GE, confirmed that "once the requirements for the second phase of dredging are known, GE will advise EPA of its decision on Phase 2." GE will either continue the cleanup or hand off the work to a contractor, at which point the EPA could sue GE to try to recover the costs.
"Their [GE's] commitment for the first year was about $100 million, which will go towards the first year of the construction of the watering facility," a filtering plant that is part of the dredging process, Rosales said.
According to Rosales, the settlement negotiation is not public because it would reveal "a lot of information about what the company is demanding." Rosales, who no longer works at the EPA, said that all negotiations with polluters linked to large Superfund sites take place behind closed doors. Hanley pointed out that the agreement was made public and approved by a federal judge.
In general, the EPA has recovered only 18 percent of the money it has spent on all Superfund and similar pollution cleanups since 1998, according to agency data.
Environmentalists who follow Superfund say that the EPA is at a disadvantage since the money-depleted agency would be happy to have GE pay for at least part of the cleanup. Besides lobbying the federal government and specifically the EPA on the Hudson River issue, GE has undertaken massive TV and print ad campaigns against the dredging over the last decade.
"I have seen the results of their [GE's] lobbying - the advertising and pushing public opinion - and they have come up with bills to delay the cleanup," said Robert Goldstein, an attorney with Riverkeeper, an organization that seeks to protect the Hudson River.
Companies outspend environmental lobby
Large companies such as these are often pitted against environmental organizations on issues before the EPA, Congress and other federal agencies. "We want better and more regulation, and they want deregulation," said Michele Merkel, a senior counsel at the Environmental Integrity Project, a nonprofit advocacy group.
Corporations typically outspend the environmental lobby, according to Merkel. "There are a handful of environmental nonprofits in D.C., and the industry hires a whole lobbying firm that is dedicated to the issue," said Merkel, a former EPA staff attorney.
For instance, ExxonMobil Corp., a company linked to 111 Superfund sites, spent more than $66 million on lobbying in the eight-year study period. The sum is about eight times what three environmental groups -
Environmental Defense, the Sierra Club and the National Environmental Trust - collectively spent to lobby during the same time, according to LobbyWatch.
Besides doing their own lobbying, some companies have formed industry groups specifically to challenge the Superfund laws and to push their environmental agenda through lobbying. Two such groups, the Superfund Action Alliance and the Superfund Settlements Project, have been around for almost two decades.
Sue Briggum, director of government affairs for Waste Management Inc., which is a member of the Superfund Settlements Project, has served on several official EPA advisory committees, including a panel on Superfund issues formed in 2002. Waste Management is connected to 87 Superfund sites. Through 2002, Briggum was also registered to lobby the EPA on Superfund-related issues for Waste Management.
The Superfund Settlements Project, affiliated with the lobby firm Morgan, Lewis & Bockius, also has among its members Ciba Specialty Chemicals Corp., E.I. Du Pont de Nemours & Co., General Electric, General Motors Corp., Honeywell International Inc., IBM Corp., Solutia Inc. and United Technologies Corp.
Five of these companies are on the EPA's list. Together, these companies spent hundreds of millions lobbying the federal government on a variety of issues during the eight-year study period.
Researchers, attorneys and experts from these industry groups often testify before congressional committees and subcommittees.
Ex-EPA employees hired by industry
At least 10 of the companies on the EPA list have hired firms that employ former EPA employees to lobby the agency.
Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld, one of the firms hired by these companies, has at least four lobbyists who were former EPA employees or who have worked on environment issues.
Sheila D. Jones, for instance, is a partner at the firm and is head of the environmental litigation group. Earlier she was assistant chief of the Environmental Enforcement Section in the Department of Justice, where she worked on many cases concerning Superfund, the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act.
Since 2004 she has lobbied on clean air regulations for Akin Gump clients. One of the lobbying disclosure forms reads "securing issuances of an air permit from EPA."
There is no mandatory "cooling off" period that prevents a former EPA employee from immediately going to work as a lobbyist. The only restriction is that former employees cannot lobby on the same issues they were working on when they were in the agency.
"You can go from the agency to work as a lobbyist, but you have to avoid certain subjects for a year or other matters for your entire lifetime," Bruce Buckheit, former director of the EPA's air enforcement division, said in an interview with the Center.
GE has employed at least 11 in-house lobbyists or outside lobbyists who are former EPA employees. The lobbyists held high-level positions at the EPA, such as deputy general counsel and regional counsel.
Jane Gardner, lead counsel for GE's corporate environmental programs, was an attorney for EPA's Region 8, which includes six Midwest states, and worked on Superfund issues from 1985 to 1990. She is a Bush administration appointee to the Joint Public Advisory Committee, a trade group that deals with international environmental issues.
As an EPA attorney, she was a member of an EPA-led Superfund advisory panel, the NACEPT (National Advisory Council Environmental Policy and Technology) subcommittee. The panel was initiated by the EPA to make recommendations on the role Superfund should play to clean up the most toxic waste sites in the country, according to EPA documents.
Another former EPA employee-turned-lobbyist is Gerald Yamada, a lawyer with O'Connor and Hannan, a Washington-based lobbying firm also hired by GE. Yamada was EPA's principal deputy general counsel for 13 years.
Capitol Hill Connections
Former lawmakers and staffers who worked on environmental issues have also become lobbyists for top Superfund polluters.
George Mitchell was a lobbyist with Verner, Liipfert, Bernhard, McPherson & Hand and later with DLA Piper. In 2000, when he was still with Verner Liipfert, he lobbied the EPA on Superfund-related issues on behalf of GE. It was a topic he was familiar with. As a Democratic senator from Maine and a member of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, he sponsored a bill that addressed health challenges faced by people living near Superfund sites.
In an e-mail to the Center, Mitchell's office acknowledged that the former senator "represented GE in an effort to reach a comprehensive settlement with the EPA to resolve a dispute arising from prior discharges into the Hudson River."
BP p.l.c., connected by the EPA to 111 sites, spent $30 million from 1998 to 2005 and hired the Accord Group in 2001 and 2004. In doing so, it got Philip Cummings, a former congressional staffer with the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, which deals with Superfund issues, to lobby on environmental issues.
On behalf of BP, Cummings lobbied on Superfund, the Clean Air Act and energy issues. Later in 2001, he left the Accord Group but continued to work as a lobbyist for GE through 2005, according to disclosure forms he filed with the Senate. GE's Hanley said Cummings did not work on the Hudson River settlement.
© 2007, The Center for Public Integrity. All rights reserved.
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