Category Archives: Front group

ACC missing in action this week, no doubt feeling burned

By | Bio | Published: May 10, 2012

Richard Denison, Ph.D., is a Senior Scientist.

Every day in my email I get the American Chemistry Council’s (ACC’s) “SmartBrief,” a digest of the day’s news related to the chemical industry.  Here’s its self-description:

Designed specifically for American chemistry professionals, ACC SmartBrief is a FREE, daily e-mail news briefing. It provides the latest news and information on the American chemistry industry.

As I noted in my last blog post, all this week the Chicago Tribune has been running one of the biggest stories relating to the chemical industry published in a long, long time.  Titled “Playing with Fire,” it documents in meticulous detail the campaign of deception that producers of chemical flame retardants have foisted on the American public for decades.

One might expect, therefore, that ACC’s SmartBrief this week would be directing its readers – who sign up to keep up with what they need to know that affects the chemical industry – to the Tribune’s series.  One would be wrong.  Nary a mention of this blockbuster story managed to find its way into SmartBrief this week.

It appears that only certain news relevant to SmartBrief’s audience of American chemistry professionals is deemed essential enough to make the cut over at ACC.  SmartBrief readers might need to look elsewhere if they want to know what’s really affecting their industry.

In fact, the only response to be found anywhere on ACC’s website to this week’s major news is this highly oblique press release posted there yesterday.  It makes no mention of the Tribune series, but does affirm the industry’s commitment to safety as a general matter.  And it includes this tidbit: 

ACC always strives to conduct its advocacy work in an open and transparent manner.

Oh really?

Also posted in Hazard, Health, Industry, PBDEs | Leave a comment

The truth will out: Chemical industry’s deceptive tactics are eventually exposed

By | Bio | Published: May 6, 2012

Richard Denison, Ph.D., is a Senior Scientist.

It’s hard not to get cynical in Washington, DC these days.  Just this past week, the American Chemistry Council (ACC) hosted an ice cream social on Capitol Hill – I kid you not.  ACC’s beckoning slogan:  “Join and learn about the benefits of chlorine chemistry and enjoy a tasty treat.”  I’m told hundreds of House staffers partook of this propaganda fest, at least the tasty treat part.  My initial reaction?  How can health and environmental advocates hope to compete?  Especially if one can successfully curry favor merely by offering a scoop of a staffer’s favorite flavor.

But just as I began to despair, Part I of a major exposé on a far more serious campaign of deception by the chemical industry ran on the front page of the Sunday Chicago Tribune.  (Actually, the article occupies virtually the entire front page of today’s edition.)   Read More »

Also posted in Consumer Products, Exposure, Health, Industry, PBDEs, TSCA | Comments closed

Should we continue to take the chemical industry at its word when it insists it's still for TSCA reform?

By | Bio | Published: July 28, 2010

Richard Denison, Ph.D., is a Senior Scientist.

I'm one of those throwbacks that loves to read a hard copy of a newspaper in the morning.  One thing the hard copies provide that reading online doesn't is the ability to take in those full-page paid ads that Corporate America runs on a virtually daily basis.

Lately, not surprisingly, ads from "the people of America's oil and natural gas industry" – aka the American Petroleum Institute (API) – are appearing frequently in the New York Times and Washington Post.  In one recent ad, API asserts:  "Above all else, the people of America’s oil and natural gas industry are committed to safe operations."  That one is a little hard to swallow, coming as it does not only right on the heels of the largest environmental disaster in American history, but after years of staunch opposition to stronger safety regulation.  It seems API is now all for safety, after years of being against it.

This got me thinking about the chemical industry.  The industry's main trade association, the American Chemistry Council (ACC), now says it's all for "modernizing" TSCA, after years of opposing any such effort.  Why am I getting suspicious that there may be no there there?  Read More »

Also posted in Data requirements, EPA, Industry, TSCA | Comments closed

Congrats to the Coalition for Chemical Safety on its silver medal

By | Bio | Published: April 1, 2010

Richard Denison, Ph.D., is a Senior Scientist.

Congratulations are in order for a prize awarded today to the Coalition for Chemical Safety (CCS), about which I have blogged frequently over the last several months.  As reported today on the front page of the Huffington Post, CCS received second place in the coveted "Best Pranks of 2010" contest.  Quite an honor for such a new kid on the block.

The contest was judged by those intrepid faux captains of industry, the Yes Men, who know a good PR ruse when they see one.  And while this contest was an April Fool's Day special, the subterfuge continues daily at CCS' website.

Also posted in Industry, TSCA | Comments closed

Up from the depths of deception: The chemical industry’s “astroturf” group loses a member, the Ocean Futures Society

By | Bio | Published: March 23, 2010

Richard Denison, Ph.D., is a Senior Scientist.

Remember all of my earlier posts about the industry front group, the Coalition for Chemical Safety?  My major complaint was, not that the chemical industry was organizing itself or even seeking support from others, but rather that it was doing so through deception:  Pretending to be something it was not.  Never revealing who is behind the coalition, who’s paying the bills.  Never revealing it was put together by one of the nation’s premier “astroturf” PR firms.  And most importantly, not coming clean about its real identity to the businesses and organizations it approaches to sign up.

Well, the Ocean Futures Society, an ocean protection group founded and led by Jean-Michel Cousteau, has just identified itself as one of the duped groups taken in by the Coalition for Chemical Safety (CCS).  Read More »

Also posted in Industry, Policy, TSCA | Comments closed

Householder words — and my reply

By | Bio | Published: February 2, 2010

Richard Denison, Ph.D., is a Senior Scientist.

Interesting exchange this afternoon between Joe Householder, Executive Director of the Coalition for Chemical Safety, and myself in comments on my last blog post.  See Mr. Householder's comment here, and my reply here.

Also posted in Health, Industry, TSCA | Comments closed

Chemical industry “astroturf” group pads membership with agribusinesses – even though TSCA doesn’t regulate ag chemicals!

By | Bio | Published: February 2, 2010

Richard Denison, Ph.D., is a Senior Scientist.

The chemical industry’s fake grassroots group formed to feign broad support for its version of reform of the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) – the Coalition for Chemical Safety, issued a press release today touting that it’s surpassed 150 members. 

I blogged earlier about how some of the small businesses it has enlisted apparently weren’t told about the Coalition backers’ actual positions on toxic chemicals.

Now a review of the 150 members that have allowed the Coalition to meet its latest “milestone” reveals it has supplemented unwitting small businesses with dozens of agriculture-related companies and associations – despite the fact that TSCA doesn’t regulate ag chemicals!

Who knew that growing astroturf requires pesticides?? Read More »

Also posted in Health, Industry, TSCA | Comments closed

Coalition for Chemical Safety throws first member under the bus

By | Bio | Published: December 18, 2009

Richard Denison, Ph.D., is a Senior Scientist.

Mr. Joe Householder, Executive Director of the chemical industry front group, the Coalition for Chemical Safety, posted a comment the day before yesterday responding to my last blog post about a local Montana chapter of the coalition.  Here’s my reply:

Mr. Householder:  It certainly seems you want to have your cake and eat it, too.  The Coalition obviously has launched a concerted effort to sign up small businesses, and it continues to purport that it’s open to anyone – all in an effort to claim, as it does on its website, that it’s comprised of “people like you.”  The Montana small businesswoman quoted in the radio story is a Coalition member and was handing out Coalition literature at a Coalition-sponsored event at the time she was interviewed.

Yet as soon as she (or, I presume, any one of your other members) speaks up and says something at odds with the chemical industry line, you quickly disavow her, saying she is not an “official spokesperson.”
Read More »

Also posted in Health, Industry, Policy, Regulation, TSCA | Tagged | Comments closed

Immaculate deception, part 2: Chemical industry front group calls for ban on bisphenol A

By | Bio | Published: December 15, 2009

Richard Denison, Ph.D., is a Senior Scientist.

I’ll bet that got your attention.  Surely I jest, you’re thinking.  Well, on December 2, Montana Public Radio’s Evening Edition included a segment in which a spokesperson for the new chemical industry front group, the Coalition for Chemical Safety about which I blogged a few weeks ago, publicly calls for an all-out ban on the controversial endocrine-disrupting chemical bisphenol A (BPA).  Here’s the clip (5 MB mp3 file). Read More »

Also posted in Health, Industry, Policy, Regulation, TSCA | Comments closed

Immaculate Deception: New "Coalition for Chemical Safety" is actually an industry front group

By | Bio | Published: October 26, 2009

Richard Denison, Ph.D., is a Senior Scientist.

It's got pictures of kids and families.  People of all colors.  Gentle hands cradling our fragile planet.  A hard hat resting on a pair of worn work gloves and a hammer.  It says the coalition is "people like you."  It bears an uncanny resemblance to the website of the Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families campaign, of which EDF is a founding member.  But dig deeper and you'll discover that the website of the "Coalition for Chemical Safety" is actually created and run by industry. Read More »

Also posted in Health, Industry, Policy, TSCA | Comments closed