Special interests are enjoying unprecedented access to government under the Bush Administration, as documented in a report released today by Citizens for Sensible Safeguards, a government watchdog group. President Bush opened the door when he stacked his transition teams with industry representatives in 2001.
A nonprofit organization formed in 1995 in response to Newt Gingrich’s Contract with America, Citizens for Sensible Safeguards has compiled a 148-page examination of President Bush’s close relationship with special interest groups dating back to their $200 million investment in his election. The report shows that executives from a wide spectrum of industries and trade associations now hold powerful, policy-setting positions throughout the Bush administration – positions they have quickly turned to the benefit of the industries and corporations they previously represented.
The result? Rollbacks on protections for public health and the environment; relaxed corporate oversight; relaxed enforcement of regulations; greatly increased government secrecy, including a clamp-down on granting public and Congressional requests for information; a growing lack of federal accountability, including awarding no-bid, secret government contracts; and the suppression and distortion of scientific information whenever it appears at odds with the administration’s political goals.
"Special interests have taken over our government from top to bottom, turning back years of progress on health, safety and the environment," concludes Special Interest Takeover: The Bush Administration and the Dismantling of Public Safeguards. "That this puts the public and our natural resources at significant risk seems to be of little concern to the Bush administration. Rather, the administration appears to view government as an instrument to enrich its political allies."
For example, the report cites Bush's stacking of the Department of Energy's transition team with large-scale donors to his campaign, the so-called "Pioneers" who gave more than $100,000 in individual contributions to help get him elected. Pioneers Ken Lay, former CEO of Enron, Thomas Kuhn, president of the Edison Electric Institute, and Anthony Alexander, president of FirstEnergy, each held seats on the agenda-setting team.
The transition teams, in turn, helped to secure key agency positions for Jeffrey Holmstead, a lawyer for electric utilities (who became EPA's air administrator); Steven Griles, a lobbyist for the fossil fuel industry (deputy secretary of the Interior); Mark Rey, a timber industry lobbyist (head of the Forest Service); and David Lauriski, a mine industry executive (head of the Mine Safety and Health Administration).
"Once in place, these special-interest allies literally opened the doors of government for business," the report concludes. Rey scrapped forest protections to make way for clear-cutting; Lauriski weakened black lung and respiratory protections for miners; Griles gave former clients a boon by pushing to open more public land to drilling. And Holmstead outdid them all when the EPA directly adopted language written by lawyers at his former employer, Latham & Watkins, for use in rolling back clean air standards.
The long-term consequences of such unprecedented blurring of the lines between industry and government may be even greater due to the removal of corporate oversight. With nobody holding corporate or industrial America accountable, the report concludes, "the Bush administration is inviting irresponsible behavior that could lead to catastrophic consequences."
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TAKE ACTION
To take action and learn more visit www.sensiblesafeguards.org.
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SOURCES:
[1] "Special Interest Takeover: The Bush Administration and the Dismantling of Public Safeguards," Center for American Progress and OMB Watch, May 25, 2004.
