Toxic Exposure: How Texas Chemical Council Members Pollute State Politics & the EnvironmentHome

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The Chemical Council Lobby  

The Texas elections law loophole that allows out-of-state PACs to dodge PAC report filing requirements does not apply to lobbying expenditures. While just 20 Chemical Council-affiliated PACs filed PAC reports in Texas, the parent companies of 38 Chemical Council members each registered anywhere from one to 24 lobby contracts with the Texas Ethics Commission.
 
While the 20 Chemical Council-linked PACs reported spending more than $1 million on current incumbents of statewide and legislative elected offices between 1995 and 1998, in 1999 alone 38 parent companies linked to the Chemical Council spent between $4.1 million and $8.7 million on 222 Texas lobby contracts.34

The top five Chemical Council-linked lobbying forces (DuPont, Exxon, Enron, Mobil and BP Amoco) reported a total of 92 1999 lobby contracts. Just DuPont’s 1999 lobby bill runs as high as $1.2 million. The Chemical Council itself ranked 7th, reporting four 1999 lobby contracts worth up to $260,000.

The top hired guns contracted by Chemical Council members were Baker & Botts lobbyists Pam Giblin and Larry Feldcamp, who will bill Chemical Council member companies a total of anywhere from $220,000 to $550,000 in 1999.

Revolving-door lobbyists John L. Hall, an ex-TNRCC Commissioner,35 followed Baker & Botts’ dynamic duo. In 1999, Hall expects to bill between $150,000 and $300,000 to three Chemical Council members (Mobil, FINA and Aristech Chemical Corp).
 

Galveston Bay:  Exxon’s Corporate Chemical Toilet

Exxon’s Baytown chemical plant treated the Galveston Bay—an important estuary and recreational area—as its own corporate chemical toilet until a federal lawsuit and federal authorities reined in the company. 
 
A 1996 lawsuit filed by Baytown residents and the environmental group Texans United charged Exxon with dumping more than 2 billion gallons of untreated chemical wastewater into the Houston Ship Channel just above Galveston Bay in the first half of the 1990s.  

When rain flooded the plant’s antiquated sewage system, Exxon repeatedly allowed untreated chemicals to wash into the Houston Ship Channel. The U.S. Coast Guard classified some of Exxon’s discharges as oil spills that violated federal law. 

Exxon chalked such releases up to an “act of God.” But God was not a co-defendant in the subsequent lawsuit. In late 1997, Federal District Judge Kenneth Hoyt ruled that Exxon improperly measured the amount of the potent carcinogen benzene in its discharges.45 Exxon calculated a single average benzene concentration for multiple discharges, a method that cloaks individual discharges with illicitly high benzene concentrations. 

Two months after the lawsuit was filed, Governor George W. Bush’s three TNRCC Commissioners unanimously renewed Exxon Baytown’s state discharge permit for Baytown over the objections of the Harris County Pollution Control Department (HCPCD). HCPCD officials urged the TNRCC to stop Exxon from “using the storm sewer as a chemical sewer.’’ The commissioners, however, even amended the permit to explicitly allow the company to pollute during heavy rains. 

Rebuffing the TNRCC, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued a new federal discharge permit in early 1998 that forced Exxon to modernize and expand its Baytown wastewater treatment facilities.  

Exxon’s refinery in the same Baytown complex also reported 31 major accidental releases of hydrogen sulfide from 1984 through 1996. Recognizable by its overwhelming rotten-egg stench, hydrogen sulfide gas causes nausea, shortness of breath, burning eyes and throat irritation. Of the 40,126 residents within three miles of this plant, 44 percent are minorities.
 
 

 

1999 Lobby Contracts: Chemical Council Members Make Big Lobby Splash 
Chemical Council Parent Co. 
      Max. Value
      Min. Value
      Number
DuPont*
$1,180,000
$545,000
21
Exxon*
$1,065,000
$595,000
19
Enron Corp.*
$1,015,000
$505,000
17
Mobil Corp.*
$760,000
$395,000
11
BP Amoco*
$750,000
$315,000
24
Dow Chemical Co.
$290,000
$100,000
14
Texas Chemical Council*
$260,000
$125,000
4
Occidental Petroleum Corp.*
$250,000
$120,000
5
Lyondell Chemical Co*
$245,000
$135,000
5
Union Carbide Corp.*
$235,000
$105,000
12
Chevron*
$225,000
$130,000
7
FINA, Inc*.
$225,000
$110,000
3
Marathon Oil Co
$200,000
$100,000
2
ALCOA*
$195,000
$80,000
7
Eastman Chemical Co.
$155,000
$30,000
11
Elf Atochem, Inc.
$150,000
$75,000
3
ARCO
$135,000
$60,000
3
BHP Petroleum
$125,000
$50,000
5
Aristech Chemical Corp.
$125,000
$60,000
2
Rohm and Haas
$110,000
$45,000
6
Zeneca, Inc.
$100,000
$50,000
1
Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co.
$100,000
$45,000
3
Phillips Petroleum Co.*
$95,000
$30,000
5
Shell Oil*
$85,000
$30,000
4
Lyondell-Citgo Refining Co.*
$80,000
$20,000
6
Coastal Corp.*
$60,000
$25,000
2
Bayer Corp.
$50,000
$25,000
1
Citgo
$50,000
$25,000
1
Huntsman Corp.
$50,000
$20,000
2
Enterprise Products Partners
$50,000
$20,000
2
Equistar Chemicals
$50,000
$20,000
2
Albemarle Corp.
$50,000
$20,000
2
GB Biosciences Corporation
$50,000
$20,000
2
Global Octanes Corp.
$50,000
$20,000
2
Reynolds Metals Co.
$35,000
$10,000
2
FMC Corp.
$10,000
$0
1
Hoechst Corp.*
$10,000
$0
1
Rhodia Inc.
$10,000
$0
2
Total
$8,680,000
$4,060,000
222
1999 lobby contracts reported as of 2/23/99.
 * Had an affiliated PAC that filed with the Texas Ethics Commission.
 
 
 
 
Chemical Bonds: Leading Lobbyists of Chemical Council Members 
TCC Member Lobbyist
      Max. Value
      Min. Value
      Number
Pamela M. Giblin
$550,000
$220,000
22
Larry Feldcamp
$550,000
$220,000
22
John L. Hall
$300,000
$150,000
3
Candis B. Erskine
$175,000
$85,000
3
John M. Erskine Jr.
$175,000
$85,000
3
Myra Leo
$175,000
$85,000
3
Robert C. Ekstrand
$175,000
$85,000
3
Mack Wallace
$175,000
$85,000
3
Benjamin R. Schuster
$150,000
$100,000
1
J. Neal Miller, Jr.
$150,000
$100,000
4
Jack M. Wilhelm
$150,000
$100,000
1
Shannon H. Ratliff
$150,000
$100,000
1
Victor Alcorta III 
$150,000
$100,000
1
Joseph H. Allen
$150,000
$100,000
1
Gaylord Armstrong
$150,000
$100,000
1
Janis L. Carter 
$150,000
$100,000
1
Deana D. Hendrix
$150,000
$75,000
2
Bill Messer
$150,000
$75,000
2
James V. Woodrick
$150,000
$75,000
2
Kathleen E. Magruder
$100,000
$50,000
1
William W. Phelps
$100,000
$50,000
1
Gavin J. Russo 
$100,000
$50,000
1
Kathleen G. Jackson
$100,000
$50,000
1
Marta Greytok
$100,000
$50,000
1
K. Daniel Hinkle
$100,000
$50,000
2
Clint Hackney
$100,000
$50,000
1
Dan R. Robertson
$100,000
$50,000
1
Alexander J. Gonzales
$100,000
$50,000
1
Johnny Casmore, Jr.
$100,000
$50,000
1
Julie W. Moore
$100,000
$50,000
1
Hugo Berlanga
$100,000
$50,000
1
Margia M. Blankenship
$100,000
$50,000
1
Floyd B. Bowen, Jr.
$100,000
$50,000
1
Edna R. Butts
$100,000
$50,000
1
William S. Stewart
$100,000
$50,000
1
Eileen M. Campbell
$100,000
$50,000
1
William O. Stanhouse
$100,000
$50,000
1
George "Hank" Clements III   
$100,000
$50,000
1
Glenn DaGian
$100,000
$50,000
1
Ann Taylor
$100,000
$50,000
1
George W. Strong
$100,000
$50,000
1
Emil Pena
$100,000
$50,000
1
 
 

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