Texans for
Public Justice609 West 18th St., Suite E, Austin, Texas 78701 ·PH:(512) 472-9770 ·FAX:(512) 472-9830
Texans for
Public Justice
609 West 18th St., Suite E, Austin, Texas 78701
·PH:(512) 472-9770 ·FAX:(512) 472-9830
| For Release: 10 AM, Tuesday, June 9 |
Contact : Craig McDonald (512) 472-9770 |
|
Smog Lobby Blankets Texas With Campaign Cash "Dirty 30" PACs Spend $2.5 Million on
Texas Politicians; |
Austin—The "Dirty 30," the state's biggest grandfathered producers of smog-forming nitrogen oxides (NOx), contributed $2.5 million to Texas politicians between December 1995 and March 1998. Gov. George Bush was the top recipient of money from grandfathered polluters, reaping $193,500 from the PACs of grandfathered companies. Bush is the leading supporter of the CARE program, which invites grandfathered polluters to "voluntarily" control their air pollution. Environmentalists have criticized this plan as an ineffective way to control harmful air pollution.
"Campaign contributions are a major cause of air pollution in Texas," said Craig McDonald, director of Texans for Public Justice. "The dirty air that Texans breathe is the fallout of dirty money taken by politicians. Texans won't breathe clean air until we clean-up the state's campaign-finance system."
Expenditures by grandfathered polluters are tallied in a new report, Dirty Air, Dirty Money, by Texans for Public Justice. Dirty Air, Dirty Money tracks the political action committee (PAC) expenditures of companies that operate plants exempted from the 1971 Texas Clean Air Act. These exempt companies are called "grandfathered polluters." At least 43 percent of the state's 2,500 industrial plants are "grandfathered." These plants emit nearly one million tons of "criteria" air pollutants each year, which the Environmental Protection Agency uses to measure air quality. The plants also contribute as much smog-forming nitrogen oxides (NOx) as 18 million cars.
Major findings of Dirty Air, Dirty Money include:
"It looks like Erle Nye is taking Texas Utilities to the triple-crown of dirty companies. His company is the state's biggest polluter, biggest emitter of grandfathered pollution and the biggest grandfathered donor of campaign contributions," said Peter Altman, state director of the Sustainable Energy and Economic Development (SEED) Coalition. "Instead of spending money on politicians, Mr. Nye should clean up his grandfathered coal plants and invest in renewable energy."
Dirty Air, Dirty Money concludes that heavy political spending by the grandfathered industries has paid major dividends to polluters and politicians at the expense of the public's health. While the polluters have been out of compliance with the Clean Air Act for 27 years, Governor Bush and the Texas Legislature want to continue to give them a free ride through a "voluntary" compliance program. This program has garnered emissions-reduction pledges accounting for a paltry 2.5% of grandfathered emissions.
"This report makes clear who the governor's so-called CARE program is designed to protect: the big polluters who fill his campaign bank account," said Fred Richardson, communications director of Texans for Public Justice and a co-author of the report. "For them it's a small price to pay to pollute at will."
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Copies of Dirty Air, Dirty Money are available from Texans for Public Justice or at TPJ's website, http://www.onr.com/tpj/
Texans for Public Justice is a non-partisan, non-profit policy & research organization which tracks the influence of money in politics.