The tobacco economists network - Part 12 - Overview of Testimony of Robert D. Tollison

Overview of previous posts here

Overview of testimony of Robert Tollison

Many of the network economists appeared during legislative hearings. Here we only consider the testimony in hearings attended by Robert Tollison, the others are listed in the appendix which will be publiced in the last blogpost of the series. Of course Tollison received training and he was given some practice questions

Examples of friendly witnesses questions

Chronology of hearings

• 1984 JUL 26: U.S. Treasury Department Hearing on Tax Reform 

• 1985 MAY 22: Hearing Before the NewYork State Senate Committee on Consumer Protection Regarding a Proposed BillRequiring Warnings on Labels and Advertising of Smokeless Tobacco Products S.2327

• 1985 JUL 9: The Economic Impact of Instituting Smoking Prohibitions in theDistrict of Columbia

• 1985 SEP 30: hearings on Sen. Stevens' NonsmokersRights Act of 1985

Tollison probably got invited after writing a letter to Senator Stevens. Do notice pretends to write on his own behalf. That is a lie.

The report of the hearing by the TI is quite interesting 

We do not know how much Tollison earned for this hearing, but PR-firm Ogilvy and Mather billed the Tobacco Institute a couple ofthousand dollars for the public relations done for the hearing[9]

• 1986 JUN: hearings before thesubcommittee on health and the environment of the committee on Energy andCommerce House of Representatives 99th Congress, second session on h.r. 4488 and h.r. 4546 bills torestrict smoking to designated areas in all buildings or building sectionsoccupied by the U.S. government, June 12 and 27, 1986

• 1987 APRIL 1: unknown

Do notice the total lack of honesty :

• 1987 MAY 18: Testimonial in Sacramento, earning Tollison $5,000

• 1990 MAY 24: Senate Finance Committee. Hearing on the Effects ofSmoking and Health. Before the hearing Tollison had a meeting at the Tobacco Institute and heearned $8.500 for this testimony. At least this time they did not keep it a secret Tollison would be heard on request of the industry[15]

• 1994 April 28 Committee on Finance United States Senate

• 1994 MAY 11: US Senate's Subcommittee on Clean Air and Nuclear Regulation

Probably Tollison mentioned in these last three hearings he was asked to testify on behalf of the Tobacco Institute because of the troubles he faced not admitting from the start he was testifying on behalf of the Tobacco Institute during an earlier testimony (see another blogpost). 

Tollison is not just addressing social costs, but spends a great deal denying the health risks of second hand smoking even though his statement was written AFTER the 1993 EPA-report.

Professor Joseph P. Newhouse sent a letter to complain

• 1994 NOVEMBER 5: Senate  (written comments) 

The same memo shows Dwight R. Lee appeared during three different hearings that year. I did not find the invoices, but the Tobacco Institute anticipated that he would testify, and the 1994 budget listed

There may have been other times when testimony was offered than those mentioned in the appendix ((not yet published). The industry wrote a yearly overview of activitiesin 1989 and 1990, but overviews for other years could not be located.