Overview of previous posts here
The National Center for Policy Analysis was another think tank where the corrupted social cost economist could spread their word
The next battleground: Indoor air
Dwight R. Lee in 1992 wrote the
NCPA report The next environmental battleground: Indoor Air, opposing any form of regulation of indoor-air quality (IAQ). The report is also one of the first examples of a social cost economist questioning EPA's objectivity and neutrality.
On top, it is making outrageous claims like government regulations on IAQ would kill 1900 extra people a year [sic].
Lee proposed the Tobacco Institute to make a presentation of the report at the EPA's 23rd International Symposium on Environmental Analytical Chemistry.
Tobacco Institute's Karen Fernicola Suhr wasn't sure what to think of the proposal as she Lee's claims were so ridiculous:
It wasn't the only weird thing about this report. The Tobacco Institute also was wondering why the NCPA cared about Indoor Air Quality at all
The Tobacco
Institute in 1992 wasn't really sure why the think tank bothered to write on
indoor quality. A 1993 letter sent by Tom Hockaday (of PR-firm APCO Worldwide) to Philip Morris hints the report actually was written on the command of APCO
Nor Singer (a physicist), nor Lee (an economist) have any qualifications to judge indoor air-quality science.
Meanwhile, the program of the 23rd International Symposium on Environmental Analytical Chemistry shows Lee was one of the speakers, so despite the "cookiness", the Tobacco Institute probably paid him the $9.000 he asked for. Lee wrote an article after the presentation.
It's hard to decide which my favorite sentence is in the article: "EPA is no better at central planning than the Soviets were" or "Each polluter is better informed than EPA authorities on how to reduce pollution at least cost and is certainly more motivated"
I do understand why Karen Fernicola Suhr staed the tobacco industry had to decide if it felt comfortable with his message. And Why she felt his message borders on kookiness.
Attacking all environmental sciences
But even
beofre the 1992 report above, the National Center for Policy Analysis was already attacking almost all environmental sciences, in the 1991 report Progressive environmentalism: a pro-human,
pro-science, pro-free enterprise agenda for change. The head of the taskforce writing the report was Richard L. Stroup,
another tobacco economist from the network.
The taskforce consisted of an interesting list of names, besides tobacco economists there are a lot of people listed who would get known as climate skeptics.
Network economists involved in the NCPA environmental task force were (besides Stroup) : Terry L. Anderson, Allen Dalton, Bruce Johnson and of course Dwight R. Lee
Other tobacco consultants mentioned in this task force were Thomas J. DiLorenzo, Kent Jeffreys, S. Fred Singer and James H. Miller. And a lot of people from other think tanks, like Joseph Bast (Heartland Institute), Fred L. Smith (Competitive Enterprise Institute), David J. Theroux (Independent Institute).
The reports attacks a wild array of environmental topics. The report might be an early example showing how libertarians started attacking all environmental sciences, not because they have much knowledge on the subject, but rather because it doesn't fit their worldview.
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