The corrupted tobacco economist network Part 61 - Heartland Institute

Overview of previous posts here

Best known nowadays for their position on global warming, the Heartland Institute started as a think tank defending the tobacco industry. Former President Joseph L. Bast still minimizes the risks of ETS.

Heartland always had pro-tobacco viewpoints and even invited a tobacco employee (Roy E. Marden) to join its board. In 1999, Heartland president Joseph L. Bast wrote the following letter to Philip Morris:

At least 20 of the network economists are or have been involved with the Heartland Institute. and in 1999, the year Bast begged for money, 6 tobacco economists were members of the advisory board

A 1996Heartland report shows something seen in all libertarian think tanks: an attack on a whole bunch of "environmental sciences". It is very unlikely the think tankers actually knew something about the actual state of one scientific field,  let alone a whole series of scientific domains. Ideology, not science, is the source of this kind of output produced by think tanks

It's one the first examples how tobacco and global warming (and other environmental/ health sciences) are thrown under the bus in one big effort. This was part of the "APCO" plan.

Author Richard L. Stroup was a member of the economists extended network

Gary L. Huber

Gary L. Huber was a researcher working on the link between tobacco and lung cancer, research sponsored by the tobacco industry. In 1980, Huber (re)discovered the relation by producing emphysema in rabbits.

In the prelude to the Tobacco Master Settlement Agreement, he became a whistleblower (in 1997) claiming to be a naïve scientist duped by a broader plan of the tobacco industry. Huber claims in the interview the industry let him though his research on lung cancer, even though they had done the same research before, and already knew the outcome was going to be smoking causes cancer.

 Huber said in an interview

Several sources state Huber was in tears when discovering his entire research was one big waste of time. Most sources feel sorry for the man.

The book Denial: The NFL, Concussions, and the Battle for Truth states Huber promptly lost his grants from the tobacco industry after publishing his results, the industry making clear they weren't too pleased with his work. Huber subsequently moved from Harvard to the University of Kentucky and continued doing research, strangely enough again funded by the tobacco industry. But something had changed: in Kentucky Huber would become accused of manipulating scientific results, sexual harassment and general incompetence. Within a year, he got fired

All this doesn't really explain how Gary L. Huber, then working in Texas, ended up in the 1996 Heartland Earth Day '96 document, writing "In this case, the EPA's risk assessment is built on the manipulation of data, ignores crucial chemical analysis and key epidemiological data, and violates time-honored statistical principles."

I'm not sure what to think about all this, and the supposed knife the industry put in his back

The corrupted tobacco economist network Part 60 - Alexis de Tocqueville Institution

Overview of previous posts here

The previous blogpost mentioned in 1994 the Independent Institute authored the open letter against the Clinton Health Reform Plan. But the Independent Institute was not the only think tank aiming to work with the tobacco industry. 

The Alexis de Tocqueville Institution invited itself to the industry in this letter to Philip Morris. Was AdTI at this point no pro-tobacco ? Probably not, the letter illustrates it all started with a remarkably one-sided and bit silly opposition against the tax-increase in the health reform plan. Thos one-sided viewpoint ultimately would become disastrous for the think tank. 

Tim Lambert wrote a blogpost in 2004 (The Astroturf de Tocqueville Institute) showing the AdTI indeed started working with the tobacco industry in the 1990's.


The S. Fred Singer report

In 1994, late S. Fred Singer, best remembered as climate pseudo-skeptic, authored the Alexis de Tocqueville Institution report Science, Economics, and Environmental Policy: A Critical Examination. This report probably was ordered by the tobacco industry.

Early 1994, Cesar Conda, then president of the Alexis de Tocqueville Institution, had not decided yet who would author the paper (is not it lovely they already know what the report would conclude, without even knowing who would be the author?). Het wrote this remarkable letter: 

The letter summarizes the corruption of this think tank: fake report, fake endorsements, wide press circulation. And all that for just $20.000

The letter also shows the focus was no longer only to attack regulations on tobacco, other environmental subjects would be thrown under the bus too. And indeed, it is in the pool of different American extremist conservative industry funded think tanks that organized global warming denial would finds its roots.

The letter summarizes the corruption of this think tank: fake report, fake endorsements, wide press circulation. And all that for just $20.000

A while later, Conda wrote another amazing letter



Clearly: this report was as corrupted as a report can be.

The report contains the following passage:



No, the report does not mention Tollison's connections with the tobacco industry, nor the fact the industry indeed paid the AdTI the $20.000 for the report

No, the report does not mention Tollison's connections with the tobacco industry, nor the fact the industry indeed paid the AdTI the$20.000 for the report. All in all, it's not even that much money and from the industry's point of view, this must have been a bargain to corrupt a think tank for an amount of money lower than an add campaign in a newspaper

In the draft version S. Fred Singer was named the first author and Kent Jeffreys the second author. It is unclear why Singer is listed as the reviewer (and not author) in the final report and why suddely Jeffreys "authored" the report.

The industry wanted to use the report for lobbying, that much is certain





The report had the desired result. Samuel Chilcote, president of the Tobacco Institute reported

Who those "peer reviewers" were is a mystery, but probably the 1994 advisory board of the AdTI gives a clue: with Gary M. Anderson, Jeffrey R. Clark, Robert B. Ekelund, Dwight R. Lee, Mark Thornton, Robert D. Tollison, Richard K. Vedder and Richard E. Wagner, eight of the nineteen board members were members of the economists' network. Probably they were the not so critical reviewers of the report.

In 1995 the AdTI published another excise tax report, this time not by the economists though, but by John E. Berthoud, president of the National Tax Payers Union.

In 1998, the AdTI's draft report Tobacco Smuggling: A Worldwide Phenomenon was sent to the tobacco industry.

This is not the work of an independent think tank.

The corrupted tobacco economist network Part 59 - The Independent Institute

Overview of previous posts here

The first part of theis blog series explored the activities of the economists network in the 1980's and early 1990's. The second part of the series illustrated the tobacco industry finally would not just attack science, but would try to change the political landscpae by exploiting people's personal beliefs. 

That's where extremist free-market think tanks come to play.

THE INDEPENDENT INSTITUTE

At least 21 of the network economists have/had connections with the Independent Institute. In 1994, both core members Tollison and Wagner were among the members of the advisory board (Tollison had been on the board since 1986, the year the think tank was founded)


Clinton reform plan (1994)

As a part of the 1993 Clinton health reform plan, there was a suggestion to increase the excise taxes on cigarettes from 24c per pack to 99c, the so called "monster-tax".

The industry answered with the "monster op-ed" round, by setting up PR-firm APCO, and some more activities less relevant for the this story.

There also was an 'open letter' from the Independent Institute. It is not clear who ordered the letter, but no less than 52 economists from the economists' network signed the Open Letter to President Clinton on Healthcare Reform. It won't come as a surprise the letter draws the 'taxes' card. And is quite hysterical.

It may or may not be a coincidence so many of the social cost economists are affiliated one way or another with the Independent Institute. And it may or may not be a coincidence the letter fits the tobacco industry's social cost program. 

One has the impression the Independent Institute acted as a front for a campaign launched by the tobacco industry.


Detaxing America (1995)

In the 1980's and early 1990's, the industry paid economist to appear at economic meetings. It seems later on the industry simply organized its own conferences with think tanks acting as a cover.

In 1995, the Independent Institute organized the conference Detaxing America to promote the forthcoming book written by William F. Shughart II

Following tobacco economists attended the conference:  William Shughart II, Bruce L. Benson, Dwight R. Lee, Robert Ekelund Jr.,  Gary M. Anderson,  Richard Vedder and Mark Thornton

7 of the 17 invited speakers were members of Tollison's illegal social cost network. With several of the 13 other speakers (p. ex. DiLorenzo and Tullock) also being paid by the tobacco industry, but in other lobby-programs.

No, "Independent Institute" doesn't seem the best possible name to describe that think tank.

Books by the Independent Institute

The Independent Institute published several books and reports written by tobacco lobbyists. But even when the tobacco economists weren't the first author of a publication, they still were around.


1994 : William Mitchell and Randy Simmons, Beyond Politics (foreword by Gordon Tullock)

David J. Theroux of the Independent Institute wrote a letter to Tobacco Institute

Quite a strange move for an “Independent” Institute, no ? 

1995: Donald J Boudreaux and Adam Pritchard : Civil Forefeiture As A Tax. The authors thank 6 people for "instructive discussion and comments", four of them being tobacco economists : Bruce Benson, Dwight Lee, William Shughart and Bruce Yandle.

1995: William F. Shughart: The economics of excise taxation

1996 : Richard Vedder and Lowell E. Gallaway : The Melting Pot.

1997: William F. Shughart (ed): Taxing choice: The predatory politics of fiscal discrimination

Including Shughart, at least 7 of the 18 authors have been paid by the Tobacco Institute. Probably not a surprise, as already in 1994 David J. Theroux of the Independent Institute contacted the Tobacco Institute about the book, draft title Sin Taxes



(...)

Dr. Robert Higgs was one of the people asked by the Tobacco Institute in 1996 to write op-eds against FDA-regulations[11] Shughart was one of the most active members in the network of social cost consultants.

And to promote the book:

2000: Dominick Armentano: Antitrust and monopoly

2000: Roger Meiners and Bruce Yandle : Regulation and the Reagan Era

The foreword of this book was written by Robert Crandall, another tobacco lobbyist (and then brother in law of S. Fred Singer).

The industry also used think tankers outside the social cost network to work for them. Another Independent Institute economist, Canadian Pierre Lemieux (also involved in the pro-tobacco group FORCES) wrote the book "Smoking and Liberty: Government as a Public Health Problem"and a whole lot of smaller texts, listed on his website on a page he titled Smoking, Liberty and Health Fascism. His extremist titles and views may be a reason the industry didn't use him more often.

This document suggests there also might have been a (small) Canadian network. I did not explore it any further. The John Luik in the document was twice fired from universities for being dishonest. His former Dean stated

The Independent Institute is a fine example of tobacco interests and extremist free-market views finding and strenghtening each other, ultimately mingling into one big pseudoscientific mess benefiting the tobacco industry. 

The corrupted tobacco economist network Part 58 - The role of Terry L. Anderson

Overview of previous posts here

As seen in the previous chapters, in the 1990's think tanks and libertarians started attacking all environmental sciences. The tobacco economists took part in this attack, with Terry L. Anderson playing a key role as an ideologist

Selection of publications:

1991: Terry L. Anderson wrote the book Free Market Environmentalism with Donald R. Leal. It became one of the books laying the grounds for the libertarian ideological attack on all environmental sciences.

Richard Stroup and Terry L. Anderson would become early TASSC's supporters and they were among the people exporting the TASSC-strategy to Europe through the UK based Institute of Economic Affairs. Both also were adjunct scholars at the Cato Institute

1995: Terry L. Anderson wrote a chapter in the book The True State of the Planet, attacking a wide variety of environmental issues. It's one of the first examples where the work of the economists and global warming denialism would emerge on the same surface. 

• Chapter 1, by Nicholas Eberstadt - Population, Food, and Income: Global Trends in the Twentieth Century
• Chapter 2, by Dennis Avery - Saving the Planet with Pesticides: Increasing Food Supplies While Preserving the Earth's Biodiversity
• Chapter 3, by Robert C. Balling, Jr. - Global Warming: Messy Models, Decent Data, and Pointless Policy
• Chapter 4, by Stephen Moore - The Coming Age of Abundance
• Chapter 5, by Bruce N. Ames and Lois Swirsky Gold - The Causes and Prevention of Cancer: The Role of Environment
• Chapter 6, by Roger A. Sedjo - Forests: Conflicting Signals
• Chapter 7, by Stephen R. Edwards - Conserving Biodiversity: Resources for Our Future
• Chapter 8, by Terry L. Anderson - Water Options for the Blue Planet
• Chapter 9, by Kent Jeffreys - Rescuing the Oceans
• Chapter 10, by Indur M. Goklani - Richer is Cleaner: Long Term Trends in Global Air Quality

Do notice in this book tobacco economist Terry L. Anderson and Kent Jeffreys (another author of a pro-tobacco report), suddenly became "specialists" in water pollution....

1997: (with Donald R. Leal) : Enviro-Capitalists: Doing Good While Doing Well. Hoover Institution. The book received a positive pal-review of fellow tobacco economist Bruce Yandle

1997: Terry L. Anderson and Pamela S. Snyder: Water Markets: Priming the Invisible Pump. Published by the Cato Institute.

2000: The Greening of U.S. Foreign Policy (with Henry I. Miller), published by the Hoover Institution. Anderson stated [2]

The green hand of foreign policy is a threat to national sovereignty without the offsetting benefit of improved environmental quality

2000: editor of Political Environmentalism:Going Behind the Green Curtain. Hoover Institution, also containing a chapter by network economist Bruce Yandle.

2001: Terry L. Anderson & Bruce Yandle were editors of the book Agriculture and the Environment – Searching for Greener Pastures published by the Hoover Institution.

2003: Anderson was editor of You Have to Admit It’s Getting Better—The Environment That is, another book published by the Hoover Institution.   

Tobacco economist Robert E. McCormick wrote the chapter The Relation Between Net Carbon Emissions and Income. While McCormick took no position on the scientific side, was poorly informed, writing "others claim there is no evidence of global warming; some even say the Earth is cooling"

Together Anderson's books (more than listed here) have played an important ideological role. All published by libertarian think tanks, they helped the message the industry and TASSC needed, by stating it would be better for the environment/health issues if there would be no government at all. His books have played an important role in creating a mindset in which the think tanks started drifting away from reality.

These books were highly ideological. Yet it is not impossible the books were commissioned by some industry. As early as 1987, during the "evaluations of economists sessions", the Tobacco Institute already remarked

Terry L. Anderson became George W. Bush's advisor on public lands issues somewhere in the late 1990's.  

In 2014, he wrote an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal defending the Keystone-pipeline. Written on behalf of his oil industry clients?

The corrupted tobacco economist network Part 57 - The Advancement of Sound Science Coalition

Overview of previous posts here

The Advancement of Sound Science Coalition (now called the Advancement of Sound Science Center

Early 1993, EPA released the report Respiratory Health Effects of Passive Smoking:Lung Cancer and Other Disorders that was close to a final blow on the ETS issue.  EPA concluded that second hand smoking beyond any scientific doubt indeed was harmful, as had long been suspected.

The tobacco industry knew it was in trouble and launched a full scale counterattack against EPA, especially using the strategy of  manufacturing "scientific doubt". It seems from that point the ‘social cost’ strategy became less important as the EPA report demanded the industry's full attention.

But the industry still needed allies and seemed to have followed two main roads: searching for allies to cast doubt on any environmental subject (asbestos, pesticides, greenhouse gasses, etc.). But on the other hand, to really be able to create a broad coalition, the industry needed to translate the industrial message into something grassroots organizations would pick up. And here, the ‘freedom’ message proved to be key to finding free-market allies. The libertarian tobacco-economists were useful to spread this message. 

To understand how the industry concluded that the best defense was to attack everything EPA does, we have to look at the work of Philip Morris' PR-firm APCO-Associates, which advised the industry to set up

PR-firm APCO created the astroturf organization The Advancement of Sound Science Coalition (TASSC) in 1993 because

But unlike with lobbygroups like the Center for Indoor Air Research, the tobacco industry this time had a bigger plan, as seen in a memorandum probably written by Philip Morris. 

The same document already hinted at the shape of the industry’s ETS-strategy to come

As the industry realized it could not defeat EPA alone, the goals were to

and to

This is taking the lobbying to a new level, and this is where the cunning plan of Tim Hyde fits the bigger picture: the lobbying was no longer focusing on tobacco and its consequences, the lobbying was about creating a new political reality.

One part of the strategy still sounded familiar, as it was about creating scientific doubt

TASSC was no longer an astroturf organization attacking only tobacco issues, the industry wanted a full scale attack, and was thinking about issues like

In 1994 Philip Morris wrote

And Philip Morris director Matt Winokur stated

The plan to built a broad coalition of businesses attacking EPA was a success and APCO reported

To avoid detection, TASSC had to look like a grassroots organization, even though it is clear TASSC never was more than a lobby-tool as can be read in the proposed plan for the public launch of TASSC:

As with the previous economists networks, there would be media training

The training included teaching the spokespeople of PM to answer questions like

The roots of organized denial of global warming would get started in the same circles, and by the same people, as the circles the tobacco industry used. TASSC and the same think tanks working on tobacco, would be the place where fossil fuel companies found a tool, the people (libertarians) and a strategy to attack climate science. And this is why someone running a climate blog has taken a close look at the tobacco strategy.

TASSC was funded by Philip Morris but it also involved companies like Exxon and recruited people who were global warming deniers like S. Fred Singer and Patrick Michaels, in addition to tobacco consultants such as Thomas L. Wyrick and Richard L. Stroup (both in 2015 were members off the Heartland Institute, a think tank denying the health effects of tobacco and man-made global warming).

Using the 'junk science’ label to discredit scientific work was adopted by the tobacco economists, as in an op-ed by Clifford Dobitz from 1998 titled Junk science taints EPA's smoke claims The same Year Robert L. Sexton wrote Did EPA use junk science ? The use of this language is no coïncidence but the result of a group effort.

It was by mingling of 'freedom' with tobacco (and asbestos, greenhouse gasses, etc.), the industry ultimately was able to create a message that indeed found its way into libertarian groups. And through these groups, the doubt and freedom message would become an important political factor in American politics, because the think tank network is huge, extending to many other people, foundations, companies and universities.