TOXIC SPENDING

The Political Expenditures of the Chemical Industry, 2005-2012

Since passage of the Toxic Substances Control Act in 1976, the debate over disclosing and reducing the risks that certain chemicals pose to human health and the environment has been dominated by two important trends. First is the growing body of evidence that certain chemicals are harmful to human health, and the growing number of chemicals in daily use whose effects on human health have not been fully studied.
Yet at the same time the chemical industry’s annual spending on campaign contributions and lobbying expenditures has doubled since 2000, and the industry enjoys a powerful new avenue of influence in the form of the unlimited “independent” political expenditures now allowable under the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in Citizens United.

Common Cause

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

The chemical industry’s successful campaign to prevent Congress from strengthening the Toxic Substances Control Act,” which has not been updated since it was passed in 1976, has been accompanied by a growing surge in political expenditures. From 2005 through September 2012, the industry gave $39 million to candidates for federal office, and from 2005 through June 2012 it spent $333 million on lobbying at the federal level. Since December 2011, the chemical industry has also spent at least $2.8 million on political advertising in at least nineteen different campaigns. These three avenues of influence–campaign contributions, lobbying expenditures, and political advertising–have played an important part in the industry’s campaign to convince lawmakers and voters that the environmental and public health benefits of strengthening TSCA and other regulations would be outweighed by economic costs.

In 2010, the chemical industry gained a powerful new avenue of influence when the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in Citizens United threw out a century-old ban on corporations and unions spending money on electioneering. Since then chemical companies and a few very wealthy chemical executives have contributed more then $23 million to Super PACs and other outside groups spending money on the 2012 elections.

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