The Environmental Protection Agency has dismissed a top scientist from her position as chair of a panel investigating a toxic material in electronics. Toxicologist Deborah Rice was removed from the committee after a year, and "federal records show she was removed from the panel in August after the American Chemistry Council, the lobbying group for chemical manufacturers, complained to a top-ranking EPA official that she was biased." Her "bias" is apparently that she has written and spoken out about the dangers posed by "a brominated compound known as deca," which is present in the exterior plastic case of televisions. Her removal was justified by the EPA "because of what they called 'the perception of a potential conflict of interest.' Under the agency's handbook for advisory committees, scientific peer reviewers should not 'have a conflict of interest' or 'appear to lack impartiality.'" But environmental groups have pointed out that industry-affiliated scientists often find their way onto EPA committees. The Environmental Working Group found that on seven committees in the last year alone, 17 scientists were serving, despite ties to the industries that their committee was charged with examining. "In one example, an Exxon Mobil Corp. employee served on an EPA expert panel responsible for deciding whether ethylene oxide, a chemical manufactured by Exxon Mobil, is a carcinogen."

The Democratic Party-oriented Campaign to Defend America, a non-profit group spun off from Americans Against Escalation in Iraq, is behind a TV ad attacking John McCain. Campaign to Defend America and its funders "have pledged a multimillion-dollar effort to target McCain and congressional Republicans on the consequences of the Iraq war on the U.S. economy," receiving "at least $1.4 million from The Fund for America, a nonprofit group set up last year by John Podesta, a former chief of staff for President Clinton; Anna Burger, the secretary-treasurer of the Service Employees International Union; and Rob McKay, a California philanthropist (and chair of the Democracy Alliance). Campaign to Defend America is headed by Tom Matzzie, the former Washington director of ... MoveOn.org. Among Fund for America donors are multimillionaire financier George Soros." The Center for Investigative Reporting has created a chart illustrating the liberal money and connections behind the Campaign to Defend America. Recently the groups behind the Campaign and AAEI poured $20 million dollars into a the Iraq/Recession Campaign targeting Republicans in 2008.

An article in the Independent links funding for the "2008 International Conference on Climate Change" held in New York earlier this month to tobacco and oil companies. As an earlier Spin noted, the global warming skeptics conference was organized by the Heartland Institute think tank. Heartland has opposed scientific consensus on both secondhand tobacco smoke and climate change. Heartland claims on its website that no energy industry money was used to support the conference, but did not address tobacco industry funding. Still, a substantial number of conference sponsors -- including the Competitive Enterprise Institute, Independent Institute, Americans for Tax Reform, Frontiers of Freedom and Citizens' Alliance for Responsible Energy -- have received support from energy or tobacco companies, or both. The Heartland Institute itself has received funding from Exxon and Philip Morris.

St. Basil's Cathedral on Red Square, Moscow"Flush with foreign reserves from oil and natural gas sales, the Kremlin is pumping tens of millions of dollars into various forms of public diplomacy," reports Peter Finn. The Russian government "has hired the giant U.S. public relations firm Ketchum Inc. 'to help the government tell its story of economic growth and opportunity for its citizens,' said Randy DeCleene, an executive at the firm." As part of the PR push, "the official government newspaper Rossiyskaya Gazeta is ... fund[ing] monthly supplements in newspapers in India, Britain, Bulgaria and the United States," including a paid supplement in the Washington Post. "Russiaprofile.org, a news and analysis site funded by [the government news agency] RIA Novosti" features "a range of opinions, including some quite hostile to the Kremlin." RIA Novosti also hosts an annual "Valdai Discussion Club," where "30 to 40 Russia experts and prominent journalists, mostly from the United States and Western Europe ... are wined and dined in the company of Russian policymakers and political analysts." The Hoover Institute's Michael McFaul (an adviser to Barack Obama's campaign) called the Valdai events, which featured sessions with then-President Vladimir Putin, "really smart PR." A previous Spin noted Russia's new think tank, the Institute of Democracy and Cooperation.

Former Republican staffers of the U.S. House Committee on Natural Resources have formed a new group, Responsible Resources, to impact "the perennial debate over energy production and environmental protection." The group's first ad campaign criticizes "efforts to raise taxes on energy companies," reports The Hill. Responsible Resources is not a lobbying group and will "not take any corporate donations," according to its co-founder, Brian Kennedy. He described the group as "an educational resource principally for members of Congress and their aides with the ultimate goal of growing large enough to influence the debate beyond the Beltway." The House recently passed a bill that would repeal tax credits for the oil industry and use the revenue to fund renewable energy resources. Responsible Resources claims that "taxes on energy companies are a threat to affordable and reliable energy." Kennedy said, "A clean environment is a luxury that only the wealthiest countries can afford."

The American Enterprise Institute, one of the premier U.S. think tanks, has presented former Australian Prime Minister John Howard with the Irving Kristol Award for 2008. The award, AEI states, is for "individuals who have made exceptional intellectual or practical contributions to improved government policy, social welfare, or political understanding." Howard, AEI gushed, "is one of the world's most successful democratic politicians." While Howard did win four elections, AEI doesn't mention that he made history by being only the second serving Prime Minister to lose his own parliamentary seat. Howard also led his party to a humiliating defeat in the November 2007 election. Many of Howard's hallmark policies -- his support for radical anti-union policies, his refusal to support the Kyoto Protocol to combat rising greenhouse gas emissions, his support for domestic nuclear power plants and his refusal to apologize to indigenous Australians for former governments' policies of separating children from their parents -- have subsequently been jettisoned by his own party.