Chemical Industry Front Group Outed

Submitted by Bob Burton on

A freshly-minted front group, which proclaimed that it promoted "balanced chemical safety reform that protects public health, innovation, and economic growth,” has been outed.

Richard Denison, a scientist with Environmental Defense, noted that "nowhere does the website reveal who runs or is behind it" but some of the members of the coalition included the Chemical Industry Council of California, the Louisiana Propane Gas Association and the Virginia Biotechnology Association. The group's website was registered in early August by DDC Advocacy, a Virginia-based PR firm. After Denison wrote of the coalition in a blog post, the American Chemistry Council appeared as a member of the coalition too. In a comment on Denison's blog, Joe Householder, who identified himself as the Executive Director of the coalition, stated that the coalition "has yet to formally launch." However, Householder did not respond to Denison's question as to "who is paying DDC Advocacy to set up and run the website and organize the coalition?"

Main Source: 
Chemicals & Nanomaterials (Environmental Defense blog), October 26, 2009
Topics: 
Astroturf
Environment
Public Relations

Comments

Joe Householder replied on

I am the Executive Director of the Coalition for Chemical Safety. I hate to contradict you, however, the Coalition's web site has never been taken down and certainly would not have been taken down in the wake of Dr. Denison's comments. In fact, our hope is that his reference to us in his blog posting would send traffic to that site.

You can find us at http://www.coalitionforchemsafety.com.

I'd also like to suggest that a Coalition that is attempting to build a diverse membership base is far from a "front group." We, in fact, invited Dr. Denison to join us as we do anyone interested in a TSCA reform that will put safety first while also promoting innovation and protecting jobs.

Thanks.

Lisa Graves replied on

Dear Mr. Householder:

Thank you for your comment.

Our researcher made several attempts to access your website after reading the story about the questions raised by Dr. Denison of Environmental Defense and was unable to access it, leading to the original post describing the site as no longer available.

Thank you for alerting us to the fact that your site was operational and had not been taken down in response to the questions raised by Dr. Denison about which corporations are funding your organization. Accordingly, we have corrected the post to delete the reference to the website being taken down, and we are checking for the technical glitch that made it inaccessible to us.

Lisa Graves

chemical industry replied on

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