Laws for sale - Republicans in Congress let lobbyists write laws

Washington Monthly, July-August, 1995 by Gareth Cook

To draft the bill, Shuster convened a coalition of all the powerful groups who were being regulated and asked them to come up with legislation. The wetlands task force, for example, was headed up by the National Wetlands Coalition, which is funded by a spectrum of industry protections. The task force on "point source" pollution (e.g., pollution from a particular factory) was headed up by the Clean Water Industry Coalition and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, whose members include many of the most egregious polluters in the country.

Environmental groups, however, are conspicuously absent from the membership list. Even the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), which is charged by Congress with carrying out the law and which does, after all, have some expertise on environmental regulation, was locked out of the drafting, as were Democratic staffers.

The final product reflects its authors. Broad changes would make compliance with the Act's storm water program, which limits pollution from runoff, little more than voluntary. Another provision directs that EPA limits on toxic discharges into the Great Lakes be interpreted only as "guidance" for the states. The Chemical Manufacturers Association, whose lobbyist Rose Marie Sanders sat on the "point source" panel, won a provision that would allow chemical makers to be considered in "statistical compliance" with pollution limits if they only exceeded the limits some of the time.

Democrats had suspected that lobbyists for major polluters had played a role in drafting the reauthorization act. They discovered how true this was at the staff meeting where Democrats were finally shown a copy of the legislation. Still at the top of the faxed document was the tag line with its point of origin, the name of one of the firms lobbying for industry.

Dole Rushes In

In some areas, the Senate has moderated the House's excesses. The moratorium bill pushed through by Project Relief was too extreme even for many Senate Republicans. And some of the Clean Water Act's bigger sell-outs will likely be toned down. But on a more sweeping House measure--to require elaborate cost-benefit analysis, making it extremely difficult for the government to issue new regulations to protect the public--Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole staked out the radical extreme.

Dole decided to sponsor the Senate bill himself, recognizing, no doubt, that he could use the bill to prove his own revolutionary credentials for the 1996 campaign--and maybe even raise some money as well.

C. Boyden Gray, a lobbyist for Wilmer, Cutler & Pickering, wrote an initial draft of the bill back in December. Not surprisingly, Gray has donated money to the Dole presidential campaign.

Dole's point man on regulatory legislation is Kyle McSlarrow, who had worked at Hunton & Williams, a lobbying firm that has been heavily involved in the lobbying for regulatory reform. But McSlarrow's ties to industry don't end there. Last year, McSlarrow ran a losing race for Congress in Virginia's eighth district, leaving him saddled with campaign debts. Yet, after his job with Dole was announced--but before he officially joined the payroll--he was able to raise thousands of dollars to pay his creditors.