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Subject: After 'Silent Spring,' Chemical Industry Put Spin on All It Brewed

~ NYTimes

http://www.nytimes.com/2001/03/26/national/26CHEM.html

After 'Silent Spring,' Chemical Industry Put Spin on All It Brewed

By JOHN H. CUSHMAN Jr.

March 26, 2001

After 'Silent Spring,' Chemical Industry Put Spin on All It Brewed

By JOHN H. CUSHMAN Jr.

WASHINGTON, March 25 ã The year was 1963, the publication of

Carson's " Silent Spring " had just opened the modern environmental

movement, and the chemical industry reckoned it had a public relations

emergency on its hands.

Already that year, the industry's trade association had spent $75,000

scraped together for a " crash program " to counter the book's environmental

message. It needed an additional $66,000 to expand the public relations

campaign. Several companies quickly pledged more money to challenge the

book's arguments, according to the association's internal documents.

That chain of events would be repeated time and again, at ever increasing

expense, as the industry's lobbying arm in Washington, now known as the

American Chemistry Council, confronted the environmental age in the

corridors of power and in the arena of public opinion.

Now the industry's practices over the decades are facing unusual and

unwanted exposure, as its documents, turned up by trial lawyers in

lawsuits against the industry, are being published by environmental

advocates on the Web and explored in a PBS documentary on Monday. Many of

the documents were disclosed in 1998 in a series of articles in The

Houston Chronicle, but until now they have not received much wider

attention.

The adverse publicity is nothing new for the chemical industry.

" I seem, perhaps like Halley's comet, to float periodically into the orbit

of your board, " an industry lobbyist, Glen , said to the chemical

group's board in 1966, " generally with my hand outstretched in a plea for

financial support of efforts to avert, or avoid the consequences of, some

frightful catastrophe. Like Carson. "

Or Bhopal. Or Love Canal. Or state ballot initiatives unfriendly to the

industry, or legislation tightening regulations on toxic wastes. Or even

the industry's growing perception that no matter how much money it spent

on public relations ã amounts that grew from a few thousand dollars a year

to a few million a year as the decades passed ã it was losing its war for

public opinion.

The industry used many weapons in its campaigns to influence state and

federal laws; public relations was just one of them.

Giving money to candidates, of course, played an important role in the

industry's strategy, according to a 1980 document discussing " political

muscle, how much we've got, and how we can get more. "

Spending by political action committees helped its lobbyists gain access

to members of Congress, the document said. " But over the long term, the

more important function of the PAC's is to upgrade the Congress, " it said.

Just as important, said a 1984 document, were carefully orchestrated

" grass roots efforts " like the industry's establishment of a pressure

group with the benign name Citizens for Effective Environmental Action

Now.

The industry spent more than $150,000 that year to make 25,000 phone calls

and send 42,000 pieces of direct mail. Adopting new computer technology

for the first time, the group documented more than 7,000 calls and

telegrams to seven important Democrats on the House Ways and Means

Committee, which was drafting the Superfund legislation governing toxic

waste dumps.

" Grass roots delivered three congressmen who were ready to take action

during committee writing of legislation, " the document said. But the

" industry lobby was unable to respond quickly to their offer of help, " the

industry association's assessment noted. " We must be prepared to provide

the congressmen with a simple action plan and legislative language. "

But Congress was responding to broader public concerns, and for decades

the industry was painfully conscious of how hard it was to sway public

opinion.

" The Public Relations Committee realizes that public fear of chemicals is

a disease which will never be completely eradicated, " a committee member,

Cleveland Lane, reported in 1964. " It may lie dormant or appear from time

to time as a minor rash, but it can flare up at any time as a major and

debilitating fever for our industry as a result of a few, or even one

instance, such as the Mississippi fish kill, or the publication by some

highly readable alarmist, or as an issue seized upon by some politician in

need of building a crusading image. "

At the same time, Mr. Lane acknowledged that only deeds, not words, could

salvage the industry's reputation ã a credo that industry lobbyists repeat

to this day.

" No public relations operation, no matter how effective, can cover up acts

of carelessness or neglect which do harm to the citizens, " said Mr. Lane,

who worked for Goodrich-Gulf Chemicals Inc. " As long as we produce

products or conduct operations which can cause health hazards, public

discomfort or property damage, we must do all we can to prevent these

situations. "

In recent years, the industry has increasingly tailored its publicity

campaigns to emphasize its efforts to follow strict safety standards, set

forth in a voluntary effort it calls Responsible Care. The effort is

intended to control the risks of chemical pollution and help convince a

skeptical public that the industry is made up of good corporate citizens.

Among those not convinced of the industry's good faith is Bill Moyers,

whose documentary for PBS focuses on the dangers of exposure to vinyl

chloride, the subject of litigation by a chemical industry worker's widow

that uncovered the documents. The report relies heavily on them to assert

that the companies and their trade association covered up the dangers of

the chemical, used for making plastic products.

Even before the documentary was broadcast, the industry group charged Mr.

Moyers last week with " journalistic malpractice " for not including

interviews with its spokesmen or allowing them to preview the program.

Instead, Mr. Moyers has invited them to react to his documentary in a

half-hour discussion to be broadcast immediately afterward.

" I consider myself in good company to be attacked by the industry that

tried to smear Carson, " Mr. Moyers said on Friday.

The Environmental Working Group, an advocacy organization in Washington,

plans to publish on its Web site on Tuesday tens of thousands of pages of

internal industry documents produced in lawsuits. The group plans to

expand the Web site, www.ewg.org, into a wide-ranging archive of industry

documents.

The documents cover not just vinyl chloride and public relations crusades

but every facet of the industry association's work, from lobbying on taxes

and price controls to transportation safety and the growing array of laws

and regulations that have taken effect since the 1960's.

In 1979, the industry began a multimillion-dollar advertising effort to

counter " growing evidence that the public image of the chemical industry

is unfavorable, and this has negative results on sales and profits, " one

document explained.

Then in 1984, disaster struck with the explosion of a chemical plant in

Bhopal, India, which killed and injured thousands of people.

The industry found in surveys later that " we are perceived as the No. 1

environmental risk to society, " an industry association official told the

group's board in 1986.

Despite continued spending to improve its image, little had changed by

1990, association officials found.

" There is a rising tide of environmental awareness in the country, " a

document reported that year. " Favorable public opinion about the industry

continues to decline. " In a decade, the percentage of the public that

considered the industry underregulated grew to 74 percent from 56 percent.

So as the environmental groups, with membership expanding by hundreds of

thousands of people a year, laid plans for a 20th celebration of Earth

Day, in 1990, the industry worked to make its voice heard, too.

For the first time, it began to advertise its Responsible Care program,

setting aside a $5 million, five-year budget to make its approach known to

the public. " The public must see an entire industry on the move, " one

document said.

" The term `public relations' is morally bankrupt, " a memorandum cautioned,

" and yet, done properly, is exactly what is needed to make Responsible

Care work. "

And in interviews last week, the group's lobbyists said that Responsible

Care was steadily improving the industry's environmental performance ã and

that its latest polling suggested this approach now seemed to be winning

over the public.

" The evolution of an industry is a journey, " said W. Van Vlack,

the American Chemistry Council's chief operating officer. " It is a

fascinating evolution in terms of attitude and in terms of performance. We

went through the process of the public coming to terms with our industry

before most, if not all, other industries. It was in our face ã we had to

deal with it. "

Copyright 2001 The New York Times Company