JUNK SCIENCE AND THE ART
OF SPIN-DOCTORING
(Part 3a)
by Stewart Fist
The Junkman and the Web of Deceit;
How the Spin-Doctors Cross-Fertilise
If you want to see how carefully crafted such a web of deceit can be, check out JunkScience.com, run by a pseudo-science debunker with the name of Steven Milloy. He promotes this site as having "All the Junk that's fit to Debunk", and a lot of the material in these pages are just what it purports to be
Milloy promotes himself as a private crusader. He regularly leads the attack on activist groups involved in questions of public health, environmental destruction and pollution, and he proudly calls himself "The Junkman".
He loaths the EPA, the FDA and the Democrats; in particular Al Gore.
Milloy gives you some personal details at the site. Here's what he says:
- Silencing Science, with co-author Michael Gough (Cato Institute, 1998)
- Science Without Sense: The Risky Business of Public Health Research (Cato Institute, 1995)
- Science-Based Risk Assessment: A Piece of the Superfund Puzzle (National Environmental Policy Institute, 1995)
- exposing questionable or 'junk' science;
- illuminating the opportunity costs of resulting regulations; and
- combating the public's fear of chemicals.
- [Note this claim is now suspect. Milloy was definitely associated with these activities, but he may not have actually created ICE.]
Steven J. Milloy is the publisher of the Junk Science Home Page and an adjunct scholar at the Cato Institute.
Milloy's work on the Junk Science Home Page has garnered numerous awards, including: being named "One of the 50 Best Web Sites of 1998" by Popular Science; and designation as a "Hot Pick" by Science. The site has also been recommended by the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Times of London, Financial Times, Forbes and MSNBC.
Milloy holds a B.A. in Natural Sciences from the Johns Hopkins University, a Master of Health Sciences in Biostatistics from the Johns Hopkins University School of Hygiene and Public Health, a Juris Doctorate from the University of Baltimore, and a Master of Laws from the Georgetown University Law Center.
In addition to the Junk Science Home Page, Milloy: appears frequently on radio and television; has testified on risk assessment and Superfund before the U.S. Congress; and has lectured before numerous organizations.
Milloy's publications include:
A lobbyist with a law degree is a valuable commodity in corporate America because it invokes lawyer/client-privilege if dubious deals ever get into the courts. The Biostatistics tag just tells you that he can do maths.
Before Milloy moved into his present role as "JunkMan", he was employed by a number of professional PR and lobbying companies, including Multinational Business Services which was Phillip Morris's main lobbyist on the environmental tobacco issue in late 1992 (when Milloy worked there). This organisation was run by a Reagan Republican appointee who ran the OSHA for a while, Thorne Auchter. Like many top people from the Reagan administration, Auchter became a major lobbyist in Washington in the 1980s, and went into business on behalf of the tobacco industry, along with his partners Jim Tozzi (in MBE and Federal Focus) and (in HES) Dr George Carlo.
Phillip Morris later funded the organisation known as TASSC (The Advancement of Sound Science Coalition) through the public-relations/lobby organisation, APCO Associates, and Milloy took over as its director. [See below]. This organisation was funding by tobacco, chemical, energy and other polluting industries in the USA as a way to attack epidemiologists, toxicologists and environmentalists who claimed to have evidential science showing these companies were doing harm. In Milloy's terms, these claims are all junk-science, and he is the arbiter of such labels.
Milloy is currently listed as an "adjunct fellow" at the Cato Institute, which leaves the impression that he is an independent, highly educated, science commentator funded by an independent foundation. This boost's his impied claim to be carrying on a personal crusade to clean up the science shonks
He writes books for the Cato Institute sarcastically attacking the scientific expertise and ethics of any scientist who's results threaten American corporate business interests
The Cato Institute is a well-known independent "free-enterprise" think-tank run by members of the Republican Right in Washington DC. [" ....22 years of promoting public policy based on individual liberty, limited government, free markets, and peace."]
It also runs what it calls the "Cato University", which offers expensive summer courses to those with a "commitment to liberty and an interest in the world of ideas".
The Cato Institute also employs the writer-humourist PJ. O'Rourke, and funds him to travel, speak, and to write his very humourous books attacking anything remotely resembling concern for the environment, consumerism, or political liberalism. That's fair enough, I guess; most humourists take a leftish line and their attack on the Republican Right are far more vicious.
Behind the scenes the Cato Institute is, itself, funded by many major corporations and industry associations with vested interests, including the American Farm Bureau Federation, Amoco, ARCO, Chase Manhattan Bank, Coca-Cola, CSX Corp., Exxon, Ford Motor Co., KochIndustries, Monsanto Co., National Ammonia Co., Philip Morris, Proctor and Gamble, and Toyota Motor Sales USA.
"Cato promotes the private funding of science, free from the politics and waste that accompany government programs, and will continue to work to reduce regulations based on faulty risk assessments, bad science, and value-laden assumptions." They are all worthy aims
Steve Milloy writes most of his books in association with the Cato Institute's Director of Science and Risk Studies, Michael Gough, another PR specialist who has long served industry well (particularly the paper industry). Gough once worked for the Office of Technical Assessment (OTA) on the problems of dioxin in Agent Orange and in paper effluent. He visited Australia briefly in 1990 to act as an independent judge on the value of some dioxin research conducted by Dr George Carlo (but forgot to mention their close association).
Gough lists himself as being "against politics-driven government funding of science and in favor of private funding." He's not actually attacking universities and such, he means research of the kind conducted by the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) and FDA (Food and Drug Administration), and medical research not conducted by, and for the benefit of, drug companies. He also wants all defence and welfare research to be out-sourced from profit-making organisations.
There's a lot of corporate benefit in this, apart from just the tax savings. In America, any publicly funded research project must be published in full within a month of completion -- while projects funded privately through private research organisations can be held to be confidential.
Gough has "testified against the Advanced Technology Program, a Department of Commerce corporate welfare program, and against government funding of 'environmental research,' which is focused on extending the underpinnings regulation, not scientific understanding."
Cato credits him thus: "Gough's goals include:
This is the position that Milloy and Gough both take. But now let me tell you what Milloy doesn't reveal about himself in his C/V at the junkscience site.
Filling In The Gaps In Milloy's C/V
Until a few years ago Milloy was the director of science policy studies at NEPI, the National Environmental Policy Institute (a part of The Center for Strategic and International Studies).
This is supposedly, a public policy research institution "dedicated to analysis and policy impact"), but actually it is just another anti-science organisation funded by both the oil industry and Phillip Morris (a so-called "coalition" of companies with a common interest).
It was founded by a well-known "anti-smoking" Republican Representative, Don Ritter, with money channeled from a large oil company, and then later the tobacco industry. It supposedly operates through through the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), while likely gets some of its direction and funding from Philip Morris board member, Harold Brown who lists this organisation on his C/V. Brown probably had a hand in recruiting Milloy also, since they both have a common association with John Hopkins University.
The CSIS appears to have two divisions: one a legitimate right-wing think-tank with genuine scholars, housed on the John Hopkins campus at Baltimore, and the other a public-relations/lobby operation in Washington DC.
This "public-policy" organisation appears to be dedicated to transforming (or destroying) both the EPA and the FDA, and challenging the Superfund clean-ups of toxic chemical locations. I guess, this is because the EPA had been far too active in promoting the Clean Air Act and opposing ETS (Environmental Tobacco Smoke), and because the FDA had been too restrictive on tobacco additives, and nicotine itself.
The mission statement of the NEPI says it has a "commitment to providing a substantive framework for improving environmental policy and management. It draws upon the collective skill, experience and knowledge of elected officials, industry representatives, government policy makers, academics and members of the environmental and scientific communities.
"NEPI is dedicated to establishing realistic environmental priorities and helping to focus the national environmental debate," they say. And one of the ways they focus the debate is to have on-staff those members of the Reagan Administration who didn't get jobs with the Cato Institute.
They bill themselves as "a non-profit, bipartisan organization of environmental leaders." and, to prove they have environmental credentials, they have on-board Timothy K. Judge, who is the "founder and former president of Bio-Safe Incorporated, a medical waste disposal company, [who] is currently a consultant on environmental management systems and brownfield restoration."
Milloy frequently appeared on radio and television programs for the NEPI, and has testified on risk assessment and the Superfund before the American Congress. One report of such testimonial states:
"Clearly, any meaningful reform of Superfund must address risk assessments and remediation technologies required by the EPA. Costly decisions have been made in the past because Superfund has been viewed as a cleanup program, not a risk reduction program."
The NEPI's publication, Science-Based Risk Assessment: A Key to the Superfund Puzzle, says:
"Sound science and more accurate risk assessments can significantly reduce the costs of remediation, while reducing real health risks when they are found. Steven J. Milloy of the NEPI suggests that the costs of cleanups would fall by 60 percent if the program focused more directly on risk when identifying the appropriate remedies."
NEPI is also associated with The Air Quality Standards Coalition (AQSC) which represent an industry viewpoint that current clean-air regulations are adequate, and that more stringent regulations would harm business. This is actually an ad hoc coalition created by the National Association of Manufacturers, the American Petroleum Institute, the American Automobile Manufacturers Association, the National Mining Association, and others for the express purpose of fighting the EPA's proposed clean air standards.
While Milloy was involved, the AQSC held numerous news "briefings", launched its own Internet web sites, and paid PR companies to place news stories proclaiming that the EPA's data is "junk science." In addition, the Coalition retained the services of political adviser to Vice President Al Gore, Carter Eskew, for a contract that is estimated at over $5 million.
C Boyden Gray, an outspoken critic of the EPA's standards and a lobbyist for Wilmer, Cutler & Pickering, a firm specialising in environmental and regulatory risk management, is the principle spokesman and organiser of the AQSC. He was once White House legal counsel for President Bush, and he claims to have ghostwritten the weakened Clean Water Act for Senator Bob Dole.
His grandfather Bowman Gray, was the principal owner of the R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. and his father, Gordon Gray, founded the Bowman Gray (memorial) Medical School in Winston-Salem and was actively involved in the 1940s national eugenical sterilisation movement along with other Clay relatives.
C. Boyden Gray is also chairman of Citizens for a Sound Economy (CSE
The CSE appears also to be directly involved in anti-regulatory strategy planning with AQSC and they get their funding from the American Petroleum Institute, the American Plastics Council, and the Chemical Manufacturers Association. The CSE's budget quadrupled from $4 million in 1991 to $17.6 million in 1995 and the organisation claims that its cash comes equally from industry, foundations and individuals.
Milloy's Own Astroturf
Steve Milloy also runs an organisation called Citizens For The Integrity of Science, which he claims on his junkscience.com web site to be the funder and copyright owner of the site. Its registered address is at his home: 12309 Briarbush Lane, Potomac, MD 20854
Milloy privately promotes Pathogen Modeling Software, said to be
" ....PC software that simulates the growth of foodborne pathogens."
"For food processors, it is an inexpensive way to reduce the potential for food poisoning,"
the sales blurb explains. It apparently saves food companies from having to do laboratory checks, by simulating laboratory tests on the food itself.
Milloy is now better known in non-Internet circles as the executive director of TASSC (The Advancement of Sound Science Coalition), which is run by APCO Associates, an international PR and lobbying company which specialises in "grassroots lobbying" for corporate clients.
APCO is a very large global PR and "communications strategy" organisation that keeps its head down and prefers not to be noticed. It was founded in 1984 by Arnold & Porter (the 'AP' in the APCO name) who were then the main legal council to Philip Morris, and who's representative, Murray Bring, still sits on the PM board.
APCO is now a subsidiary of Grey Advertising. Their biggest client is Philip Morris, but they also service special-interest groups like National Rural Health Association and the Coalition For Fairness In Medicare (anti Medicare).
APCO also has "alliances" with organisations like the International Management and Development Institute, they say: "APCO is available to IMDI Members to provide separate public relations, government affairs and related services," they boast.
TASSC was founded and funded by APCO, for Philip Morris. Then later when the tobacco industry joined in with the National Association of Manufacturers, it spread its interests wider. It managed to get a few hundred scientists to sign up to motherhood statement that says they support "sound science" and presumably reject junk-science. That's usually the last the legitimate scientist get to hear of the organisation, although their names and membership details are freely available, and used to support corporate lobbying.
TASSC has both Associate Members (legitimate scientists) and Advisory Members (mainly from the funding corporations, from public relations and lobby organisations, and a few science-for-sale practitioners).The real aim of the organisation, of course, is to generally discredit epidemiological and toxiocology studies that reveal evidence contrary to the funders interests.
APCO Associates keeps a low profile, but it shares a Washington DC office with a number of registered lobbyist organisations and some trade and industry associations, including the Business Roundtable and Business Executives for National Security, Inc. It seems to run these organisations, and has a finger in some more long-term and legitimate organsiations like the Washington Legal Foundation.
According to an article published by Professor Stanton Glantz and Elisa Ong in the famous UK medical journal The Lancet (April 8, 2000) entitled "Tobacco industry efforts subverting International Agency for Research on Cancer's second-hand smoke study." TASSC began as nothing more than a very clever, very subtle tobacco industry front.
It's aim was to redefine the rules of proof and standards of Epidemiology and Toxicology, to a level that made it impossible for regulators like the EPA, FDA and OSHA to ever regulate in a way that was based on the precautionary principle. Under these rules, tobacco would still be considered an 'unproven' health hazard, and escape regulatory controls on Indoor Air Quality (IAQ) etc.
Milloy and APCO have subsequenty extended the boundaries of the fake organisations activities beyond that of just supporting the tobacco industry. Papers in the Philip Morris on-line archives show that this was a deliberate project of the tobacco interests to utilise multiple attacks from different industry sectors
In the Lancet article the authors point out that TASSC was originally created by the Philip Morris tobacco company in order to sow seeds of scientific doubt about health risks associated with environmental tobacco smoke. And, owing to the extreme (and well-deserved) stigma associated with tobacco industry-funded science, they scrupulously disguised TASSC's links to Philip Morris.
The idea was that TASSC would spend most of its time and money talking about other so-called "junk science" issues such as Alar, global warming, radon, asbestos etc., Then Milloy could sneak in mentions of tobacco (or rather "anti-tobacco science" = junk-science) whenever he thought he could get away with it. Later he obviously found other clients who also needed the same service.
The Lancet article is available online at http://www.thelancet.com (Free guest registration) and you can also find the internal Philip Morris documents at Phillip Morris (and ask for TASSC).
In these archives of Phillip Morris (opened to the public following the tobacco settlement) you will find 199 references (some dupicates) to the tobacco industry's funding and control of TASSC. Milloy is now trying desperately to distance himself from TASSC.
SEE THIS SECTION FOR DOCUMENTED PROOF OF TASSC'S LINKS.
On the side, Milloy also ran another right-wing business-funded 'think-tank' called EPAN (Environmental Policy Analysis Network) and he runs a couple of his own companies, Milloy, Inc. and Simusoft, Inc., Most of the work of collecting information for the Junkscience pages comes from APCO which has a world-wide computerised monitoring service called IssueNet. The Junkscience.com site is just the visible tip of this global network iceberg, and Milloy is probably not much more than being the celebrity front-man.
His relationship with TASSC was much more important than the EPAN links (which probably only has one member) because TASSC has, and uses, the cover of many good scientists as members, and these are people who probably genuinely want to promote better science. It also has some other shonky scientists and science-entrepreneurial types in its membership lists (who seem to play a more prominant role than the genuine scientists -- so TASSC may be being used as a cover for other activities).
See this letter posted at the Junk Science page itself. Note the list of directors (mostly scientists who lobby for corporations), and note the fact that Milloy was savaging an anti-tobacco paper.
Mark Dowie of The Nation has also charged the New York Times with sloppy acceptance of material promoted by TASSC. In his July 1998 article Dowie says:
"Ames is an active adviser to The Advancement of Sound Science Coalition (TASSC), a corporate-supported "watchdog coalition that advocates the use of sound sciences in public policy." TASSC has about 900 members, 375 of whom are scientists. The rest are executives from the chemical, oil, dairy, timber, paper, mining, manufacturing and agribusiness industries seeking ways to defend their products in media and the courts. TASSC's Web site offers examples of "junk science," alongside a host of entries defending bovine growth hormone, genetically engineered foodstuffs, dioxin, electromagnetic fields and endocrine disrupting chemicals. On the site can also be found almost every article Gina Kolata has written defending a chemical or technology. In 1995 TASSC awarded Kolata its "Sound Science in Journalism Award." Neither she nor the Times lists it among her awards and citations."
TASSC's funders include 3M, Amoco, Chevron, Dow Chemical, Exxon, General Motors, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Lorillard Tobacco, Louisiana Chemical Association, National Pest Control Association, Occidental Petroleum, Philip Morris Companies, Procter & Gamble, Santa Fe Pacific Gold, and W.R. Grace, the pesticide manufacturers.
TASSC gets is public relations strength both from its list of 500 scientists who are deemed to be 'Associates' or if they are part of the elite band of lobbyists, 'Advisors'. It also gets some benefits from associations it has constructed with legitimate environmental organisations. For instance, Milloy's TASSC belongs to ECO, the Environmental Conservation Organization known around the world for its "wise use" umbrella network.
But one close look a TASSC's record will show a different picture. TASSC officials have regularly criticised highly-recognised and perfectly legitimate studies ranging from the quality of drinking water to the safety of baby food. TASSC claims that these adverse health reports are based on dubious science and are employing scare tactics to drum up financial support -- but they don't reveal where their own funding support comes from. In fact, it comes from Phillip Morris and other major US organisations with pollution and health problems.
Like all good public relations, the strength of the message being sold depends to a very large degree on the credibility of the organisation. Credibility is best promoted by merging genuine and fake claims, with the legitimate information blended carefully with the skillfully-crafted backlash material. When credibility has been established though a list of reputable scientists acting as advisors, it steadily becomes easier to make a claim of "junk-science" stick.
This is Milloy's particular skill. He is the best in the PR profession at blending legitimate criticism of bad science (and there's plenty around) with illegitimate criticism of science that is against his clients financial interests.
TASSC's scientists/members lend their names to the organisation on the basis that it's mission is purely one of advancing good scientific practice. They do so in the belief that TASSC is closely associated with government and environmental groups. Of course, that's not the whole story, but most of the scientists don't know that. Nor do the media, who are equally gullible.
TASSC gets a special mention in Ken Silverstein's book Washington On $10 Million A Day, subtitled "How Lobbyists Plunder the Nation" (1998), as do the Competitive Enterprises Institute (below), and that other "Astroturf grassroot" lobby group run by C. Boyden Gray, "Citizens for a Sound Economy".
Reaching The Bottom Of The Pits
The 'Washington Representatives' (1996, Columbia Books, Washington DC) listing of registered lobbyists, reveals Milloy was actually employed at that time by the EOP Group. This organisation is another Reagan Republican offshoot, which works with GCC and APCO Associates, and has many major US polluters as clients. (American Petroleum Institute, the Business Roundtable, the Chlorine Chemistry Council, Edison Electric Institute, National Mining Association and the Nuclear Energy Institute, to name just a few).
One of Milloy's claims to fame in Washington lobbying circles is that of creating the Information Council for the Environment (ICE), a front organisation for the coal industry (National Coal Association, the Western Fuels Association, and Edison Electrical Institute). ICE was later run by Bracy Williams & Co., a Washington, DC-based PR firm, but back in 1996 it launched a half-million dollar advertising blitz to assuage public fears about global warming.
Both ICE and the campaign collapsed after leaks of strategic-planning memos revealed that they had been paying-off scientists to support their cause.
ICE appears to be directly associated with the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) a conservative Washington think tank that focuses on "free-market environmentalism". The CEI has taken a front position belittling what it calls "hypothetical risks to human health" from environmental pollution.
- At a recent Congress hearing their representative stated that global climate change politics were fallaciously built on the assumption that humans are changing climate, and that this change will necessarily result in catastrophic events.
He then refuted all such criteria (and there are some scientist who would agree with this position) however he then emphasized the importance of wealth in addressing extreme events, such as hurricanes and floods. His comparison, as presente to the Congressional hearing, was between the loss of life in Florida and that in Bangladesh after similar storms. The implication was that it is better to pollute -- then to combat the problems you create later, by being wealthy enough to fix the damage.
The position of the CEI is that the first world should not attempt to control energy use and therefore make developing countries poorer, but rather, allow them to develop their economic base for technological advancement and resilience to battle such hurricans and floods.
The claim has a certain glimmer of rationality, until you find out who funds the propaganda; it is a creature of the energy and mining industries, and one of the major funders is the Mississippi Valley Coal Trade & Transport Council.
The CEI are also 'collaborating' with Australia's Western Mining Corporation, The Australian Government (major coal exporters), Ford Motors, American Petroleum Institute and the US National Mining Association on the Kyoto issue.
Consumer Alert
The CEI is also linked to a "free market" outfit called Consumer Alert, which is actually an industry-funded front-group (astroturf organisation) supported by the Chlorine Chemistry Council. This is itself an arm of the Chemical Manufacturers Association (the descendent of the Manufacturing Chemists Association which led the attack on Rachael Carson in 1962).
A secretary at Chlorine Council inadvertently revealed to a reporter that the group has a $13.5 million annual budget including more than $2 million a year for "communications". Consumer Alert has been vocal in its dismissal of the recent book 'Our Stolen Future' following the pattern which was established when the chemical industry went after Rachael Carson's 'Silent Spring'.
After ICE collapsed, it was replaced by the Global Climate Coalition (GCC) as the 'grassroots' organisation supporting the oil, coal, power and electricity distribution industry on environmental issues, and Milloy was working with the GCC during Kyoto. PR Watch reported "TASSC attempted to stimulate anti-treaty email to President Clinton by promising to enter writers' names in a $1,000 sweepstakes drawing."
On the eve of the Conference in December 1997, Milloy, on behalf of TASSC, Phillip Morris, and other corporate funders, announced that more than 500 physicians and scientists had signed an open letter to world leaders opposing any climate change treaty. When asked to provide the signers' names and credentials, Milloy told the authors that he had not had time to "compile" the hard-copy list.
(See: Milloy's employment by the EOP Group Inc. dates back to before 1995, and it includes a record of lobbying on behalf of the Fort Howard Corporation, the International Food Additives Council, Monsanto Co. and Edison Electrics.
Milloy denies he is a lobbyist:
Steve Fordyce wrote to Milloy and asked him if he was a lobbyist in Jan 1998. This was the reply:
"Thanks for the note. I do not lobby for ANYONE. Before I became
executive director of TASSC, I did some technical consulting for a D.C.
firm which had the policy of registering all its employees and
consultants as lobbyists (whether or not they lobbied) pursuant to a new
law passed in 1995. I am aware of the listing and have asked it to be
corrected since I no longer work for that firm.
I challenge anyone to produce any evidence that I have ever lobbied any
government official for anything."
Steve
And if you believe anyone can be accidentally registered as a lobbyist, then you'll believe anything. The EOP Group publications: "PMA Value to Taxpayers and Customers," (Washington: Edison Electric Institute April 1995) is probably one of his works, as is "Measuring Up to the Year 2000 Aim of the Framework Convention on Climate Change".
More recently, the EOP Group's boss Mike O'Bannon has been implicated in a bribery and corruption scandal involving Clinton's Secretary for Agriculture, Mike Espy (of the USDA). Among the 30-odd charges was one related to Espy's acceptance from the EOP Group of $US2,200 worth of tickets to the 1994 Super Bowl, and a job for Espy's girlfriend Patricia Dempsey.
The Washington Post (Nov 98) reported the arrangement in this way:
O'Bannon also helped Patricia Dempsey. In early 1994, he hired her to work as a training and events coordinator for his company, EOP Group Inc., a job that paid $35,000 a year. O'Bannon testified that Dempsey's performance was "sporadic at best," and said his partners and clients complained about her. She resigned from the firm in March 1995, after Espy had left USDA. O'Bannon testified that he hired Dempsey because the firm needed help and not in any way to curry favor with Espy. "I don't do favors in hiring," he said."
END.
The sources of this material are extensive, but much of it came directly or indirectly from PR Watch and from John Stauber and Sheldon Rampton (See also their book "Toxic Sludge Is Good For You)".
Check also PR Watch.
I've also spent a lot of time at the Philip Morris site looking at the released tobacco documents, and checking out what all these bastards have been up to over the years.
There is also a bit from Dave Shenk's Data Smog, which is highly recommended.
You should also buy and read Washington On $10 Million A Day, subtitled "How Lobbyists Plunder the Nation"
(1998, Ken Silverstein, Common Courage Press).
Back to Junk Index or Main Index
© Stewart Fist, Sydney, 1996
"Another friend of Espy's, lobbyist Michael O'Bannon, likewise denied doing anything improper by giving him a ticket to the 1994 Super Bowl game. At the time, O'Bannon was working on behalf of Oglethorpe Power, which wanted to repay a $3 billion USDA loan earlier than scheduled but also wanted to avoid paying $300 million in penalties. Although Espy and others at USDA sided with Oglethorpe, the Treasury Department rejected the arrangement.
Contact Stewart Fist