Institute for Regulatory Policy
The Institute for Regulatory Policy is a front group created by the tobacco industry to support its version of "sound science" in environmental and public health policy. In addition to tobacco, IRP has worked on issues including radon, chlorinated water and electromagnetic fields.
History
Beginning as early as the 1970s, the tobacco industry began to worry about the mounting evidence showing that nonsmokers as well as smokers suffer adverse health effects from secondhand smoke inhaled in bars, restaurants and other public places. Industry executives realized that the issue of tobacco's indirect effects posed a potentially greater threat to profits than the issue of its direct effects on smokers themselves. Once the public realized that cigarettes were also killing nonsmokers, anti-tobacco activists would press forward with increasing success in their campaigns to ban smoking in public places.
"If smokers can't smoke on the way to work, at work, in stores, banks, restaurants, malls, and other public places, they are going to smoke less," complained Philip Morris political affairs director Ellen Merlo in a speech to tobacco vendors. "A large percentage of them are going to quit. In short, cigarette purchases will be drastically reduced and volume declines will accelerate."
Researchers have known for decades that secondhand smoke causes or exacerbates a number of health problems in nonsmokers, including heart disease, emphysema and asthma. In 1992, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) added to the list by publishing a risk assessment that designated secondhand tobacco smoke for the first time as a known cause of lung cancer. The tobacco industry's preoccupation with "sound science" emerged as it mobilized to fight the EPA risk assessment.
The IRP was created by Multinational Business Services (MBS), a company owned by lobbyist James Tozzi, who is described in internal Philip Morris documents as the company's "primary contact on the EPA/ETS risk assessment during the second half of 1992." During that period, it noted, "Tozzi has been invaluable in executing our Washington efforts including generating technical briefing papers, numerous letters to agencies and media interviews," a service for which Philip Morris paid an estimated $300,000 in consulting fees. The document added that "Tozzi could also be helpful in other regulatory matters (food and environmental) affecting PM."
Philip Morris paid Tozzi's company another $880,000 to establish the IRP as a "nonprofit" think tank, which put together "three different coalitions which support sound science - Coalition for Executive Order, Coalition for Moratorium on Risk Assessments, and Coalition of Cities and States on Environmental Mandates. ... IRP could work with us as well as APCO in a coordinated manner." According to a Philip Morris document, "IRP is now a viable organization that can address various regulatory issues. IRP has established a coalition representing the interests of a broad array of industries and trade associations. Additionally, IRP has established a relationship with many state and local governments throughout the U.S. The coalition could address a number of regulatory issues of interest to PM in 1993."[1]
MBS employee Steven Milloy went on to launch JunkScience.com and several other organizations that continue to attack environmentalists, public health and food safety regulators, anti-nuclear and animal rights activists, and a wide range of other targets that he accuses of using unsound science to advance various political agendas.
Personnel
- Thorne Auchter, director, is a former Administrator of OSHA
Affiliated organizations
In addition to the IRP, Tozzi and MBS have created a number of other anti-regulatory projects, including:
