Merrick Carey

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This article is part of the Tobacco portal on Sourcewatch funded from 2006 - 2009 by the American Legacy Foundation.

Merrick Carey (also known as Mac Carey) is Chief Executive Officer and founder of the Lexington Institute, "a public policy foundation he founded in 1998 and is based in Arlington, Virginia. The Institute runs research, press efforts and policy forums to advance democratic capitalism and a strong national defense. Its annual revenues are currently $2.5m per year.

"Carey was Press Secretary to Representative Jack Kemp (1982-1984). From 1985 to 1987, Carey was Chief of Staff to Representative James Andrew Courter, a member of the House Armed Services and Iran-Contra Committees, and in 1989 he served as Director of Intergovernmental Affairs for New Jersey Governor Thomas Kean. From 1990-1993, Carey was Executive Vice President of the international economic advisory firm Johnson Smick International.

"Mr. Carey also served for 7 years as an Intelligence Officer in the United States Naval Reserve. He joined in 1989 as a Petty Officer 3rd Class, was commissioned as an Ensign in 1990 and promoted to Lieutenant in 1994. His duties included 7 months as an Intelligence Watch Officer at U. S. Navy Headquarters, Europe, from September 1990-April 1991 as a mobilized reservist for Operation Desert Shield and Operation Desert Storm, and as an Air Intelligence Officer for 5 weeks in 1996 preparing missions and flying with VP-11 in support of Operation Decisive Edge over Bosnia.

"Mr. Carey has a B. A. in History and Political Science from Drew University in Madison, New Jersey."

Mr. Carey wrote in 1994 as the president of the Alexis de Tocqueville Institution a letter to David P. Nicoli at Philip Morris asking $60.000 for a 2 months pro-tobacco campaign. [1]

Merrick Carey wrote as president of the Alexis de Tocqueville Institution (AdTI) the chapter 'Environmental Tobacco Smoke: Ideology Before the Facts' in the paper "Candidates for Corrections Day: The Ten Worst Regulations of the Federal Government" [2], published on June 1, 1996 by the Institute for Policy Innovation.

Documents & Timeline


1994 Aug A Alexis de Tocqueville report "The EPA and the Science of ETS" has been funded by the Tobacco Institute. The author was Adjunct Scholar Kent Jeffreys, and the senior reviewer was S. Fred Singer, a Professor of Environmental Science (on leave from the University of Virginia) and a Senior Fellow at the Institute. The final report was scheduled to be complete mid-June and it would be entitled "Science and Environmentalism".

A confidential memo by the president of the Tobacco Institute, Samuel D. Chilcote, Jr., described how this secret tobacco-funded report was being used in legislative lobbying:

This morning Reps. Peter Geren (D-TX) and John Mica (R-FL) held a press conference announcing the release of a study by the Alexis de Tocqueville Institution that evaluates the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) scientific principles used to justify policy decisions. Geren and Mica were joined by Cesar Conda, executive director of the de Tocqueville Institution and coauthors Dr. S. Fred Singer and Kent Jeffreys." [3]

"Press coverage included States News Service, Stephens Publishing and Cable Congress. Several congressional staffers also attended, copies of the Geren/Mica "Dear Colleague" letter, press release and the study are enclosed."

[4]

This report is part of a larger coordinated effort to blindside the EPA. A "panel of experts" was assembled to "peer-review" the report. Naturally the majority were people with identified links to tobacco-funded institutes and think tanks, and some who share the same small set of funders.

Academic Advisory Board:

Senior Staff and Contributing Associates
Rachael Applegate,   Bruce Bartlett,   Merrick Carey,   Cesar Conda,   Gregory Fossedal,   Dave Juday,   Felix Rouse,   Aaron Stevens

Ten of the 19 names of the Academic Advisory Board are members of the Cash for Comments Economists Network. At this time S. Fred Singer was a Senior Fellow at the Alexis de Tocqueville Institute, but they chose not to credit him with such close links.

These attempt to link the tobacco industry's problems to arguments about climate change were part funded by the Olin Foundation, Koch Family Foundations and Scaife Foundations.

  • 20 page Draft document sent to the Tobacco Institute [5]
  • The release about the final report (August 11 1994) It is now an attack on "environmental regulation" -- ETS, radon, pesticides and agricultural regulation, and the Superfund toxic waste cleanup program ... and based, supposedly, on the quality of the science used by the EPA. [6]
  • The final report was called Science, Economics, and Environmental Policy: A Critical Examination.' It had the approval of the Cash for Comments Economists Network. [7]


1996-98: Carey remained president of AdTI until early 1998. According to AdTI's 990 forms his salary in 1996 as a president was $95,400 and in 1998 his salary as a former president was $172,000. See also: AdTI-Funding.

Some other articles he wrote as president of the Alexis de Tocqueville Institution:



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