Total Indoor Environmental Quality

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

The Total Indoor Environmental Quality (TIEQ) pseudo-coalition was created by the PR firm E. Bruce Harrison in 1991. The PR company reported on TIEQ activities to RJ Reynolds Tobacco (Betsy Annese) so it is safe to assume that they were the primary financial supporter. They maintained:

It was the concern and goal of the founding members to have ETS (Environmental Tobacco Smoke) viewed in the totality of the indoor environment and to keep it from being regulated as a separate issue.

[Note: In the Legacy Database the TIEQ has only 58 results under the name Total Indoor Environment Quality and over 500 under Total Indoor Environmental Quality]. They also usually added the word "Coalition".

While EPA's report on ETS has promoted many employers to initiate detrimental smoking policies, TIEQ has become and effective player in the legislative and regulatory process.[2]

At some later date the TIEQ came under the umbrella of the National Environmental Development Association (NEDA) which was apparently run for a larger group of corporate interest and industries. The Advocacy Institute ( Michael Pertschuk, et al) reported on TIEQ in Nov 1994:

The National Environmental Development Association created [the TIEQ] in 1992. It is generally known as NEDA/TIEQ. RJ Reynolds Tobacco is an original corporate founder and member, and E. Bruce Harrison, a public relations firm who represents RJ Reynolds, created it with funding from Reynolds. The public relations firm and TIEQ share the same phone number.

In the press release announcing the organization's founding, the group claims that 'the correlation between poor indoor environmental quality and adverse health effects hasn't been proven' - a common refrain of the tobacco industry. NEDA/TIEQ. like the tobacco industry, argues that more studies are needed before regulations of any indoor air containments (like tobacco smoke) are considered .

Documents & Timeline

1991TIEQ was founded by the PR firm E. Bruce Harrison in the USA and run by one of their key employee lobbyists, Matthew Swetonic. It was nominally an offshoot of the National Environmental Development Association which was also under E Bruce Harrison control to service both tobacco and chemical interests.

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1992 Dec 10 The E Buce Harrison monthly report for November (sent to Betsy Annese)

• Prepared document presenting an overview of TIEQ's 1993 activities.
• Organised a TIEQ executive committee meeting for December 3.
• Met with Trudy Bryan of DuPont to discuss increasing TIEQ membership contributions
• Worked to recruit new companies to join the TIEQ coalition.
• Met with Ron Gots to discuss contractual issues, plans for 1993 : [Gots was a Bethesda physician/toxicologist; member of the IAPAG group and TASSC; and IAQ tester (via the National Medical Advisory Service which provided witnesses to tobacco and chemical companies.). He was chairman of the TIEQ SAB and his wife Barbara was also actively involved.]
• Monitored activities of ESCA's model IAQ bill drafting committee, and began preparing TIEQ position papers.
• Co-sponsored and attended the symposium on multiple chemical sensitivity conducted by the International Society of Toxicology and Pharmacology.

[Gots and Gio Batta Gori were running this ISRTP symposium at Arlington for the tobacco industry]. Gots later founded the Environmental Sensitivities Research Institute (ESRI).

• Met with Doug Greenwood of the American Institute for Architects to discuss AIA's work on indoor air issues.
• Met with Ken Smith, editorial writer for the Washington Times, to discuss editorial on the involvement of DiFranza with the Surgeon General's report on youth smoking and the proceedings of the senate hearing on caret emissions;
• Worked with Peggy Carter to gain information that would provide a news hook for Doug Bandow's coverage of the DiFranza study.

[Dr. Joseph DiFranza has produced a report on the tobacco industry's efforts to get the dirt on him after he had published a study on smoking in minors. Reynolds tried to get the names of the children involved via subpoenas, but since they were minors this failed. A very corrupt journalist [[Douglas Bandow|Doug Bandow (who usually worked through the Cato Institute) was being paid to write this up as a case of scientific fraud perpetrated against the tobacco company, and a very compliant Washington Times was willing to publish it.]

• Many more items on this list.

[3]

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1993 Dec 28 Philip Morris report on ETS/Accommodation activities uses initials to identify internal staff (handlers) and external contractors (lobbyists).

• PM Staff   • DL = David G Laufer • TW = Tina A Walls • RM = Roy Marsden • TB = Tom Borelli • DK = Denise F Keane (?)
• Lobbyists • TH = Tom Hockaday (APCO) • LS = Lee Stitzenberger (Dolphin) • RH = Richard Hines

Philip Morris is creating op-eds on IAQ and risk assessment, which will be distributed to the media (by Tom Hockaday at APCO) under the fake bylines of:

• IRP -- Institute for Regulatory Policy, a fake lobby group run by Thorne Auchter and Jim Tozzi of Multinational Business Services
• TIEQ -- Total Indoor Environmental Quality, an offshoot of the National Environmental Development Association (wider coalition) run for the tobacco industry by Matt Swetonic and other lobbyists from the E Bruce Harrison company,
• BCIA -- Business Council on Indoor Air, created and funded by the chemical industry via Paul Oreffice of Dow Chemicals and run by Paul Cammer. This was a IAQ lobbyist for chemical companies (with Cammer working for tobacco on the side).
• NEMI -- National Energy Management Institute, a subsection of the AFL-CIO/union groups which was funded and directed by tobacco.
• HBI -- Healthy Buildings International, an air-testing and duct-cleaning company run by Gray Robertson, which worked for the Tobacco Institute. It worked at discounting the role cigarette smoke played in indoor air pollution.[4]

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1994 Claim by E Bruce Harrison PR:

"TIEQ has been successful in offering recommendations to HR 2919 The Indoor Air Act of 1994, that have dramatically improved the bill (from the tobacco industry perspective) from its original version. We continue to work with the Subcommittee on Health and the Environment, as well as with members of Congress, to add amendment that would be more practical and efficient for industry."

See also the long list of claimed accomplishments for the tobacco industry

E. Bruce Harrison are recommending to RJ Reynolds that they fund the extension of the TIEQ into Europe. They seem to also have control of the CCMS (]]Committee on the Challenges of Modern Society]]) which they say ...

... is an international Air Quality organisation which was created in 1969 for NATO. It is running two meetings a year in various countries. However the CCMS is concerned with 'source control' of indoor air pollution (the cause, rather than the solution) which is against tobacco interests.

They recommend smoking bans, or separately ventilated smoking rooms. Also EBH has met with Scientists Institute for Public Information (SIPI) re a media project on ETS. SIPI is a New York-based non profit to bring scientist and journalists together in a variety of forums. [5]