Thomas Hopkins
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This article is part of the Tobacco portal on Sourcewatch funded from 2006 - 2009 by the American Legacy Foundation. |
Dr. Thomas D. Hopkins is the dean of the College of Business at Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT).
Thomas Hopkins was one of the 19 members of the Academic Advisory Board of the pro-tobacco junk science report Science, economics, and environmental policy: a critical examination [1] published on August 11, 1994, by the Alexis de Tocqueville Institution (AdTI). AdTI was around that time funded by Philip Morris (see AdTI-Funding).
Both Michael Darby (another member of that group of 19 peer-reviewers) and Thomas Hopkins were also on the 'Academic Advisory Board' of AdTI's Center on Regulation and Economic Growth. Merrick Carey (then president of AdTI) wrote on February 8, 1994 to Philip Morris that they planned to immediately activate their key Advisory Board members for a pro-tobacco campaign. He specifically mentioned their 'Center on Regulation and Economic Growth'.
James Tozzi was the Deputy Administrator of OMB when he left the organization in 1983 after a 20 year career there. Later James Tozzi became heavily involved in pro-tobacco activities for Philip Morris. Hopkins was, as one of several former Deputy Administrators of OMB, until 2002 a member of the advisory board of Tozzi's Center for Regulatory Effectiveness (CRE). [2] Also CRE was sponsored by Philip Morris for their fight against regulations concerning secondhand smoke. According to Tozzi, ".. tobacco companies are no longer contributing to the Center for Regulatory Effectiveness ..". [3]
Documents & Timeline
1964: B.A. Oberlin College
1971: Ph.D. in Economics, Yale University
1968-73: Assistant Professor of Economics, Bowdoin College, Brunswick, Maine
1973-75: Full time consultant, Irwin Management Company, Inc., Columbus, Indiana
1975-81: Council on Wage and Price Stability (1975-77: Deputy Assistant Director; 1977-81: Assistant Director; 1981: Acting Director)
1981-84: Deputy Administrator, Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, part of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) (along with James J Tozzi during the Reagan 'deregulation' Administration.
1984-87: Visiting Associate Professor, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland
1987-88: Associate Professor of Economics, The American University, Washington, DC
1988-99: Arthur J. Gosnell Professor of Economics in RIT's College of Liberal Arts
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." [4]
"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."
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:
- Dr. Gary Anderson, Professor of Economics, California State University-Northridge
- Dr. Nancy Bord Visiting Scholar The Hoover Institution Stanford University
- Dr. Gordon L. Brady Associate Professor and Director Environmental Studies Sweet Briar College
- Dr. Jeffrey Clark Professor of Economics University of Tennessee-Chattanoogna
- Dr. Michael Darby Professor of Economics and Director John M. Olin Center for Policy University of California, Los Angeles
- Dr. Robert Ekelund Lowder Eminent Scholar Auburn University
- Dr. Michael Gough Project Director Congressional Office of Technology Assessment
- Dr. William Hazeltine Environmental Consultant
- Dr. Thomas Hopkins Gosnell Professor of Economics Rochester Institute of Technology
- Dr. Dwight R. Lee Ramsey Professor of Economics University of Georgia
- Dr. Michael Marlow, Professor of Economics, California State Polytechnic University-San Luis Obispo
- Dr. Thomas Gale Moore Senior Fellow The Hoover Institution Stanford University
- Dr. Malcolm Ross Research Mineralogist U.S. Geological Survey
- Dr. S. Fred Singer Professor Emeritus of Environmental Sciences University of Virginia and President Science and Environmental Policy Project
- Dr. Gerhard Stöhrer Director of Chemical Risk Program Science and Environmental Policy Project and former Department Head Sloan-Kettering Institute for Cancer Research
- Dr. Mark Thornton Professor of Economics Auburn University
- Dr. Robert D. Tollison Duncan Black Professor of Economics and Director Center for the Study of Public Choice George Mason University
- Dr. Richard Vedder Professor of Economics University of Ohio
- Dr. Richard Wagner Professor of Economics and Chairman Department of Economics George Mason University
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 [6]
- 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. [7]
- The final report was called Science, Economics, and Environmental Policy: A Critical Examination.' It had the approval of the Cash for Comments Economists Network. [8]
1999- : Dean of the College of Business at RIT
Other Positions
- Adviser, Americans for Tax Reform (1993- )
- Adjunct Fellow, Center for the Study of American Business, Washington University (1996-2000)
- Advisory Board, Mercatus Center Regulatory Studies Program, George Mason University (1999- )
Related Links
- "Thomas Hopkins, Ph.D. - Dean", College of Business at Rochester Institute of Technology
- "Thomas Hopkins, Ph.D.", Rochester Institute of Technology, September 18, 2002
- "Resume Thomas D. Hopkins, Ph.D.", Rochester Institute of Technology, 2002?
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