Legislators in nine states are polishing bills aimed at outing the largest donors of politically active dark money operations.
Continue readingPolitical ad watch: 48 new commercials in one day
The deluge of ads gives us an insight in to where the smart money is spending. And reminds us the smart money believes that going negative works.
Continue readingSpecial interests walk away empty handed in VA-07 primary, but maybe not Eric Cantor
While pundits issue the post-mortem of Cantor's campaign, the American Chemistry Council and a host of PACs are left wondering how all their efforts (read:money) could have been in vain.
Continue readingCampaign intelligence: Nearly $110 million in independent expenditures this primary season
The vast majority of this spending is aimed at Republicans.
Continue readingHow TV stations are letting political advertisers play hide and seek
Sunlight and Campaign Legal Center, represented by Georgetown University's Institute for Public Representation, are filing complaints against 11 TV stations for letting political advertisers hide their identites.
Continue readingInfluence Analytics: $37 will get you a lobbying fight over climate change
In the era of big data, it shouldn't be surprising that some of the biggest lobbying fights are over numbers. In this case, the number is $37.
Continue readingPolitical chemistry: The legal magic that makes corporate donations disappear
Want to know what dark money is and what it can do? Here's a classic example.
Continue readingIn new battleground over toxic reform, American Chemistry Council targets the states
This is a special report from The Center for Public Integerity, a member -- like the Sunlight Foundation Reporting Group -- of the Investigative News Network.
HARTFORD, Conn. — In the bare-knuckle war over toxic chemicals, the fight between industry and activists has shifted noticeably from Washington, D.C., to state venues such as the golden-domed Capitol that rises over Hartford like a lordly manse.
What happened this year in Hartford shows how industry — fueled by the American Chemistry Council, a $100 million a year advocacy group glittered with Fortune 500 partners — is flexing its muscles from statehouse to statehouse to beat back ...
Continue readingWhy are efforts to regulate potentially hazardous plastics stalled?
In late 2009, when Lisa Jackson, at the time President Barack Obama's new head of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), invoked a long-existing but never-before-used power to to create a list of "chemicals of concern," the administration appeared to be putting chemical companies on notice that it planned to be aggressive about regulating risks from exposure to the industry's product. Jackson's list included eight of the common plasticizers known as "phthalates" that have been shown to cause to reproductive abnormalities in animal studies and that have also been linked to health problems in humans. They are used ...
ExxonMobil lobbies consumer agency on phthalates
Under heavy lobbying by ExxonMobil and other industry heavyweights, the Consumer Product Safety Commission is nearly a year late with a mandated report on the possible dangers found in chemicals used to create plastic products from raincoats to "rubber" duck bath toys to shampoo. A Sunlight review of the public record shows how outgunned consumer advocates are by industry.
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