This article was originally published by the Center for Media and Democracy at PRWatch.org.

Herbicide manufacturer Syngenta had an interesting way of celebrating Earth Day this year, touting the joys of pesticides.

Happy Earth Day! Photo by jetsandzeppelins

The multinational conglomerate sent out a press release during the approach to Earth Day exclaiming that “modern farming is grounds for Earth Day celebration” because, it continues, “conservation tillage and no-till farming are responsible for significant environmental benefits often overlooked by Earth Day observers.” These “no-till” farming techniques, which reduce erosion and fuel use, depend “on the ability to control weeds, demonstrating the importance of the 50-year-old herbicide atrazine.”

Some scientists, including agricultural economist John Ikerd and toxicologist Warren Porter, are not buying the “atrazine is great for Mother Earth” spin.

Syngenta, which reported over $13 billion in revenue in 2011, is the primary manufacturer of atrazine, which is commonly used to kill weeds in commodity crops, forests, and golf courses. As the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) has reported as part of its “Atrazine Exposed” project, its potential harmful effects on human health have been documented since the 1990s. It has been banned in the European Union since 2004 as well as in some parts of the United States. However, it is still one of the most heavily used herbicides in the U.S.

Syngenta has spent millions on marketing, public relations (PR) campaigns, and lobbying to maintain its market and fight calls to phase atrazine out of use in the U.S.

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The herbicide atrazine, one of the most heavily used herbicides in the United States has been found in almost 94 percent of U.S. groundwater and can harm human health in multiple ways. ALEC has promoted “model” legislation friendly to Syngenta, atrazine’s primary manufacturer, across the country. At least once, this legislation was introduced to ALEC by a lobbyist paid by Syngenta.

The “Data Quality Act”

In 2000, as exposed by a front-page article in the Washington Post, a chemical industry lobbyist slipped a couple of lines of text into a federal appropriations bill “without congressional discussion or debate” that effectively changed the way chemicals are regulated. The amendment was called the “Data Quality Act.” Jim Tozzi, an industry lobbyist, known as “the master craftsman when it comes to working the regulatory process,” helped Phillip Morris fight proposed regulations. Tozzi is a former deputy administrator of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) under President Ronald Reagan and a Washington lobbyist at the firm Multinational Business Services and head of the Center for Regulatory Effectiveness.

The Act opens up each federal agency to a petitioning process. In practice, this allows corporations with financial interest in weakening regulations to petition and challenge them through industry-funded science. In his book The Republican War on Science, journalist Chris Mooney explains that the Data Quality Act, “[a]s subsequently interpreted by the Bush administration, . . . creates an unprecedented and cumbersome process by which government agencies must field complaints over the data, studies, and reports they release to the public. It is a science abuser’s dream come true.”

ALEC’s “State Data Quality Act”

After giving the language to Rep. Jo Ann Emerson (R-MO) to insert into the massive “Treasury and General Government Appropriations Act,” signed by lame duck President Bill Clinton on December 21, 2000, Tozzi took it straight to ALEC.

According to Bloomberg’s Bureau of National Affairs Daily Environmental Report, in 2003, “two model bills that would echo the federal Data Quality Act [we]re being considered by the American Legislative Exchange Council, according to Jim Tozzi.” Bloomberg wrote that Tozzi “presented the model state bills—a data quality bill and a data access bill—to the council for consideration in November [2003].” The Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) made ALEC’s “State Data Quality Act” more accessible to the public in 2011 with its “ALECexposed.org” project.

The seeds Tozzi planted in ALEC’s fertile ground, however, didn’t bear much fruit in this case. State policymakers seem to have thought better of it.

In 2004, Michigan enacted a similar act, introduced by former Senator and ALEC member Valde Garcia (R-22), that established a “laboratory data quality assurance advisory council” within the state Department of Natural Resources but did not establish the controversial petition process to challenge state regulations on the basis of so-called “data quality.” Read the rest of this entry →

Atrazine is an herbicide primarily manufactured by the multinational conglomerate Syngenta and commonly used on commodity crops, forests, and golf courses. Its potential harmful effects on human health have been documented since the 1990s.

As a consequence, atrazine has been “unauthorized” in the European Union since 2004 (and in some European countries since 1991). However, it is one of the most heavily used herbicides in the United States. Syngenta, atrazine’s primary manufacturer, has spent hundreds of millions combined on marketing, public relations (PR) campaigns, and lobbying to maintain its market and fight calls to phase the product out of use in the U.S. Read the rest of this entry →