A Report by the Sierra Club, Missouri Chapter Contact: John Hickey, Chapter Director (314) 644-1011, john.hickey@sierraclub.org
Overview
Missouri voters will decide Amendment 1 on Nov 6th, 2018. Amendment 1 reforms our state government by lowering the individual limits of campaign contributions and nearly eliminating lobbyist gifts to Missouri state government officials. Proponents of Amendment 1, CLEAN Missouri, suggest that special interests exert undue influence over Missouri’s state government with enormous campaign donations, while armies of lobbyists in the capitol lavish dinners and gifts on elected officials. Proponents argue that special interests have too much control over state government. Our report tests that theory by comparing corporate polluters and clean air advocates. We determine the accuracy of these claims by using measurable publicly available data to compare contributions between corporate polluters and clean air advocates.
The Clean Air Act (CAA) is crucial to public health. How crucial? The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) estimates that by 2020, the CAA will have prevented over 230,000 early deaths due to reduced ambient particulate matter. By that time, it will have also prevented 75,000 cases of chronic bronchitis, 200,000 acute myocardial infarctions, 2.4 million cases of exacerbated asthma, and 120,000 emergency room visits. The law also benefits our schools and economy by reducing missed school and work days due to related health complications.
Meanwhile the Missouri Department of Natural Resources posts annual statewide warnings about limiting local fish consumption due to the dangerous levels of lead and mercury found in our local fish populations. Lead and mercury are known causes of brain damage in children. For the health of our citizens and our environment, we must do everything possible to reduce the amount of harmful pollutants in our environment
Missouri’s state motto is, “Let the good of the people be the supreme law.” For the good of the people, the CAA promotes clean air and public health. We must be able to trust our state government to hold violators of this integral law accountable.
Our Methodology
We identified corporate polluters in Missouri with documented CAA violations through the EPA’s enforcement & compliance data located at www.echo.epa.gov and through published news reports. For this report, we define corporate polluters as entities found guilty of CAA violations, and clean air advocates as environmental groups who have made any monetary campaign contributions from January 1st 2015 through October 8th, 2018.
After identifying CAA violators, we used Missouri Ethics Commission (MEC) data, accessed online at www.MEC.mo.gov the week of October 8th, 2018 to determine the monetary contributions of corporate polluters, as well as comparable clean air advocates from January 1st 2015 through October 8th, 2018. We also identified the total number of paid lobbyists each corporation and advocate group with recorded campaign contributions maintained.
Clean Air Act Violators in Missouri
We examined three Missouri corporations found to be in violation of the CAA:
- Ameren UE’s coal fired power plant in Festus (Source)
- The Doe Run Company’s smelting facility in Boss
- The Doe Run Company’s smelting facility in Herculaneum
- Continental Cement’s cement factory in Hannibal
Clean Air Act Advocates in Missouri
Below are four clean air advocacy groups who have made monetary contributions to who in Missouri:
- Missouri Sierra Club
- Missouri Votes Conservation
- The Missouri Coalition for the Environment
- Renew Missouri
Money’s Influence Over Our Legislature
Together, the three corporate polluters gave over a million dollars in monetary contributions to state officials, state political parties, and PACS from January 1st, 2015 through October 8th, 2018.
- Ameren Missouri - $513,614.12
- The Ameren Missouri PAC - $556,275.00
- The Doe Run Company - $182,176.00
- Continental Cement - $26,552.00
Total - $1,278,617.12
By comparison the four environmental groups have provided less than $10,000 in monetary contributions to state candidates, state political parties, and PACs in this time frame.
- Missouri Sierra Club - $8,100.00
- Missouri Votes Conservation - $1,000.00
- The Missouri Coalition for the Environment - $250.00
- Renew Missouri - $52.00
Total - $9,402.00
Corporate polluters outspent clean air advocates in this time frame by 136 to 1.
Paid Lobbyists in the State Capitol
Under Missouri law, a “lobbyist is an individual attempting to influence the state executive, state legislative, state judicial, or elected local government officials’ actions and meets one or more of the following:
• Is acting in the ordinary course of business
• Is engaged in pay as a lobbyist
• Is designated to act as a lobbyist by any person, business entity, governmental entity, religious organization, nonprofit corporation, association or other entity
• Spends $50 or more on behalf of public officials, annually, from January 1 through December 31st” Source
In other words, a lobbyist is someone attempting to influence elected state officials who is compensated for their work. Of the selected groups, this is how many lobbyists they pay:
Corporate Polluters – Paid Lobbyists
- Ameren Missouri - 44
- Continental Cement - 4
- Doe Run Company - 2
Total: 50
Clean Air Advocates – Paid Lobbyists
- Missouri Coalition for the Environment - 1
- Missouri Sierra Club - 2*
- Missouri Votes Conservation - 1*
- Renew Missouri - 3
Total: 6
- Missouri Votes Conservation and the Missouri Sierra Club share one lobbyist; in totaling the number of lobbyists, she was only counted once.
Corporate polluters are represented in the State Capitol by nearly 10 times as many lobbyists as clean air advocates.
Conclusion
This report documents that corporate polluters wield far more influence in Missouri state government than clean air advocates.
This work was commissioned and paid for by the Sierra Club and provided to Clean Missouri. The Sierra Club has taken a position to support Amendment 1 in order to address special interest influence by corporate polluters on state government decision-makers.