A group of House Democrats introduced legislation this week that aims to protect workers from combustible dust – a fire and explosion threat that has killed or injured hundreds in recent decades.

Last year, the Center for Public Integrity examined the toll triggered by recent preventable tragedies – and the political and bureaucratic forces that impeded greater protection from a hazard recognized for more than a century. Workers across a range of industries face dust dangers from materials as varied as sugar, coal, wood and plastic.

The federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration began the process of issuing a rule to address the hazard in 2009, but its progress has stalled.

The new bill, announced Thursday, would compel the agency to issue interim protections within a year and set deadlines for finalizing a permanent rule.

“While OSHA has taken some limited steps to protect workers and property from combustible dust explosions, the widely recommended protections necessary to prevent these explosions are caught up in red tape and special interest objections,” Rep. George Miller, the senior Democrat on the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, said in a statement announcing the bill’s introduction.

Standards set by the nonprofit National Fire Protection Association have existed for decades, but are optional in many areas. Enforcement is often weak or nonexistent. Thursday’s bill would require OSHA to base much of its interim standard on these NFPA guidelines. It would mandate more worker training, a regimen of cleaning and inspections to prevent dust buildups, and work procedures and equipment design to minimize explosion and fire risk.

The new bill would require OSHA to issue an interim standard within a year, then a proposed rule within another 18 months. The agency would then have to finalize the rule within the next three years.

The rule could affect a large number of businesses, and many industry groups have pushed back, arguing for exemptions or calling the measure unnecessary.

The American Chemistry Council has taken one of the strongest positions opposing the rule, saying in a statement last year to the Center, “We believe that the accidents that have occurred might have been prevented if current OSHA regulations and relevant combustible dust consensus standards had been followed and enforced.” A representative for the trade group did not respond to a request for comment Friday.

OSHA has repeatedly set rule deadlines, then moved them back. OSHA is one of only three federal agencies that must convene a panel of potentially affected small businesses to allow them to raise objections to an unpublished rule draft. The agency’s most recent agenda said it hopes to begin this stage in the process in October.

A spokesman for OSHA did not respond to a request for comment on Thursday’s legislation.

As the rulemaking process has dragged on, fires and explosions have continued. The Center detailed a series of three accidents in 2011, all involving combustible iron dust, that killed five workers at the Hoeganaes Corp. plant in Gallatin, Tenn.

OSHA faced a similar situation after a series of high-profile dust explosions at grain elevators in the 1970s. The agency proposed regulating the handling of grain dust, and industry groups objected vociferously. OSHA issued the rule in 1987 and, in a 2003 review, found that deaths in grain dust explosions had dropped by about 70 percent. The primary industry group that opposed the rule recently credited it with reducing deaths and injuries without imposing the devastating economic burden it had originally predicted.

If you watched President Obama’s State of the Union address last week, you might have missed the scheme he unveiled that will lead to the ruination of the Medicare prescription drug program, destroy pharmaceutical companies’ incentive to develop new life-saving medicines and even imperil our country’s economic growth.

I know I missed it.

Fortunately, the top PR guy at the drug companies’ big trade association in Washington quickly issued a press release to clue us in on what the President is really up to and what will happen if he can follow through on his pledge to curtail Medicare spending by reducing “taxpayer subsidies to prescription drug companies.”

Here’s what Matthew D. Bennett, senior vice president of communications and public affairs at Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA), wrote within hours of the speech:

“The President’s proposal to tamper with a program that works well would not yield any benefit for seniors. Instead, analysts have projected that the President’s scheme would harm Part D’s competitive dynamics, yielding higher premiums, more restrictive access to medicines, and diminished research on the next generation of medicines.”

So what is Bennett so worked up about? The White House said after the speech that the President intends to ask that drug makers help the government cover the prescription costs for a group of Americans referred to as “dual eligibles.” Of the approximately 50 millions Medicare beneficiaries, about a fifth are also eligible for Medicaid because of their low incomes. 

Before the Medicare Part D drug program was created in 2006, the pharmaceutical industry paid rebates to the government to help pay for those folks’ medications. The rebate program ended when Part D went into effect and the dual eligibles’ drug coverage was switched from Medicaid to Medicare. As a result, taxpayers are paying more now than before, even though drug companies are getting billions of dollars in revenue they never had before Part D was created. So the President will be asking Congress to reinstate the rebates, which the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office says would save billions of dollars in government spending every year. That’s because even though dual eligibles comprise only 20 percent of the total number of people enrolled in Medicare, they account for almost a third of total Medicare spending.

What drug companies are really worried about, of course, is that bringing the rebate program back would reduce their profits a little bit.  But it’s not as if these companies can’t afford to pitch in to help bring Medicare costs down. Reuters estimates that drug makers take in about $300 billion a year in the United States alone. When you consider that the profit margins for pharmaceutical companies are among the highest in the corporate world, that translates into serious cash going into the pockets of investors. Pfizer’s most recently reported profit margin, for example, was 24.7 percent. Astra Zeneca’s was 22.5 percent. Exxon’s, by comparison, was a measly 9.98 percent. Insurance companies somehow make do with 5 or 6 percent or less.

A Wall Street analyst told Reuters that reinstituting the rebate program could cost the drug companies 2 to 7 percent in profits. I added up the 2012 profits of nine of the biggest drug makers and came up with about $60 billion. Even if they had to give up 7 percent of that to help the government pay for prescriptions for the sickest and poorest of the Medicare population, they would still have profits of more than $55 billion. And that’s just for nine companies.

That sounds pretty good. But over the next few months, you can expect to hear that the sky will fall if Congress goes along with the President’s “scheme” —which is probably unlikely anyway because of all the buddies that PhRMA has on Capitol Hill. Just last week I noted that the drug makers have spent more than any other industry over the past several years lobbying Congress, just to keep something like this from ever happening.

Here’s more of Bennett’s spin on the President’s scheme, which gives us a hint of the talking points we’ll be hearing from PhRMA and its friends about the dire consequences of asking drug makers to sacrifice a few bucks to help save a program that they benefit from:

 “R&D (in the pharmaceutical industry) is critical to the country’s long term economic growth and to important medical advances that improve quality of life.  Biopharmaceutical sector R&D investment should be fostered, not singled out for destructive policies."

And this: “The President has again proposed to upend the successful Medicare Part D prescription drug program by imposing government price controls on it.”

What the President really should be proposing to “upend,” in my view, is the stranglehold PhRMA has on Washington. We’ll see later this year if that’s even remotely possible.  

Nearly $3 million and counting.

That's how much money outside interest groups have spent ahead of the Feb. 26 party primary for Illinois' 2nd District special congressional election.

The bulk of the funding — more than $2.5 million through Tuesday — has been spent by New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg's anti-gun super PAC Independence USA PAC, according to Federal Election Commission records.

The organization is joined by four other political committees that have also bought ads that advocate for or against one of the three main Democratic candidates battling to fill the seat, vacated by Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr., D-Ill., who is facing federal felony charges.

Only about one in 10 House races attracted as much or more outside attention during the entire two-year 2012 election cycle.

The first congressional contest of the 2014 election cycle may be emblematic of a new norm in House races, where cash-flush super PACs and politically active nonprofit groups easily outspend candidates. And given the Illinois race and the GOP intra-party fights in 2012, spending won't be reserved for the general election, either.

In the Illinois 2nd District race, outside groups combined spent $2.7 million on independent expenditures through Tuesday, a figure that almost certainly will rise between now and next week's primary.

Nearly $2 million has gone to ads and other efforts opposing former Rep. Deborah Halvorson, a gun rights supporter, who faces former Cook County Chief Administrative Officer Robin Kelly and Chicago Alderman Anthony Beale.

Independence USA PAC spent more than $730,000 on Friday to fund a media buy supporting Kelly, federal expenditure records show. On Sunday, Illinois state Sen. Toi Hutchinson dropped out and endorsed Kelly.

Halvorson, who has accusedBloomberg of attempting to buy the election, had spent $34,560 as of Feb. 6, her most recent round of campaign disclosures indicate. Kelly spent $204,124, Beale $100,423 and Hutchinson $78,205.

In contrast, Independence USA PAC spent $1.2 million through Feb. 6, or about three times that of all candidates combined. Consequently, the majority of broadcast ads and mailers in the primary contest have come from a group with no direct ties to the district, not from the candidates running to represent it.

The general election is scheduled for April 9. Given the district's political makeup, the Democratic primary winner is virtually assured of victory.

Jackson was charged last week by federal prosecutors with crimes related to misspending more than $750,000 in campaign funds. Jackson's wife Sandi has been charged with falsifying tax returns. Both are expected to plead guilty and are scheduled to appear in court in Washington, D.C., today, according to the Chicago Tribune.

Alan Berlow will appear on C-SPAN's "Washington Journal" Thursday, Feb. 21 from 7:30-8 a.m. ET to discuss and take questions about his recent story for the Center for Public Integrity, Current gun debate may not help beleaguered ATF.

In his article, Berlow reports on how Congressional restrictions and the influence of the NRA have limited the effectiveness of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

The program will air on C-SPAN and is also available streaming online at Live on C-SPAN.

A pair of gun groups — one favoring firearms control, the other opposed to it — have registered new federal lobbyists, according to U.S. Senate filings made available this afternoon.

The registrations come at a time when Congress is considering a slate of bills further regulating guns, and President Barack Obama is making firearms control a centralpiece of his public agenda.

The Virginia-based National Association for Gun Rights registered Christopher Kuper, its director of federal legislation, as its first-ever federal lobbyist, filings show.

Documents list "firearm background checks," "assault weapon ban" and "magazine capacity limitations" as issues on which it intends to lobby.  

The association is a 501(c)(4) nonprofit group that describes itself as "not a faceless D.C. based lobbying group" but  "an organized network of grassroots activists who are committed to defending the Second Amendment."

Meanwhile, the New York-based Mayors Against Illegal Guns Action Fund added to its federal lobbying stable, tapping Maryland-based firm JBH Group to advocate on its behalf, Senate records show. 

Firm President Jamie Brown Hantman, a former legislative affairs special assistant to President George W. Bush and Google's first in-house lobbyist, will handle the account for the 501(c)(4) arm of Mayors Against Illegal Guns, led by New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Boston Mayor Thomas Menino.

Among the issues on which Mayors Against Illegal Guns Action Fund is registering to lobby: "developing and executing a federal legislative strategy related to legislation and regulation on gun policy" and "advocating for legislative action addressing universal background checks, military-style weapons and high capacity magazines," its filing states. 

Gun-related bills it intends to target include H.R. 137 (Fix Gun Checks Act), H.R. 138 (Large Capacity Ammunition Feeding Device Act), H.R. 437 (Assault Weapons Ban of 2013), H.R. 452 (Gun Trafficking Prevention Act of 2013) S. 54 (Stop Illegal Trafficking in Firearms Act of 2013) S. 150 (Assault Weapons Ban of 2013) and S. 179 (Gun Trafficking Prevention Act of 2013).

Since 2010, Mayors Against Illegal Guns Action Fund has spent from $30,000 to $60,000 per quarter lobbying the federal government, until now using the Raben Group at its lone lobbying firm.

Republican mega-donor Harold Simmons considers President Barack Obama to be “the most dangerous man in America,” and in a bid to unseat him, fueled conservative political groups with tens of millions of dollars.

But the Dallas-based billionaire’s recent philanthropic giving has been anything but right-leaning, a Center for Public Integrity review of new Internal Revenue Service documents indicates.

The Harold Simmons Foundation in 2011 most notably contributed a combined $600,000 to an arch political foe of Republicans, Planned Parenthood, and its North Texas affiliate, IRS records show.

Simmons’ foundation also bolstered several other organizations rarely associated with political conservatives or partisan Republicans, including public television, the League of Women Voters and even a Washington, D.C.-based organization dedicated to curbing the influence of big money in elections.

The foundation’s 2011 funding came exclusively from the billionaire’s personal fortune and that of his holding company, Contran Corp. Together, they contributed more than $9.8 million in 2011 — the foundation’s only income aside from $5.6 million in investment and capital gains income. The foundation ended 2011 with nearly $52 million in reserve after distributing about $17.4 million during the year, IRS records show.

Simmons and his holding company, Contran Corp., provided major funding for Republican super PACs, including $23.5 million to Karl Rove’s American Crossroads. Simmons was second to casino magnate and fellow Republican-backing billionaire Sheldon Adelson among top donors to super PACs in the 2012 election.

Simmons or his company gave $2.3 million to the pro-Mitt Romney super PAC Restore Our Future, $1.2 million to pro-Rick Santorum Red White and Blue Fund, $1.1 million to pro-Newt Gingrich Winning Our Future and $1.1 million to pro-David Dewhurst Texas Conservatives Fund. (Dewhurst, the state’s lieutenant governor, lost a primary fight for U.S. Senate to tea party favorite and now-Sen. Ted Cruz.)

Contran Corp. also contributed $1 million to Make Us Great Again, a short-lived super PAC that supported Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s presidential bid.

Simmons’ seemingly contradictory giving patterns likely stem from an arrangement with two of his politically liberal daughters who he’s tapped to run his charitable foundation’s day-to-day operations.  

While Simmons, 81, is the charity’s chairman, for more than two decades, Lisa Simmons has been approving and rejecting funding requests as president of her father’s foundation.

Sister Serena Simmons Connelly serves as the foundation’s executive vice president, IRS filings indicate. Connelly has personally donated more than $180,000 to several dozen Democratic political candidates and committees since the 2008 election cycle, including the presidential campaigns of Obama and Hillary Clinton and the Democratic National Committee.

Her father, on the other hand, gave $2 million in 2004 to Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, which ran the now-famous ads attacking Democrat John Kerry during his presidential bid.

The Simmons’ daughters declined to comment for this story, as did Contran representatives and Simmons himself.

Harold Simmons’ family life has been notoriously turbulent, fraught with divorces, lawsuits and allegations of criminality and campaign finance violations. His relationships with his four daughters are nothing if not complex.

During the 1990s, he paid two of his daughters $50 million each to settle their claims that he was misusing family trust money, according to the New York Times. Simmons remains on working terms with his other two daughters, Serena and Lisa.

The reclusive Simmons, who has vowed to give away half his wealth to charity, explained last year that the Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United decision prompted his expansive political giving.

"I have lots of money, and can give it legally now," he told the Wall Street Journal in a rare interview. "Just never to Democrats."

But Planned Parenthood, a Harold Simmons Foundation grantee, used its political action committee to donate more than $735,000 to federal candidates during the 2012 election cycle — 99 percent to Democrats.

The nonprofit Planned Parenthood Action Fund spent nearly $4.8 million on advertisements advocating Romney’s defeat, while the Planned Parenthood Votes super PAC spent more than $1.8 million on advertisements critical of Romney. The nonprofit added $1.1 million in pro-Obama advertising spending, federal records indicate.

Planned Parenthood performs abortions at many of its dozens of clinics and is a prime target of social conservatives who’ve sought to cut all government funding to the organization. Simmons has expressed indifference toward the legality of abortion, saying, “Let people make decisions on their own bodies.”

Planned Parenthood’s policy is to accept gifts and grants “for specific programs and purposes” provided that their intent is consistent with the group's “mission, policies, beliefs, and current priorities,” according to a statement provided to the Center.

Simmons’ foundation, however, also donated $10,000 in 2011 to the Dallas-based Council for Life, a pregnancy resource charity that states it supports the “sanctity of life” and affirms that “life begins at conception.”

Mona Wilson, president of the Council for Life,declined to comment, referring questions to the Simmons foundation.

“We don't share our donors’ information. We believe that is their prerogative,” Wilson said.

Among the dozens of other Harold Simmons Foundation grant recipients are the Human Rights Initiative, a Texas-based organization focused in large part on political asylum, violence against immigrants and human trafficking ($100,000); North Texas Public Broadcasting ($30,000); Catholic Charities of Dallas ($25,000); and the anti-death penalty group Equal Justice USA ($20,000).

The donation to Catholic Charities of Dallas helps fund the organization's Brady Center, which provides services for Dallas-area elderly. The group also opposes abortion and provides abortion alternative services among its many programs.

"Our donors are very understanding that funding is scarce, and the Harold Simmons Foundation is entitled to make grants as it sees fit," said major gifts officer Ashley Comstock. "We're still grateful, and we would definitely be open to and thankful for funding we might receive in the future."

Since 2010, the Harold Simmons Foundation has also given $50,000 to Public Campaign, a D.C.-based nonprofit that institutionally aims to “dramatically reduce the role of big special interest money in American politics.”

"I can see how it would seem ironic,” Public Campaign spokesman Adam Smith said.

Simmons’ foundation has focused its largest gifts on causes that usually draw support from across the political spectrum.

Major grants have gone to the Dallas-area arts scene and the city’s zoo and arboretum. His foundation is also in the midst of a multi-year, $50 million pledge to Parkland Hospital, a massive public facility near downtown Dallas.

On the political front, Simmons has most recently lobbed $600,000 into Los Angeles’ mayoral race, funding a super PAC that supports Republican talk radio host Kevin James ahead of the city’s March primary.

Sabrina Mislevy is tired of the odors, the way they “hit” her as she drives by the blue-tinted lake, the way they burn her nose. Like many of her neighbors, Mislevy has grown weary of living near the nation’s largest coal ash pond, Little Blue Run, which straddles the Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Ohio state lines.

In Little Blue Run and beyond, coal ash, waste from the production of electricity, has fouled water supplies and endangered public health. “We want action,” said Mislevy, of Georgetown, Pa., explaining why she has joined some 200 other area residents in launching legal challenges against FirstEnergy Corp., the owner of Little Blue Run.

Her community is just one across the country pursuing legal challenges against coal-ash ponds, landfills and pits — a grassroots onslaught stoked, in part, by slow regulatory action by the Environmental Protection Agency.

Last May at Little Blue Run, residents laid the groundwork for a potential citizens’ suit against FirstEnergy, sending a notice of intent to sue. Calling themselves the Little Blue Regional Action Group, they accused the company of operating its 1,000-acre ash pond “in a manner that may present an imminent and substantial endangerment to human health and the environment.” In December, residents sent another notice to FirstEnergy alleging “additional significant and ongoing violations,” including dirtying a creek that flows into the Ohio River with arsenic and selenium — toxic constituents found in coal ash.

A FirstEnergy spokesman, Mark Durbin, calls the residents’ claims “wholly without merit.”

The pending action and others come as the federal government weighs how to regulate coal ash, one of the nation’s largest refuse streams at 136 million tons a year. Two years after unveiling a plan to regulate coal ash disposal for the first time, the EPA has delayed the rules.

As the agency studies the issue, lawyers and citizens are filing toxic torts and regulatory appeals targeting specific ash sites. More than two dozen such challenges have surfaced in the past year, from Illinois to Nevada to West Virginia. Most of the litigation alleges unlined or partially lined dumps have leaked boron, uranium, chromium, thalium, manganese and other metals, tainting water sources and harming property and health.

“What we need is federal rules,” said Lisa Widawsky, a lawyer at the non-profit Environmental Integrity Project, who represents the Little Blue Run residents. “Until then, we’ll use whatever tools we’ve got.”

EPA Delay, Resident Lawsuits

Some places, like Montana, have encountered a history of litigation. Last fall, environmentalists filed two new suits over coal-ash ponds surrounding the town of Colstrip. There, the ponds have caused such widespread damage to aquifers that they fueled years of claims by residents and ranchers, The Center for Public Integrity reported in 2009. Other places, including Georgia, are witnessing their first coal-ash cases. Still others, such as South Carolina, have seen a wave of legal action targeting ash ponds, some leaching arsenic at levels 300 times safety standards.

“We didn’t want to wait for EPA to act,” said Frank Holleman, who handles the South Carolina suits and who, working with colleagues at the Southern Environmental Law Center, has launched an initiative devoted to the issue.

In the Southeast, he explains, nearly every ash lagoon sits beside a river that serves as drinking water for residents. Yet each has some record of seeping the ash’s dangerous pollutants. “The problems are real,” adds Holleman, who has overseen eight cases in 12 months. “It’s an important time for somebody to start taking action.”

Environmentalists have even mounted a challenge to the EPA. Last April, on behalf of 11 other groups, Earthjustice sued the agency over its stalled process, seeking court intervention to force it to act. Under federal waste law, the groups argue, the EPA has a mandatory duty to review and, if necessary, revise rules every three years. But the agency has not done so for rules governing coal-ash disposal since 2000.

“We’ve seen a real uptick in legal actions over coal ash in the vacuum left by EPA,” said Lisa Evans, the Earthjustice lawyer suing the agency. “Despite inaction on the part of EPA, the damage keeps mounting.”

The EPA announced its proposal to begin regulating the disposal of coal ash in June 2010, presenting two alternatives in a 563-page draft. Under the first option, the agency would classify coal ash as “hazardous” — triggering a series of strict controls for its dumping. The second option would deem coal ash “non-hazardous,” and subject it to less stringent national standards that amount to guidelines for states.

Asked why a decision has yet to be made 32 months later, the EPA, in a one-paragraph statement, said it has received more than 450,000 comments on its proposal. “EPA is following long-established rulemaking procedures and requirements,” the agency wrote, and “will finalize the rule pending a full evaluation of all the information.”

In court records, the EPA maintains it cannot predict when that will happen. “It is not feasible, given the current state of the Agency’s knowledge, to propose a rulemaking schedule,” Suzanne Rudzinski, EPA’s director overseeing the process, said in a filing in the Earthjustice case.

Agency officials intend to consider new, unpublished data, gathered from 495 coal-fired power plants nationwide, for their rulemaking. Obtained by Earthjustice through a public-records request, the data shows hundreds more ash ponds and landfills than previously estimated: The total number of ponds rose more than 60 percent to 1,161, up from 710 in 2010. Imposing a court-ordered deadline to finish reviewing this information, the EPA’s Rudzinski argues, would be “neither scientifically sound, nor legally defensible.”

The utility industry, intervening in the case, echoes the sentiment. “We certainly want regulatory certainty,” said Jim Roewer, of the Utility Solid Waste Activities Group, “but we want to have a good rule that actually works.”

Many lawyers say that, if the EPA had already issued its rules, they would not need to sue now. In some cases, they say, contamination may never have happened.

Take the toxic torts pending in Chesapeake, Va., where a golf course constructed out of coal ash, recycled as “structural fill,” has leaked arsenic and uranium onto nearby properties. Or the notice-of-intent-to-sue letter sent over ash similarly used in about 36 construction sites in Puerto Rico. The EPA’s proposal would ban such un-encapsulated “beneficial uses” without proper protections.

For cases involving ash ponds and landfills, lawyers say, federal regulations would have at least stopped ongoing pollution. The EPA’s proposal features preventative requirements such as composite liners and regular monitoring at these sites. Its toughest option would prohibit wet ponds altogether, the same type of impoundment at issue in lawsuits filed on January 31 by 23 residents in Juliette, Ga.

The mass-tort litigation involves two ash ponds — one 750 acres; the other 300 — at the sprawling Robert W. Scherer coal plant, operated by Georgia Power Co. Residents allege the company’s coal ash has “invaded” their homes and exposed them to “extremely toxic and hazardous substances released to the air, soil, and groundwater.” They are suing Georgia Power and additional plant owners for negligence, nuisance and trespass, claiming the ash has made them sick.

Kristal Smith, one of the resident-plaintiffs, says she cannot see Georgia Power’s big ash pond from her yard, “but I know it exists.” Her lawn abuts the plant’s property line. For six years, she has witnessed what she suspects is coal ash: A grayish material often settles onto her porch, her car and her kids’ toys, turning them black.

More than a year ago, Smith, 35, noticed something even more troubling: Her hair was falling out. She changed shampoos and bought over-the-counter medication, but nothing helped. When her scalp grew “really, really red,” as she recalls, she went to a doctor, who performed blood tests. He has ruled out thyroid problems and vitamin deficiencies, but, she said, cannot explain her hair loss.

“It certainly crossed my mind that my hair loss was connected to the . . . coal ash,” said Smith, who uses a steroidal shampoo to stop the thinning. She has learned her next-door neighbor, a vibrant woman in her late ‘20s, has also lost her hair. Other neighbors suffer from a host of health ailments, according to the suits, including nosebleeds, lung cancer, muscle spasms, kidney abnormalities and reproductive problems.

Last year, the state conducted water tests at the community’s request, revealing uranium in the area’s groundwater. Brian Adams, the lawyer representing 100 total residents, says his own testing has shown “alarming” levels of arsenic, lead and boron in many drinking water wells.

Georgia Power disputes the contamination claims. In a two-paragraph statement, the company notes that its testing of drinking water at Plant Scherer, evaluated by state regulators in 2008, has confirmed local water supplies are “safe.” The state’s more recent tests, it wrote, “do not indicate that humans are being or have been exposed to levels of contamination that would be expected to cause adverse health effects.”

The company stresses it is in full compliance with federal and state regulations.

Yet those living near its coal-ash ponds “are really unprotected,” Adams said. Like the EPA, Georgia lacks stringent rules for coal-ash disposal.

In Greene Township, Pa., home to most of Little Blue Run’s 1,700 permitted acres, state regulators boast some of the country’s most comprehensive coal dumping rules. That has not stopped the contamination. In their first legal notice, residents rely on FirstEnergy’s data to allege “widespread” pollution in ground and surface water sources, tracing high levels of arsenic, boron and other toxic constituents to the pond. Their second notice hinges on several samples collected by a resident from a creek, which show pollutants at levels that can pose harm to fish or human health.

Durbin, the FirstEnergy spokesman, said the citizen issues raised “have historically been addressed and are continuing to be addressed by the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection.”

Yet only after the threat of a citizens’ suit emerged did state officials act. Last summer, on the eve of a legal deadline, the state DEP sued FirstEnergy in federal court. The agency then filed a consent decree requiring closure of Little Blue Run. In its court filing, the DEP has characterized its agreement with the company as a proactive step to ensure the ash pond “will not create an imminent and substantial endangerment to health or the environment.”

Under the July 27, 2012, settlement, FirstEnergy must shutter its pond by the end of 2016, and pay an $800,000 fine. The company has agreed to increase its existing monitoring of area water sources; measure air emissions coming off the pond; identify any new seeps creeping off-site; and offer 22 residents an alternate water supply. A federal judge approved the consent decree last December.

Durbin, who describes the agreement as years in the making, suggests it renders moot any future litigation from the residents' second notice. “FirstEnergy takes its environmental obligations very seriously,” he said.

Environmentalists paint the Little Blue Run case as proof their lawsuits can fill the federal regulatory gap. Already, citizen suits have precipitated shutdowns of polluting coal-ash ponds in South Carolina, Maryland and Illinois. While some of these cases ended in settlements with utilities, others, as with Little Blue, prompted state regulators to act.

Such state actions, industry representatives say, show the current system for regulating coal-ash disposal is working. State regulators are doing their jobs, they say, tightening rules and going after problematic dumpsites. “The states aren’t waiting . . . for EPA and its rule to take action,” asserts USWAG’s Roewer.

The sentiment would likely rankle Sabrina Mislevy, who believes her “life would be easier if there were federal regulations.” For her and her neighbors, it does not matter that Little Blue Run will shutter in three years. They still must deal with its well-water contamination and rotten-egg stench. Some residents have grown so tired of living beside the ash pond, they are hiring lawyers and seeking buyouts from FirstEnergy in hopes of fleeing today.

As long as Little Blue Run remains open, Mislevy said, “The future is not bright.”

A recent story out of Oklahoma shows just how vital investigative journalists are—and how health insurance agents and brokers may be anything but vital in just a matter of months.

For decades, many individuals and small business owners have sought out the help of agents and brokers — known as “producers” in the insurance world — to help them find coverage for themselves, their families and their employees. 

People have had to do this because, until recently, the information provided by insurance companies about their policies has been incomprehensible. Producers — they’re called that because they “produce” business and, consequently income, for insurance companies — have been the middlemen many of us have relied upon to interpret benefit plans and advise us on what to buy.

As a result, our premiums are higher than necessary because insurance companies pay agents and brokers a lot of money in commissions to “produce” the business they want: young and healthy people who are not very likely to need much medical care. And insurance companies pass along the cost of those commissions to policyholders.

The need for producers’ services diminished earlier this year when an important provision of Obamacare kicked in. Insurance companies can no longer get away with descriptions of plans so complicated you need a third party to decipher. They now have to provide prospective customers with information in simple language and in a format that enables us to make apples-to-apples comparisons among various health plans.

The producers’ world will be rocked even more on October 1 when the states’ online health insurance marketplaces — or “exchanges” — will be up and running as mandated by the reform law. And this is where that Oklahoma story is so enlightening.

Oklahoma is one of 26 states to tell the federal government it has no interest in operating its own exchange. As a result, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services will operate it (and the 25 others) with no help from state officials. Seventeen states and the District of Columbia will operate their own exchanges and seven will partner with the federal government.

Oklahoma officials indicated initially that, even though they didn’t care all that much for Obamacare, they would nevertheless accept several million dollars from the federal government to help build the state’s exchange. A few weeks later, however— after hearing from conservative critics of the reform law and from agents and brokers — Gov. Mary Fallin and Insurance Commissioner John Doak, both Republicans, did a 180 and said “no thanks.”

Curious about what led to their change of heart, reporters at The Oklahoman filed an open records request. The state eventually complied and, months later, handed over thousands of emails and other documents that show just how much pressure Fallin and Doak received from President Obama’s political opponents and from insurance agents and brokers worried about preserving their handsome incomes.

A number of emails from producers complained that they would not be able to “maintain a level playing field” if the exchanges did what they are intended to do: provide consumers for the first time with the tools and data they need to make informed decisions about buying health insurance.

One Tulsa producer’s candor attracted the reporters’ attention enough to make it into The Oklahoman story verbatim. He complained in an email that:

“Buying direct via an Exchange will cost the consumer less than through an agent or broker. Unless Comm. Doak and our friends in the State Legislature can design a state Exchange that requires accessing broker services before an applicant can purchase health insurance, our profession is doomed.”

In other words: “Can you believe what Obama and his cronies are trying to do here? They’ve figured out a way for consumers to buy coverage without going through us, and people will be able to pay less than they’re paying now because they won’t need us. You’ve got to fix this! If you don’t, people will catch on right away that they don’t really need middlemen anymore, we won’t make as much money, and we won’t be able to contribute as much to the campaigns of our friends in the State Legislature. Rig this thing or we’re all doomed!”

It’s clear that when certain constituents and ideological compatriots talk, politicians listen. Doak announced later that he was returning $54 million the state had received to set up an exchange in Oklahoma. He apparently decided that the state wouldn’t be able to design the exchange without following certain guidelines from the federal government. And that was just unacceptable.

The irony is that by letting the Feds run the Oklahoma exchange, Fallin and Doak and the producers’ friends in the legislature will have no power to even try to rig things so that brokers can continue to get their piece of the pie. Maybe it’s time for those producers to consider another line of work, or at least other lines of business, like car insurance. The health insurance cash cow is about to run dry.

Qatar-based news network Al Jazeera, in the midst of a rapid U.S. expansion, has hired another lobbying firm to represent itself before government officials, new Senate records indicate.

The Law Offices of George R. Salem, PLLC, is being tapped to provide "informational communications regarding client's cable television channel" to lawmakers and bureaucrats, the lobbying registration records state.

Earlier this month, Al Jazeera, which is planning a major expansion following its purchase of former Democratic Vice President Al Gore's Current TV cable network, hired DLA Piper, Global Policy Initiatives and TCK International to represent it on Capitol Hill.

Republican lobbyist Tom Korologos— most recently an ambassador to Belgium whose government service also includes stints working in Iraq — will handle the account for TCK International.

The Law Offices of George R. Salem isn't known of late for its lobbying, having represented just one other client — financial firm Dubai Group — since 2008.

George R. Salem himself, however, is an unpaid, "strategic adviser" for DLA Piper, through which he is "focused on assisting in the development of the firm's Middle East and U.S. Department of Labor practices," according to his biography with the Arab American Institute, of which he is president.

Salem, who did not immediately respond to a request for comment, is a former partner at law and lobbying giant Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld. He previously served as the chief legal officer at the U.S. Department of Labor and worked as an official on the presidential campaigns of Republicans Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush and George W. Bush.

Al Jazeera has posted more than 100 job openings for its operations in New York City and Washington, D.C.

Virginia-based charity Donors Trust has promised anonymity to donors who seek to fund “sensitive or controversial” issues.

A Center for Public Integrity report last week lifted that veil — at least partially — revealing dozens of conservative foundations that together in recent years have given tens of millions of dollars to Donors Trust .

Donors Trust, in turn, has funded a nationwide network of free-market think tanks, media outlets and university programs to the tune of nearly $400 million since 2002.

Recently, much of that funding has gone toward state-based policy efforts. For example, Donors Trust provided 95 percent of the funding for a conservative media clearinghouse called the Franklin Center for Government and Public Integrity, which runs a network of state-based blogs.

While many of the charity’s 193 donors remain anonymous, a variety of media reports have shown where Donors Trust money ends up:

Climate change-denial

In late February, The Guardian reported that 46 percent of Donors Trust grants in 2010 went to groups opposing climate science. Between 2002 and 2010, the group gave $118 million to about 100 such groups.

A detailed 2012 report published on DeSmog Blog ties Donors Trust to a vast climate science denial machine through its generous support for the Heartland Institute, a Chicago-based think tank that mobilized support for the tobacco industry before shifting its focus to climate change.

An October episode of PBS Frontline said Donors Trust has become “the number one supporter” of climate denial groups like Heartland and the Koch brothers-funded Americans for Prosperity after industry giants such as ExxonMobil curtailed funding to Heartland following public protest.

Islamic radicalism 

Donors Trust made its largest grant in 2007 to a New York-based group called Clarion Fund. The $17 million donation went toward the production of a documentary called “Obsession: Radical Islam’s War Against the West.”

Seven weeks before the 2008 election of Barack Obama as president, Clarion distributed millions of copies of the movie, which stirred fear about Islamic radicalism, by inserting DVDs as ads in daily newspapers nationwide.

Reports later suggested that Chicago businessman Barry Seid may have passed the $17 million through Donors Trust to Clarion. Seid and Donors Trust director Whitney Ball co-chair another foundation called Chicago Freedom Trust.

Academic coups?

In 2010, a free-market professor of economics whose research is funded through Donors Trust laid out his “Free State” plan for libertarians to migrate to and take over the state of New Hampshire.

In 2009, Donors Trust passed about $600,000 in donations to Shimer College while conservative Chicago businessmen, including Seid, attempted unsuccessfully to take control of the small liberal arts school.

'Fair representation'

A Donors Trust subsidiary called the Project for Fair Representation has led legal challenges to affirmative action programs and, more recently, to the Voting Rights Act, according to reports by Reuters and The New York Times.

The project sought out and tapped the majority-white Shelby County, Ala., as plaintiffs in a challenge to Section 5 of the Act, which gives the U.S. Department of Justice power to approve or reject changes to electoral laws in 16 states, mostly in the south. The case will be heard by the U.S. Supreme Court.

Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W. Va., has earned the distinction of being the lone U.S. senator to earn a score of zero from the conservative Club for Growth in its latest congressional scorecard, released today.

The five-term senator has said he does not plan to seek re-election in November 2014, and the Club is already vying to find a replacement more in line with its agenda of limited government spending, income tax rate reduction, tort reform and deregulation.

It could bring significant resources to any potential upcoming contest.

During the 2012 election cycle, the Club's super PAC, called Club for Growth Action, spent nearly $17 million on advertisements that expressly advocated for the election or defeat of federal candidates, according to a Center for Public Integrity analysis of records filed with the Federal Election Commission.

That sum included more than $5.6 million on ads aiding Republican Ted Cruzduring the hotly contested U.S. Senate primary in Texas.

The money also went toward more than $3.6 million worth of ads in Indiana's U.S. Senate race, where the Club supported Republican Richard Mourdock, and about $2.4 million on ads in Arizona's U.S. Senate race, where the Club backed Republican Rep. Jeff Flake, who this year is being given the Club's "Defender of Economic Freedom Award."

So far, West Virginia Republican Rep. Shelley Moore Capito is the only GOP candidate who has announced her intentions to seek Rockefeller's seat. But the Club for Growth hopes she won't be the last.

Last year, Club for Growth President Chris Chocola issued a statement critizing Capito for having an "anti-growth record," and she ranked only 214th among members of the U.S. House of Representatives, with a score of 57 percent, in the Club's new scorecard. Fewer than three dozen Republicans who served in the House last year ranked lower than Capito.

Meanwhile, the Club's new scorecard gives perfect scores to two senators — Mike Lee, R-Utah, and  Rand Paul, R-Ky. — and three House members — Justin Amash, R-Mich., Paul Broun, R-Ga., and Tim Huelskamp, R-Kansas.

The Society of American Business Editors and Writers (SABEW) has announced two Center for Public Integrity projects as winners of its 18th Best in Business competition, which honors excellence in business journalism across all news platforms:

Skin & Bone: The Shadowy Trade in Human Body Parts

Contributors: Kate Willson, Gerard Ryle, Mike Hudson, Kimberley Porteous, David Donald and Marina Walker Guevara, The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (USA) Vlad Lavrov, The Kiev Post (Ukraine) Martina Keller, freelance (Germany) Thomas Maier, Newsday and News12 Long Island (USA) Sandra Bartlett, Joe Shapiro and Susanne Reber, National Public Radio (USA) Mar Cabra, freelance (Spain) William Venuti and Antonio Aldo Palaleo, The Daily Slovakia (Slovakia) and La Voce della Repubblica Ceca (Czech Rep.) Alexenia Dimitrova, 24 Chasa (Bulgaria) Nari Kim, Channel A (South Korea)

Fraud and Folly: The Untold Story of General Electric’s Subprime Debacle

Contributors: Michael Hudson, Scott Reckard

More than 200 working journalists and academics served as judges, sifting through the record 1,120 entries from 195 news outlets across 68 categories.

Correction (Feb. 27, 2013, 11:48 a.m.): This article originally overstated the size of the Respect for Marriage Coalition's TV buys last Sunday by $10,000. The Center regrets the error.

The Respect for Marriage Coalition has spent at least $49,000 to air a new television advertisement in the nation's capital, according to a Center for Public Integrity analysis of documents recently filed with the Federal Communications Commission.

"Freedom means freedom for everyone," says Craig Stowell, a former Marine and Republican gay rights activist, in the coalition's new TV ad, which aired on Sunday on the Washington, D.C., affiliates of NBC, CBS and ABC.

"I didn't used to understand the importance of same-sex marriage, but after learning my brother was gay, I wanted the same rights for him," Stowell continues in the ad. "He was the best man at my wedding, and I want to be the best man at his."

The Respect for Marriage Coalition consists of more than 80 organizations that assert same-sex couples should have the right to marry. It is co-chaired by two nonprofits, the Human Rights Campaign and Freedom to Marry. A spokeswoman for the coalition declined to comment for this story.

Next month, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in two lawsuits involving marriage for same-sex couples: Windsor v. United States, which challenges the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act, and Hollingsworth v. Perry, which challenges Proposition 8, the ballot measure passed by California voters in 2008.

On Friday, the Justice Department filed a brief arguing that DOMA was unconstitutional, a position echoed in a brief filed today by more than 80 Republicans, including former Republican National Committee Chairman Ken Mehlman and Mary Cheney, the daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney.

The legal case in support of DOMA has been spearheaded by the House Republican-led Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group.

The Georgia legislature has taken a major step toward strengthening the state’s ethics laws by moving a package of reform legislation through the House. The two bills in the package would impose limits on gifts from lobbyists and restore powers to the state’s ethics enforcement agency, among other changes.

The measures, which are sponsored by Speaker David Ralston, attracted little opposition,  sailing through the House on Monday with just four dissenting votes. But their fate in the Senate remains clouded. In January, the upper chamber adopted a $100 cap on lobbyist gifts in a rule change that does not apply to the House. Ralston told reporters on Monday that he would not negotiate on changing his proposed ban on gifts to match the $100 limit that the Senate enacted. While some senators have called for passing the House legislation unchanged, others have sounded more cautious.

“I’m sure several of us are going to sit down and talk about where we go from here,” Senate Ethics Chairman Rick Jeffares told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Neither Jeffares nor Ralston could immediately be reached for comment.

Some advocates for stronger ethics laws have criticized components of Ralston’s initiative. The more controversial of the pair of measures passed Monday would enact a blanket ban on lobbyist gifts, which currently have no limits. But the legislation carves out large exceptions to the ban by allowing gifts to committees and reimbursement for some travel expenses. The bill would also require many unpaid, citizen advocates to register as lobbyists, a move that drew fire from both liberal and conservative advocacy groups.

The bills are part of a growing movement in the legislature to increase transparency and reduce the risk of corruption in the state. Georgia ranked dead last and received an F grade last year from the State Integrity Investigation, a state-by-state ranking of accountability and ethics laws conducted by the Center for Public Integrity, Global Integrity and Public Radio International.

A coalition of reform groups has used the state’s poor showing to push for stronger laws. Last year, voters overwhelmingly supported two ballot questions that called for enacting limits on lobbyist gifts. A series of high-profile scandals also heightened voter awareness of the issue. In 2010, for instance, Ralston and his family went on a $17,000 trip to Europe paid for by high-speed rail lobbyists.

In a blog post written after the House voted on the reform package, William Perry, executive director of Common Cause Georgia, said that with the exceptions written into House bill, lobbyists still would be able to spend about $13,000 on a similar trip.

After Ralston proposed the reforms in January, Perry told the Center for Public Integrity that the package was, “an old political trick with a poison pill.”  Perry said that while the bills include some worthy measures, such as restoring rule-making authority to the state’s ethics oversight body, the Senate is unlikely to pass the package as is.

The original proposal drew outrage from tea party groups because it included a new definition of who is a lobbyist to include unpaid advocates for a variety of causes. The final version was amended to address those concerns by reducing the fee for registration and exempting anyone who lobbies fewer than six days a year.

Kay Godwin, co-chairman of Georgia Conservatives in Action, said that even with the changes, the bill still discourages grassroots activism. “We have a first amendment right to voice our opinion,” she said. “You don’t send a message that we’re not wanted up here.”

Senate President Pro-Tem David Shafer last week told a University of Georgia panel that he was confident the two chambers would agree on a lobbyist gift restriction by the end of the session, which is not yet set but is expected to come before the end of April.

The United States still leads the industrialized world in incarcerating young people, and ethnic-minority kids are still locked up more than whites.

But there is good news: Since 1995, the rate at which states confine young people has been steadily dropping for all ethnic groups, reaching the lowest rate in 35 years in 2010, according to a report released Wednesday by the Annie E. Casey Foundation.

In 1975, the child welfare and research group found, the number of youth aged 20 or younger placed in lockup began climbing, reaching a peak in 1995 of 381 kids locked up for every 100,000 nationwide. That same year, though, the rate began declining, dropping by an impressive 41 percent between 1995 and 2010 to 225 per 100,000.

The report by the Baltimore-based foundation also notes that the reduction in incarceration rates has not been accompanied by any increases in crime. “On the contrary,” the report says, “crime has fallen sharply even as juvenile justice systems have locked up fewer delinquent youth.” 

Laura Speer, associate director of policy reform and data at Casey, said in an interview that the report’s “main take away is that this is positive trend.” 

However, Speer said, some states still show relatively higher propensities for locking up youths – South Dakota is one – and across the country, black youth are nearly five times more likely to be confined than whites. Latino and American Indian youth are between two and three times more likely than whites to be locked up.

“There is still a way to go, across the country, to get equities in the way kids are treated throughout the juvenile-justice system,” Speer said. 

She cited several factors for contributing to the overall decline in youth incarceration.  

One, she said, is the impact of lawsuits that have been filed in various states to expose allegations of abusive conditions inside state-run youth detention centers.

Another, Speer said, is a growing acceptance nationally of research showing that locking up most youth offenders only increases their chances of getting into more trouble later. 

In addition, Speer said, even if they haven’t wanted to, state legislators have been pushed by state budget crises to deinstitutionalize youth who’ve been sentenced to do time inside costly prisons.

Instead, many wards have been shifted to cheaper county-based custody or community-based treatment. California and New York are among those states, as the Center for Public Integrity has reported. The Center receives funding from the Casey Foundation.  

The figures cited in Casey’s new report are based on a survey of confined populations conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau and the U.S. Department of Justice’s Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention.

Speer pointed to another finding in the report that shatters assumptions held by many.  

Most kids in lockup in 2010, the report says, were not there because they had committed violent offenses or robbery. Only one in four youths was confined for such serious reasons.

Instead, nearly 40 percent of detentions and commitments to juvenile lockup were for drug possession, technical probation violations and “status” offenses, infractions that only minors commit, such as truancy or underage purchase or possession of alcohol. 

“The majority of these young people don’t pose a risk,” Speer said. Many experts are continuing to press states to stop locking up status offenders and other youth accused of relatively minor offenses.  

Nonetheless, Speer said, the Casey Foundation is encouraged by changes it sees.

A vast majority of states — 44 out of 50 — experienced reductions in numbers of confined wards between 1997 and 2010. Several states, including Arizona and Georgia, cut their numbers by 50 percent or more. 

On the global stage, Speer said, the United States has a lot of work still to do to drive down youth incarceration rates to those in comparable industrialized nations.

 In 2010, she said, the rate at which American youth were locked up was 225 per 100,000. In 2008, in England, according to the latest data Speer had, the rate was about 47 per 100,000. In Australia, the rate of youth lockup in 2008 was about 30 per 100,000.

When it comes to political donations, Fox News' parent company is lately catering to liberals as much as conservatives.

News Corp.'s News America-FOXPAC political action committee contributed to five Democratic political candidates during January, with Republican candidates scoring a goose egg, Federal Election Commission records show.

January recipients of News America-FOXPAC cash include Rep. Jim Matheson, D-Utah ($5,000); Sen. Mark Pryor, D-Ark. ($2,500); Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La. ($1,500); Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich. ($1,000); and Rep. Gregory Meeks, D-N.Y. ($500), according to a Center for Public Integrity review of the records. All the contributions are earmarked for 2014 political primaries except for $500 toward Landrieu's 2014 general election campaign.

In the spirit of being fair and balanced, News America-FOXPAC also contributed $15,000 in January to the National Republican Congressional Committee, which may by law accept significantly larger contributions than candidate committees.

The PAC ended January with more than $128,000 in its bank account.

Such bipartisan giving is emblematic of News America-FOXPAC's donation habits from the 2012 election cycle.

Its contributions to partisan PACs and national party committees, for example, skewed Republican.

But 52 percent of the more than $311,000 it gave to federal-level candidates went to Democrats, the rest to Republicans, according to data compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics. The 2006 election cycle was the most recent during which the PAC predominantly gave to Republican candidates.

Prominent Democrats receiving News America-FOXPAC cash last election cycle included Sens. Dianne Feinstein of California, Kirsten Gillibrand of New York and Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, as well as House Minority Whip James Clyburn of South Carolina and Rep. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland.

And its support of Democrats provides a notable, if not striking contrast with Fox News' conservative reputation.

In addition to a slate of conservative hosts such as Sean Hannity and Bill O'Reilly, the network's stable of Republican contributors include Dana Perino, President George W. Bush's press secretary; Oliver North, a national security official for President Ronald Reagan; former Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee; syndicated columnist Cal Thomas; and Karl Rove, a top Bush adviser who helped found the nation's most well-funded super PAC, the GOP-backing American Crossroads, and its sister nonprofit group, Crossroads GPS.

Former Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin also contributed to Fox News for three years until the network dumpedher this last month.

News Corp. officials did not return requests for comment, but the company details its political participation philosophy on its corporate website.

News Corp. is "active in the public policy process protecting the interests of our employees and shareholders," the company writes. Its PAC "is an integral component of our government relations strategy, which also includes grassroots communications and direct lobbying. These three elements work together to carry our message to Congress and to state office holders."

It further states that News America-FOXPAC "is a nonpartisan PAC" that aims to help "elect quality men and women, regardless of political party, who are dedicated to providing leadership in public service and promoting sound public policy."

More than 80,000 chemicals are on the market in the United States, with hundreds added each year. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and other regulators are supposed to protect the public from chemical contaminants in air, water and consumer products that can cause cancer and other illnesses. But the chemical industry's sway over science and policy is extremely powerful. Much like the clout of the NRA, the American Chemistry Council (ACC) is an industry trade association that often acts to create uncertainty and delay, actions that ultimately threaten the public health.  

In a new series of stories called Toxic Clout, The Center for Public Integrity is exploring how the chemical industry operates behind the scenes. We want to shed light on how a cancer-causing chemical compound could escape regulation that EPA scientists say is  necessary. Please tune in to the PBS NewsHour next Wednesday, March 6th, to see a special report produced in partnership with The Center for Public Integrity.

This report features a chemical compound that more than 70 million Americans drink traces of every day. Since 2010, EPA scientists have concluded that even small amounts of this compound may cause cancer.  

The chemical compound is called hexavalent chromium, which gained infamy in the Oscar-winning film Erin Brockovich. The film ends in Hollywood fashion, with the corporate polluter paying $333 million to people suffering from illnesses. But in real life, that is not the end of the story.

As the Center for Public Integrity has reported, the EPA was poised to cite evidence of cancer risks in hexavalent chromium in 2011 — likely presaging stricter drinking water standards. Yet a special EPA panel urged the agency to delay action — citing, among other issues, pending research by the American Chemistry Council. The EPA agreed to put off action. The EPA was unaware that three of the panelists urging delay had in fact worked on behalf of industry in Hinkley, California — site of the Brockovich legal fight.

This is type of conflict of interest is precisely why the Center is focusing on Toxic Clout.

Until Next Week,

Bill 

During a heated exchange Tuesday night, Rep. Keith Ellison, D-Minn., accused Fox News host Sean Hannity of being "a shill for the Republican Party."

Hannity's response: denying the charge and betting Ellison $10,000 that he is not a registered Republican.

Incidentally, that's about the same amount of money that Hannity donated to Republicans in 2010.

Records filed with the Federal Election Commission indicate that Hannity donated the legal maximum of $4,800 to John Gomez in May of 2010.

Gomez, a childhood friend of Hannity's, appeared on the ballot that year as both a Republican and a member of New York's Conservative Party, the party with which Hannity said he's registered. Gomez was ultimately unsuccessful in his attempt to unseat Democratic Rep. Steve Israel of New York, who now serves as chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

New York is one of the few states that engages in "fusion voting." Under this system, one candidate can appear multiple times on the ballot on different party lines, and all votes the candidate receives are then combined.

Documents show that in August 2010, Hannity further contributed $5,000 to the leadership PAC of Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., as did his wife, Jill Hannity.

Hannity in 2005 also contributed $4,200 to the U.S. Senate campaign of Jeanine Pirro, a New York state Republican. Pirro, who today is a Fox News contributor, dropped out during the race's primary. She then refunded $2,100 to Hannity since she wouldn't be running in the general election against then-Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., opting instead to run for New York state attorney general.

Since 2010, Hannity has not donated money to federal candidates or committees of any political persuasion, federal records indicate.

As for Ellison, he declined to take Hannity's wager, saying, "I don't bet."

The U.S. political system is increasingly gamed against Americans of modest means — a situation exacerbated in recent years by major changes in the nation's campaign laws.

That's the overriding takeaway from a new report slated for release today by Demos, a left-leaning nonprofit public policy group "working for an America where we all have an equal say in our democracy and an equal chance in our economy."

The 39-page report, entitled "Stacked Deck," paints a picture of corporate powerhouses and wealthy businesspeople dominating political discourse and exacting disproportionate influence over policy incomes.

The Center for Public Integrity obtained a copy of the report prior to its publication.

Blacks and Latinos — statistically, the poorest Americans when compared to other races and ethnic classes — are particularly marginalized when it comes to political clout, the report states.

Low-wage workers, for example, make up about one-fifth of the nation's population but have very few paid lobbyists in Washington, D.C. While labor unions spend tens of millions of dollars each year lobbying the federal government, unions "are mainly concerned with advocating
on behalf of their members who are paid well above the minimum wage," the report states.

"As private interests have come to wield more influence over public policy, with ever larger sums of money shaping elections and the policymaking process, our political system has become less responsive to those looking for a fair shot to improve their lives and move upward," the study asserts. "Recent developments have aggravated this long emerging trend."

The Supreme Court's 2010 Citizens United decision and the rise of super PACs rank highly among those developments, the report states.

"These inequities in political power would still be unfair, but might not matter as much, if the interests of the affluent and corporations were closely aligned with those of the general public. But this is often not the case," the report continues. "Wealthy interests are keenly focused on concerns not shared by the rest of the American public, like keeping taxes low on capital gains, and often oppose policies that would foster upward mobility among low-income citizens, such as raising the minimum wage."

The report proposes three remedies to the problems it says exist.

Local jurisdictions should take the lead in regulating politically active nonprofit organizations, according to a new report slated for publication today by New York City Public Advocate Bill de Blasio and the Coalition for Accountability in Political Spending.

"State and muncipal governments should not wait for the IRS to enact reforms," asserts the report, an advance copy of which the Center for Public Integrity obtained.

"Regulations are needed immediately to close loopholes in the law which allow 501(c)(4) organizations to spend on elections without disclosing their donors and spending in the same manner as independent expenditure groups and political action committees," it continues.

The 29-page document assesses the increased political activity of so-called "social welfare" nonprofits in New York's congressional elections since the 2010 U.S. Supreme Court's Citizens United decision, which in part granted nonprofit corporations the ability to expressly advocate for the election or defeat of federal elections.

According to the report, 32 nonprofits registered with the Internal Revenue Service under Sec. 501(c)(4) of the U.S. tax code were active throughout the Empire State in 2012. Collectively, they participated in New York's U.S. Senate race and 20 U.S. House races.

Four years earlier, only six such nonprofits together reported political spending in three House races.

Not only did the number of politically active nonprofits climb, but their expenditures also increased, with the groups spending nearly $7.2 million in 2012, up from less than $430,000 in 2008.

The report further notes that social welfare nonprofits accounted for about 11 percent of the total spending in the four New York state congressional races where such groups were most active.

That's about the same percentage as super PACs, which are designed to fund political advertisements but must publicly disclose their funders.

Candidates, meanwhile, accounted for about 47 percent of spending in these four races, while political action committees, labor unions and trade associations accounted for the remainder.

"If 501(c)(4)s are to engage in elections in the same manner as these political entitites, disclosure regulations must match," the report urges. "These disclosures provide essential information not only to voters, but also to prospective donors, who need to know where their money is going."

The office of New York City's public advocate and the Coalition for Accountability in Political Spending also discovered that none of the 10 most politically active nonprofits in New York were based in the state.

Instead, all were based in the Washington, D.C., metro area, including Crossroads GPS, the nonprofit co-founded by GOP strategists Karl Rove and Ed Gillespie — it ranked as the No. 1 spender in New York — and anti-tax activist Grover Norquist's Americans for Tax Reform, which ranked No. 2.

Prior to serving as the public advocate, De Blasio managed Hillary Clinton's U.S. Senate campaign in 2000 and was later elected to be a member of the New York City Council. He's currently a mayoral candidate.

As the public advocate, he's championed reforms regarding corporate politicking and has repeatedly spoken out against Citizens United. In 2010, he founded the Coalition for Accountability in Political Spending, which is a bipartisan group dedicated to greater transparency and accountability in corporate political spending.