War Contractors Spent $27 Million Lobbying at Time of Surge

Posted on May 10, 2010 by abby

HUFFINGTON POST– The ten largest defense contractors in the nation spent more than $27 million lobbying the federal government in the last quarter of 2009, according to a review of recently-filed lobbying records.

The massive amount of money used to influence the legislative process came as the White House announced it would ramp up military activity in Afghanistan and Congress considered appropriations bills to pay for that buildup. All told, these ten companies, the largest revenue earners in the industry, spent roughly $7.2 million more lobbying in the fourth quarter of 2009 (October through December) than in the three months prior.

Such an increase in lobbying expenditures is partly a reflection of just how profitable the business of waging war can be. Each of these companies earned billions of dollars in defense contracts this past year. As the U.S. ramps up its military activities overseas, and the army is stretched thin by other ventures, it stands to reason that the contracts won’t dry up any time soon.

In mid-December, Congress passed a defense appropriations bill that totaled more than $635 billion. Shortly thereafter, the firm Northrop Grumman moved its corporate office to the Washington D.C. region to be closer to the heart of legislative action. Among the issues on which these ten firms lobbied, “appropriations” was the most frequently cited in lobbying forms.

“We’ve built Rome,” one longtime good-government official said of the symbiosis between contractors and the government.

On a related note, the Congressional Research Service released a report on Thursday, which showed that the number of private security contractors has bulged in the wake of Obama’s Afghanistan-surge announcement. Currently, contractors in Afghanistan make up between 22 percent and 30 percent of armed U.S. forces in Afghanistan.

Below is a breakdown of the military contractor, lobbying expenditures and the amount of money the company earned in contracts last year.

Company: Boeing
Lobbying In Fourth Quarter: $6.13 million
Lobbying In Third Quarter: $3.71 million
Federal Contracts in FY08 (according to fedspending.org): $23,547,610,878

Company: United Technologies
Lobbying In Fourth Quarter: $3.66 million
Lobbying In Third Quarter: $1.39 million
Federal Contracts in FY08: $8,973,091,375

Company: Lockheed Martin
Lobbying In Fourth Quarter: $3.16 million
Lobbying In Third Quarter: $3.1 million
Federal Contracts in FY08: $35,729,713,235

Company: Honeywell International
Lobbying In Fourth Quarter: $1.94 million
Lobbying In Third Quarter: $1.66 million
Federal Contracts in FY08: $2,439,634,130

Company: Northrop Grumman
Lobbying In Fourth Quarter: $5.43 million
Lobbying In Third Quarter: $3.62 million
Federal Contracts in FY08: $24,921,637,857

Company: General Dynamics
Lobbying In Fourth Quarter: $3,000,697
Lobbying In Third Quarter: $2,496,308
Federal Contracts in FY08: $14,244,546,441

Company: Raytheon
Lobbying In Fourth Quarter: $2.19 million
Lobbying In Third Quarter: $1.9 million
Federal Contracts in FY08: $14,276,349,843

Company: L3
Lobbying In Fourth Quarter: $1.05 million
Lobbying In Third Quarter: $990,000
Federal Contracts in FY08: $7,464,053,901

Company: Textron
Lobbying In Fourth Quarter: $460,000
Lobbying In Third Quarter: $890,000
Federal Contracts in FY08: $2,858,396,315

Company: Goodrich
Lobbying In Fourth Quarter: $447, 098
Lobbying In Third Quarter: $425,529
Federal Contracts in FY08: $490,224,761

Another Monsanto Man in Key USDA Post?

Posted on May 5, 2010 by abby

GRIST– Like a tractor driven by a drunk, the Obama administration keeps zigzagging on food/ag policy–sometimes veering in the direction of progressive change, other times whipping back toward the agrichemical status quo.

In the last couple of days, there’s been a sharp turn toward the status quo. As I reported yesterday, Obama plucked Islam “Isi” Siddiqui from the nation’s most powerful agrichemical lobby group and made him our chief negotiator on ag issues in global trade talks. This is a major coup for Big Ag. Ramming open foreign markets for our cheap food commodities and pricey ag inputs is critical to the industry’s future profits–and perilous for global food security and the environment.

And today, Obama’s Big Ag side got the best of him again. He tapped Roger Beachy, long-time president of the Danforth Plant Science Center, as chief of the USDA’s newly created National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA). A creation of the 2008 Farm Bill, the NIFA “replaces the Cooperative State Research, Education, and Extension Service, which distributes $200 million in competitive grants and about $280 million in ‘formula funding’ to land-grant universities,” Science blog reports.

Science continues:

The Farm Bill adds another $106 million annually of competitive funding for research into organic farming, biomass, and fruits and vegetables. It also calls for a “distinguished scientist” to be appointed for a 6-year term as director.

So this is a critical post. If the sustainable farming movement is going to scale up and really start providing a large portion of the nation’s calories–and deliver on its potentially huge environmental promises–than we’re going to need a significant commitment of federal research dollars.

And what are we getting with the appointment of Beachy? The Danforth Plant Science Center, nestled in Monsanto’s St. Louis home town, is essentially that company’s NGO research and PR arm. According to its website, the center “was founded in 1998 through gifts from the St. Louis-based Danforth Foundation, the Monsanto Fund (a philanthropic foundation), and a tax credit from the State of Missouri.”

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Photo by flickr user Tim Psych

Did World Health Organization Experts Fuel Swine Flu Scare?

Posted on May 3, 2010 by abby

TIMES OF INDIA– Even as questions are being raised about whether the swine flu scare was exaggerated to benefit pharma companies, evidence has surfaced that several members of the World Health Organization’s (WHO) vaccine board which pushed countries to buy the H1N1 vaccine have had significant ties with pharma companies.

This fact, which is bound to raise issues of conflict of interest, was exposed by Danish daily ‘Information’ last month. TOI attempted to get WHO’s response, but several emails sent to the office of the WHO director-general on January 9 met with no response.

Documents acquired through the Danish Freedom of Information Act revealed that Prof Juhani Eskola, a Finnish member of the WHO board on vaccines, ‘Strategic Advisory Group of Experts’ (SAGE), received almost 6.3 million euros in 2009 for his vaccine research programme, THL, from the vaccine manufacturers, GSK, qualifying GSK as THL’s main source of income. SAGE advises WHO chief Margaret Chan and recommends which vaccines and how much of it member countries should purchase, pointed out the Danish newspaper.

Apart from Prof Juhani Eskola, who received almost 6.3 million euros for his vaccine research programme, Danish journalists reported on six other members of ‘Strategic Advisory Group of Experts’ (SAGE) with financial ties to various pharmaceutical companies. These include Dr Peter Figueroa, Dr Neil Ferguson, Prof Malik Peiris, Dr Arnold Monto, Dr Friedrich Hayden and Dr Albert Osterhaus. Barring Dr Figuero, who revealed that he had accepted a research grant from Merck, none of the others made any disclosures.

Many of the pharmaceutical companies with which the vaccine board members had ties, are also the manufacturers of vaccines including the H1N1 vaccine like GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), Novartis, Solvay, Baxter, MedImmune and Sanofi Aventis. None of the WHO members on the vaccine board, barring one, declared any conflict of interest despite having extensive financial ties with the pharmaceutical companies in the form of research grants and consultancies.

In a statement issued on December 3, 2009, WHO claims that numerous safeguards are in place to manage possible conflicts of interest or their perception. “Members of SAGE are required to declare all professional and financial interests, including funding received from pharmaceutical companies or consultancies or other forms of professional engagement with pharmaceutical companies.

The names and affiliations of members of SAGE and of SAGE working groups are published on the WHO web site, together with meeting reports and declarations of interest submitted by the experts. Allegations of undeclared conflicts of interest are taken very seriously by WHO, and are immediately investigated,” says the statement. However, there is no such disclosure by these SAGE members on the WHO website.

Photo by flickr user Y

Our Nazi Allies

Posted on April 26, 2010 by abby

SALON– Dieter Maier, an amateur investigator working from his home on the outskirts of Frankfurt, Germany, has uncanny luck finding out about U.S. ties to the Nazis.

For the past 20 years, Maier has been filing a steady stream of requests for information to a variety of U.S. government agencies, largely for the existential pleasure of historical inquiry, and also out of a fear of a rebirth of Nazism, fascism and racism in Germany. The more he knows about the past, he says, the better prepared he is to deal with the future and present.

What is most startling about Maier’s success, however, is that he appears to have had an easier time finding information on U.S. collaboration with Nazis after World War II than a committee appointed by Congress to extract the same controversial data.

Maier, through Freedom of Information Act requests, has unearthed new information on characters like Karl Heinz-Priester, one of the most prominent postwar neo-Nazi leaders. According to “The Biographical Dictionary of the Extreme Right,” Priester, a former Waffen SS liaison officer, helped found the National Democratic Reich Party in 1949. After being expelled for his dictatorial tendencies, Priester set up the equally virulent German Social Movement and became a leading player in the international fascist movement.

Maier received files from U.S. Army Intelligence that show that Priester was on the U.S. payroll as an informant, a fact never before reported. Priester was terminated as a U.S. spy in 1959 when it was deemed that his usefulness was falling off, or as it was put on his file card: “Subject’s services no longer needed. Production and performance poor.” (The FOIA is, unfortunately, a hit-and-miss proposition. I also filed a request on Priester, and was sent, among other things, the identical file card — with the notations identifying Priester as a U.S. agent blacked out.)

That U.S. officials collaborated with Nazis after World War II is, of course, well known. Just one day after Germany’s surrender, on May 10, 1945, the Joint Chiefs of Staff ordered Gen. Dwight Eisenhower to arrest all suspected war criminals, though advising him “to make such exceptions as you deem advisable for intelligence and other military reasons.” In other words, cut deals with war criminals who could be usefully employed by U.S. intelligence. Over the years, the United States found a spot on the payroll for thousands of former Nazis, especially as part of intelligence gathering operations aimed at the Soviet Union, our wartime ally but soon-to-be mortal foe.

Not much has been learned about these programs since, with successes such as Maier’s rare. But that was supposed to change in the fall of 1998, when Congress passed the little-noticed Nazi War Crimes Disclosure Act. It requires government agencies to turn over to the National Archives all files relating to Nazi looting and war crimes, including documents that detail American ties to Nazi war criminals.

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