Steve Milloy

Steven J. Milloy is a lawyer, lobbyist, author and Fox News commentator. His close financial and organizational ties to tobacco and oil companies have been the subject of criticism, as Milloy has consistently disputed the scientific consensus on climate change and the health risks of second-hand smoke.Mother Jones
"Some Like It Hot"
motherjones.com. May/June 2005.

Among the topics Milloy has addressed are what he believes are false claims regarding DDT, global warming, Alar, breast implants, second-hand smoke, ozone depletion, and mad cow disease.Milloy's Website, junkscience.com
, accessed 20 Sept 2006. Milloy runs CSRWatch.com, which monitors and criticizes the corporate social responsibility movement. From the 1990s until the end of 2005, he was an adjunct scholar at the libertarian Cato Institute, which hosted the JunkScience.com site. He is an adjunct scholar at the Competitive Enterprise Institute.

He operates The Advancement of Sound Science Center (TASSC), established by Philip Morris Companies Inc. to counter legislation against second-hand smoke.

Educational background

Milloy holds a B.A. in Natural Sciences from Johns Hopkins University, a Master of Health Sciences in Biostatistics from the Johns Hopkins University School of Hygiene and Public Health, a Juris Doctor from the University of Baltimore, and a Master of Laws from the Georgetown University Law Center.Milloy's history and C.V., from his website junkscience.com
accessed 16 Sept 2017. Section "Education".

Career

The National Environmental Policy Institute (NEPI) was formed in early 1993 by Congressmen Donald L. Ritter, Don Ritter (R-PA) and Dennis Hertel (D-MI).

Most of the initial funding for this 'greenwash' lobby group came from Occidental Petroleum and other oil companies. Milloy styled himself as th
National Environmental Policy Institute
s Director of Science Policy Studies. NEPI's publication, ''Science-Based Risk Assessment: A Key to the Superfund Puzzle'', says: "Sound science and more accurate risk assessments can significantly reduce the costs of remediation, while reducing real health risks when they are found. ... Milloy of the NEPI suggests that the costs of cleanups would fall by 60 percent if the program focused more directly on risk when identifying the appropriate remedies."

At the same time, Milloy was working through Philip Morris's specialist-science/PR company APCO & Associates, but was relegated to working behind the scenes as a contact for the newly formed TASSC, and on developing a new electronic-mail/computer business venture known as "Issues Watch" for APCO. APCO formally established TASSC on October 1, 1993. The budget for the first full year of operation was $365,411.

By 1994, according to his website, Milloy was project leader of the Regulatory Impact Analysis Project, Inc. for the United States Department of Energy, U.S. Department of Energy. The Cato Institute, where he was listed as an adjunct scholar, published his work from 1995 to 2005. Milloy began his opposition to what he called "junk science" as president of the Environmental Policy Analysis Network in 1996.

Milloy's employment by the EOP Group Inc. (major lobbyists) dates back to before 1995, and it includes a record of lobbying on behalf of the Fort Howard Corporation, the International Food Additives Council, Monsanto Co. and Edison Electrics. The Competitive Enterprise Institute also proposed to Philip Morris that Milloy and his partners Michael Gough and Michael Fumento should be used to attack the FDA through reports to the House and Senate on risk Management reform.

In March 1997, Milloy moved from the backroom to become president of The Advancement of Sound Science Coalition (TASSC) [Established under Gov. Garrey Carruthers of New Mexico by Philip Morris], which later became The Advancement of Sound Science Center.

He has links through Philip Morris and Fox News to Rupert Murdoch and News Corporation. He was a correspondent for Fox News between 2002 and 2009, and he became a policy director at Murray Energy and a member of Donald Trump's presidential Presidential transition of Donald Trump, transition team.

Junk science

Milloy has used the term "junk science" in public debate, which he defines as "faulty scientific data and analysis used to advance special and, often, hidden agendas." David Michaels (epidemiologist), David Michaels has argued the term is used, by Milloy and others, almost exclusively to "denigrate scientists and studies whose findings do not serve the corporate cause".

In an editorial in ''Chemical & Engineering News'', Editor-in-Chief Rudy Baum called Milloy's junkscience.com website "the best known" example of "a right wing effort in the U.S. to discredit widely accepted science, technology and medical information." An editorial in the ''American Journal of Public Health'' noted that "... attacking the science underlying difficult public policy decisions with the label of 'junk' has become a common ploy for those opposed to regulation ... One need only peruse JunkScience.com to get a sense of the long list of public health issues for which research has been so labeled."

Second-hand smoke

Milloy has opposed legitimate research linking passive smoking, second-hand tobacco smoke to cancer, falsely claiming that "the vast majority of studies reported no statistical association."''Secondhand Smokescreen,''
By Steven Milloy, March 9, 2001"There is sufficient evidence that involuntary smoking (exposure to secondhand or 'environmental' tobacco smoke) causes lung cancer in humans"
/ref>

In 1993, Milloy dismissed an United States Environmental Protection Agency, Environmental Protection Agency report linking second-hand tobacco smoke to cancer as "a joke." Five years later Milloy claimed vindication after a Passive smoking#The Osteen decision, federal court contradicted the E.P.A.'s conclusions. However, the court's finding against the EPA was overturned on appeal. When the ''British Medical Journal'' published a meta-analysis confirming a link in 1997, Milloy misrepresenting the study wrote, "Of the 37 studies, only 7—less than 19 percent—reported statistically significant increases in lung cancer incidence... Meta-analysis of the secondhand smoke studies was a joke when EPA did it in 1993. And it remains a joke today." When another researcher published a study linking second-hand smoke to cancer, Milloy wrote that she "... must have pictures of journal editors in compromising positions with farm animals. How else can you explain her studies seeing the light of day?"

Links to tobacco industry

While at FoxNews.com, Milloy has continued to attack the scientific consensus that second-hand tobacco smoke causes cancer. However, with the release of confidential tobacco industry documents as part of the Tobacco Master Settlement Agreement, the objectivity of Milloy's stance on second-hand smoke has been questioned. Based on this documentation, journalists Paul D. Thacker and George Monbiot, as well as the Union of Concerned Scientists and others, have contended that Milloy is a paid advocate for the tobacco industry.

Milloy's junkscience.com website was reviewed and revised by a public relations firm hired by the R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Company.Activity Report, R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co., December 1996, describing input from R.J.R. Tobacco's P.R. firm into Milloy's junkscience website
From th
Legacy Tobacco Documents Library
at the University of California, San Francisco. Accessed October 5, 2006.
A 1994 Philip Morris memo listed TASSC among its "Tools to Affect Legislative Decisions". According to its 1997 annual report, TASSC "sponsored" junkscience.com.

''The New Republic'' reported that Milloy, who is presented by Fox News Channel, Fox News as an independent journalist, was under contract to provide consulting services to Philip Morris through the end of 2005. In 2000 and 2001, for example, Milloy received a total of $180,000 in payments from Philip Morris for consulting services.Philip Morris budget for "Strategy and Social Responsibility", detailing $180,000 in payments to Steven Milloy (pp. 13 & 66)
Accessed October 5, 2006. A spokesperson for Fox News stated, "Fox News was unaware of Milloy's connection with Philip Morris. Any affiliation he had should have been disclosed."

Milloy's association with the Cato Institute ended shortly afterwards. He also left Fox at some point afterward. He is a columnist at
muckrack.com
where, in August 2022, he criticized Joe Biden, President Biden, who promised on his presidential campaign: ''"I guarantee you — I guarantee you — we are going to end fossil fuel"'', about which Milloy commented, ''"So said then-candidate Joe Biden to environmental activists at a campaign rally in 2019. The president has yet to deliver on his promise to turn the entire U.S. energy system on its head, but given the record high gas prices at the fuel pump, he's certainly made driving and powering homes punitively unavailable to low-income households. The administration is keen on blaming the war in Ukraine for the hardships people are facing."''

Climate change

Milloy claims that anthropogenic climate change, human activity has little impact on climate change, climate change denial, denying the scientific consensus on climate change, and that regulations to limit greenhouse gas emissions are unwarranted and harmful to business interests. He offered a prize of $500,000 to anyone who can "prove, in a scientific manner, that humans are causing harmful global warming", stating that "JunkScience.com, in its sole discretion, will determine the winner, if any."

In 2004, when the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment was released by the Arctic Council and the International Arctic Science Committee, Milloy wrote that the report "pretty much debunks itself." Milloy based his assertions that the variation was natural on his interpretation of just one graph from the overview of the large study. One of the lead authors of the study, oceanographer James J. McCarthy, commented that those taking Milloy's position would "have to refute what are hundreds of scientific papers that reconstruct various pieces of this climate puzzle." Milloy's assertion was repeated by lobbyists including the Competitive Enterprise Institute

In 2005, it was reported that non-profit organizations operating out of Milloy's home, and in some cases employing no staff, have received large payments from ExxonMobil during his tenure with Fox News. A Fox News spokesperson stated that Milloy is "... affiliated with several not-for-profit groups that possibly may receive funding from Exxon, but he certainly does not receive funding directly from Exxon."

Milloy is the Executive Director of DemandDebate.com, an organization that seeks to eliminate what it calls "bias" in environmental education. A Competitive Enterprise Institute press release says he "coordinated" the group's activities at the recent Live Earth concert in New York, at which a plane circled the event pulling a banner reading, "DON’T BELIEVE AL GORE — DEMAND DEBATE.COM."

Abolition of position of U.S. Surgeon General

In 1998, Milloy, writing on behalf of TASSC, co-wrote an article which called for the abolition of the position of United States Surgeon General. "We have not had a surgeon general for three years. Has anyone noticed? Is anyone's health at risk?"

DDT

Milloy has campaigned against the 1972 ban on non-public-health uses of DDT in the United States and in favour of wider use of DDT against malaria, which he claims could be largely eliminated if DDT were used more aggressively. He has been particularly critical of Rachel Carson. Milloy's junkscience.com web site features ''The Malaria Clock: A Green Eco-Imperialist Legacy of Death'', which he claims counts up the approximate number of new malaria cases and deaths in the world, most of which he says could have been prevented by the use of DDT. , Milloy's clock stood at more than 94 million dead, 90% of whom were said to have been expectant mothers and children under five years of age. "Infanticide on this scale appears without parallel in human history," writes Milloy. "This is not ecology. This is not conservation. This is genocide."

Critics have argued that the clock holds Carson "responsible for more deaths than malaria has caused in total," a charge that a footnote at the bottom of the malaria clock webpage seems to acknowledge, stating: "Note that some of these cases would have occurred irrespective of DDT use. Note also that, while enormously influential, the US ban did not immediately terminate global DDT use and that developing world malaria mortality increased over time rather than instantly leaping to the estimated value of 2,700,000 deaths per year. However, certain in the knowledge that even one human sacrificed on the altar of green misanthropy is infinitely too many, I let stand the linear extrapolation of numbers from an instant start on the 1st of the month following this murderous ban."

In 2006, following a press release by the World Health Organization recommending more extensive use of indoor residual spraying with DDT and other pesticides, Milloy wrote, "It’s a relief that the WHO has finally come to its senses." In 2007, the WHO clarified its position, saying it is "very much concerned with health consequences from use of DDT" and reaffirmed its commitment to phasing out the use of DDT.

Asbestos and the World Trade Center

On September 14, 2001, three days after September 11, 2001 attacks, terrorist attacks destroyed the World Trade Center (1973–2001), World Trade Center, Milloy wrote that the World Trade Center towers might have stood longer, preventing many casualties, had the use of asbestos fire-resistant lagging not been discontinued during the Towers' construction.Article: Asbestos Could Have Saved WTC Lives
FoxNews.com. Published September 14, 2001. Milloy's article reported that, ''"In 1971, New York City banned the use of asbestos in spray fireproofing. At that time, asbestos insulating material had only been sprayed up to the 64th floor of the World Trade Center towers."''

Advocates for banning asbestos were highly critical of the article, questioning his motives and disputing his conclusions. The International Ban Asbestos Secretariat charged him with "insensitivity that is hard to fathom."

Food safety

Responding to criticism of the food safety, safety of the food product Quorn (food product), Quorn by the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI), Milloy accused CSPI of having an undisclosed relationship with Quorn's main competitor, Gardenburger. Writing for FoxNews.com, Milloy said that "CSPI appears to have an unsavory relationship with Quorn competitor, Gardenburger" and called the CSPI's complaints "unscrupulous shrieking", noting comments in CSPI newsletters like "Remember the saturated fat and the E.coli bacteria that could be hiding inside [a hamburger]? You can keep the taste but forget the worries with Gardenburger."

Rall controversy

In 1999, David Platt Rall, a prominent environmental scientist, died in a car accident. Steven Milloy, at the time a Cato adjunct scholar, commented: "Scratch one junk scientist....". Cato Institute President Edward Crane called Milloy's comments an "inexcusable lapse in judgment and civility," but Milloy refused to apologize.

Registration as a lobbyist

The United States Senate Lobby Filing Disclosure Program lists Milloy as a registered lobbyist for the EOP Group for the years 1998–2000.

" target="_blank" class="mw-redirect" title="United States Senate Lobby Filing Disclosure Program, listing Milloy as a lobbyist for the EOP Group from 1998–2000">United States Senate Lobby Filing Disclosure Program, listing Milloy as a lobbyist for the EOP Group from 1998–2000
accessed 28 June 2006. The guidebook ''Washington Representatives'' also listed him as a lobbyist for the EOP Group in 1996.

Corporate activism

Milloy and former tobacco executive Tom Borelli run a mutual fund called the Free Enterprise Action Fund (FEAF). The fund has criticised companies that voluntarily adopt higher environmental standards. Through the platform of the FEAF, Milloy has criticized a number of other corporations for adopting environmental initiatives:
* The FEAF criticized Microsoft for abandoning the use of polyvinyl chloride, PVC in its packing materials.
* Milloy accused the Business Roundtable, a pro-business organization of chief executive officer, CEO's, of being "silent about current threats to business", adding, "Last September, we warned 18 member company CEOs participating in the BRT’s 'sustainable growth' initiative to stop wasting corporate resources."
* Milloy and Borelli argued that General Electric is harming its shareholders by launching a program to curtail greenhouse gas emissions. They also accused G.E. of ignoring the input of global warming denialist groups such as the Cato Institute and the Competitive Enterprise Institute in forming their environmental policy.

FEAF has been criticized by investment analyst Chuck Jaffe as being "an advocacy group in search of assets." Jaffe concludes, "Strip away the rhetoric, and you're getting a very expensive, underperforming index fund, while Milloy and his partner Thomas Borelli get a platform for raising their pet issues.""Strange Bedfellows: Politics and Investment Fund"
BostonHerald.com. January 24, 2006. Accessed October 11, 2006.

Similarly, Daniel Gross (journalist), Daniel Gross, in a ''Slate (magazine), Slate'' magazine article, wrote that FEAF "seems to be a lobbying, lobbying enterprise masquerading as a mutual fund." He noted that Milloy and Tom Borelli, the former head of corporate scientific affairs for Philip Morris, lack any money management experience, also noting FEAF had badly underperformed the S&P 500 during its first 10 months of existence. Gross concluded that, "... in the short term, it looks like Borelli and Milloy are essentially paying the fund for the privilege of using it as a platform to broadcast their views on corporate governance, global warming, and a host of other issues.""Thank You for Investing: A very curious right-wing mutual fund"
Slate.com. May 4, 2006. Accessed October 11, 2006.

Books

* ''Green Hell: How Environmentalists Plan to Control Your Life and What You Can Do to Stop Them'', Regnery Publishing, 2009,
* ''Junk Science Judo: Self-defense Against Health Scares and Scams'', Cato Institute, 2001,
* ''Silencing Science'', Cato Institute, 1999, (with Michael Gough)
* ''Science Without Sense: The Risky Business of Public Health Research'', Cato Institute, 1996,
* ''Science-Based Risk Assessment: A Piece of the Superfund Puzzle'', National Environmental Policy Institute, 1995,

See also

*Global Climate Coalition
*American Petroleum Institute
*Heartland Institute

Notes

External links

*

Milloy's websites

Junkscience.comThe Ultimate Global Warming Challenge

Tobacco document archives

The Legacy Tobacco Documents Library
at the University of California, San Francisco.
The Philip Morris USA Document Site

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