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« NIH Cracks Down on Scientists' Conflicts of Interest | Main | 'Wild' Salmon in Stores May Be Farmed »

April 12, 2005

DeLay Targeted Asbestos Firms for Donations

According to The Associated Press, documents show that fundraisers for House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-TX) routinely identified legislative actions that would interest possible donors.

Recently uncovered documents show that fundraisers even went so far as to scout out “large companies with asbestos problems” that might be interested in tort reform in Texas. These documents have become public through a civil lawsuit and by the House ethics committee.

Federal law prohibits officials from directly connecting their actions to their donors.

This is not the first time large corporations have successfully influenced DeLay. For the past two years, DeLay has pushed his colleagues to shield Big Oil from MTBE liability, claiming these corporate polluters should not be liable for this toxic chemical getting into drinking water because they were forced to add MTBE to gasoline. In fact, even though Big Oil always knew MTBE was toxic and would leak into drinking water, they aggressively lobbied for it to be adopted as a gasoline additive, as they could then profit over what is essentially a waste product.

Tom DeLay continues to unethically support large polluting industries instead of his constituents. His hypocrisy knows no bounds, as he has also taken part in a personal injury lawsuit – the very type of lawsuit he is now working to restrict.

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