Bullied and packed
The popular concern for environment among the US public peaked in 1989. The membership and financial assets of a number of prominent national environment advocacy and action organisations, such as the National Resources Defense Council, the National Audobon Society, the Sierra Club, the Wilderness Society and the Nature Conservancy, had grown enormously. For some time, these groups were able to use their heightened power to bear effectively on the Congress. But by 1990, when the Clean Air Act amendments were passed, public support had begun to wane. Membership in 1995 had declined to two million from 2.5 million in 1990. The hardest hit organisations were those that had called for the most aggressive policy actions, for example, Greenpeace. The nation as a whole, continued to shift away from environmental activism. Moreover, the division within the environmental community following the approval of the North Atlantic Free Trade Agreement in 1993, undercut the strength of the environmental movement in the US.
The Republican Congressional leadership was all the while being backed by well-heeled corporate polluters. According to a New York Times report last July, in the past three years, companies and political action committees (PAC) intent on rolling back environmental laws, gave more in Congressional campaign donations than any other interest group.
A report by the Sierra Club documents the dash for cash in a study on contributions between December 1993 and June 1996. Polluter PACs contributed nearly $46 million to US representatives. Three quarters of the total was taken up by 37 Democrats and 192 Republicans who voted on at least three out of the four bills. More than 400 PACs associated with industry coalitions pushing for rollbacks of environmental standards rallied over $32 million in campaign donations. An estimated three dollars in four went to the Congresspeople who passed the reform to block several environmental safeguards. An attempt to cripple the Environmental Protection Agency was funded by 212 PACs who doled out nearly $18 million in contributions during this period.