Roll Call shares the news that former congressman Bob Dold will be running to take back the seat he lost to Democrat Brad Schneider in 2012. As a member of Congress, Bob Dold specialized in the filing of bills that would suspend or eliminate fees on for the importation of various foreign chemicals. On just one day — May 14, 2012 — Rep. Dold introduced 20 pieces of legislation, each of which would suspend the duty paid by corporations who import chemicals made overseas.
Seven of these pieces of legislation, if passed, would have directly benefited the Dow Chemical corporation. Dow Chemical, which was recently found guilty of international price fixing, has moved many of its chemical plants overseas to countries whose repressive governments guarantee special tax breaks and a steady supply of underpaid workers. Now, in a bid for economic gain on the flip side of its globalization strategy, Dow Chemical wants to stop paying import duties when it brings its chemicals back into the United States. The following bills eliminate duties for Dow Chemical imports:
H.R. 5346: divinylbenzene (nufarm)
H.R. 5347: a proprietary ion-resin exchange powder
H.R. 5348: poly(4-(1-isobutoxy ethoxy)styrene-co-4-hydroxystyrene
H.R. 5360: another proprietary ion-resin exchange powder
H.R. 5361: 10,10′-Oxybisphenoxarsine
H.R. 5362: a macroporus adsorpent polymer
H.R. 5363: 4-(1-Ethoxyethoxy) styrene-4- (t-butylcarbonyloxy) styrene-4-hydroxystyrene copolymer
According to House Lobbying Disclosure reports, the Dow Chemical corporation hired lobbyists to effect passage of all these bills. According to the same source, Dow Chemical is the only entity to have hired lobbyists in 2012 to effect passage of H.R. 5347, H.R. 5348, H.R. 5360, H.R. 5361, H.R. 5362, and H.R. 5363 (the other corporation hiring a lobbyist on H.R. 5346 is the agrichemical producer Nufarm Americas).
Guess who was a recipient of campaign contributions from the Dow Chemical corporation in the 2011-2012 election cycle? Yes, as you can see for yourself, Bob Dold received an influx of Dow Chemical PAC money.
This may (or may not) be the tip of an iceberg: thanks to the deregulation of reporting on campaign finance, chemical megacorporations like Dow can contribute as much money as they want to the re-election of industry-serving politicians like Bob Dold as long as communications are made “independently,” and they don’t have to report a penny of it to you or me.
P.S. I should go out of my way to note that it would be wholly inaccurate to characterize Bob Dold as a wholly-owned political tool of the Dow Chemical corporation. After all, another two of the 20 bills mentioned above benefit another multinational chemical corporation, Asuterasu Seiyaku Kabushiki-gaisha, from which Bob Dold has also received campaign contributions.