Corporate Power and Environment

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A Corporate Environment: Industry control in the US political system
In the United States, corporate powers and private interest groups have been allowed to take far to much control over the creation and enforcement of environmental regulations and policy. This overstepping of boundaries has influenced the actions of politicians on every level, but one dangerous overstep is into the world of environmental politics. Corporations and private interest groups have a lot to lose if stringent environmental policy goes into place in the United States, and therefore these groups are willing, and unfortunately able, to fight back.
Political Action Committee
Corporations and private interest groups have been allowed a voice in the political system in the United States in several ways, one being the creation of PACs.
A political action committee, or PAC, is a group allowed to make unlimited or near-unlimited campaign contributions to a specific candidate, acting in the interest of a certain union, corporation or group that otherwise would be unable to contribute in such quantity or such a manner as a PAC allows. This lack of limitation has not always been the case, however. (Wikipedia, Political Action Committee, 2014)
History of PACs
In 1947, in the Taft-Hartly Act, unions and corporations were banned from spending money to influence elections, in order to maintain candidate responsibility to the voting base. But in 1971, the Federal Election Campaign Act (and its amendments in 1974) defined a political action committee and allowed them to make contributions to a political campaign, in the interest of a corporation or other group. According to the Federal Election Campaign website, “the FECA provided an exception whereby corporations a...

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Bartlett, Sarah, and John Hickman. "'Critical Use' Exemptions and the Methyl Bromide Blues." Synthesis/Regeneration, 32 (2003): 29-30.

Nguyen, Ngoc. “Banned Pesticide Use Remains High in CA Strawberry Fields” New American Media (2011)

“The Phaseout of Methyl Bromide” United States Environmental Protection Agency (2014)

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