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Freedomworks’ Coal Lobbyist a Former Pro-Tobacco Scientist (VIDEO)
Posted: 12/07/2012 5:47 pm
Tom Borelli, a former science director at Philip Morris who fought claims that secondhand tobacco causes lung cancer and respiratory illness in children, is now touted on Fox News as an expert on the cleanliness of the coal industry. Borelli was busy this election season fighting Obama’s “war on coal” on behalf of his new employer, FreedomWorks.
Borelli has a long history of attacking the EPA on behalf of Big Tobacco. Serving in his role as Philip Morris’ Director of Corporate Scientific Affairs, Borelli appeared in a notorious 1992 film produced by Philip Morris attacking the Environmental Protection Agency for declaring secondhand tobacco smoke as a known cancer-causing agent. Borelli states that:
“Based on careful review of the science we believe that environmental tobacco smoke has not been shown to be a risk factor in the development of lung cancer, respiratory disease in children or heart disease.”
Watch it:
Borelli has come a long way since then, including a short stint as a professional climate change denier. He is now working at the right-wing think tank FreedomWorks as a Senior Fellow and a self-styled “expert” on the coal industry.
Here’s Borelli on Fox News Business in July 2012 talking about the widely-debunked Obama ‘war on coal’:
Is there no dirty product that Tom Borelli won’t defend for the right price?