"The Oldways Preservation Trust, which earlier this year held a conference in Italy to promote pasta, is organizing another journalists' confab, this time to discuss the virtues of sugar," PR Week reports. "The trust ... has secured the Beverage Institute for Health and Wellness, a Coca-Cola affiliated organization, as a sponsor for its Conference on Sweetness and Health in Mexico City. ... Journalists are being offered free travel and accommodations, if their organizations permit, to attend the meeting. The conference will feature roughly 20 scientists plus chefs talking about the place of sweetness and sugar in proper diets. ... The conference aims to diffuse concerns that sugary foods are a culprit in America's obesity epidemic."

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has directed staff to "refrain from answering" media calls in order to "prevent EPA management from being surprised by news coverage," according to an agency memo obtained by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility. The Mid-western region acting administrator Bharat Mathur told staff that in the interest of "open communication" and "shaping consistent messages" they were not to work with or talk to the press. "If you receive any request for information or an interview from a member of the media, you should refer the caller to [EPA's Office of Public Affairs]," Mathur wrote. "Please refrain from answering such inquires directly. OPA will determine the appropriate response - and who should respond - after consultation with program staff, and if necessary, after elevating issues for senior-level attention." Inside EPA reports similar instructions being given to staff in the Mountain and Plains region. "EPA is instructing its employees not to discuss political issues with reporters, citing fears that such interactions could inappropriately characterize Bush administration policies just weeks before the November elections," Inside EPA reports.

"For the third time, environmental advocates have discovered passages in the Bush administration's proposal for regulating mercury pollution from power plants that mirror almost word for word portions of memos written by a law firm representing coal-fired power plants." The passages, in language from the Latham & Watkins firm, say the EPA will not regulate other toxins emitted by power plants (including lead, chromium and arsenic). According to Public Citizen and the Environmental Integrity Project, three former Latham & Watkins employees now work at the EPA, including the person "in charge of all air pollution policy" and "a leading architect of new air pollution regulations."

The PR firm Porter Novelli is helping the Business Roundtable, an organization of U.S. corporate CEOs, promote its "Climate RESOLVE" program, O'Dwyer's PR Daily reports. Climate RESOLVE was created to encourage companies to voluntarily reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, responding to George W. Bush's call for a voluntary 18 percent reduction of emissions by 2012 and attempting to undermine an international treaty on GHG. The Climate RESOLVE campaign kicks off on Sept. 23 with ads in the Washington Post and Roll Call to be followed by "one-pagers" for "Congressional aides, environmental officials and reporters to keep them abreast of efforts to control greenhouse gas." Climate RESOLVE is also hosting a two-day "GHG Management Workshop," featuring a talk by White House Council on Environmental Quality chair James Connaughton. The Business Roundtable says 70 percent of its members have signed up for Climate RESOLVE. "They are eager to avoid the mandated cuts that are going into effect in much of the world under the Kyoto Protocol, the pending international treaty of global warming," O'Dwyer's writes.

"The most important type of story is that which casts doubt on the cause and effect theory of smoking and cancer," read one internal Council for Tobaccco Research memo presented by the U.S. Justice Department on the first day of the largest civil racketeering trial brought by the government. "Public relations is key," the memo continued, "to getting us out of this hole." The tobacco industry is accused of conspiring to "deceive the public about the proven dangers of smoking to protect billions of dollars in profits the industry earned from cigarette sales." Defendants in the suit are Philip Morris USA Inc. and its parent, Altria Group Inc., R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co., Brown & Williamson Tobacco Co., British American Tobacco Ltd., Lorillard Tobacco Co. and Liggett Group Inc. Two now-defunct tobacco industry organizations, the Council for Tobacco Research and the Tobacco Institute, are also being sued. The government claims the conspiracy began in the 1950s, when the industry began meeting to devise a strategy to undermine reports linking smoking and lung cancer. They ended up creating what Justice Department attorney Frank Marine called "one of the most elaborate public relations schemes in history."