Henry J. Oechler

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This article is part of the Tobacco portal on Sourcewatch funded from 2006 - 2009 by the American Legacy Foundation.

Henry J. Oechler worked for Chadbourne Parke Whiteside & Wolff which was also known by the earlier name of Chadbourne & Parke.

Oechler and his company Chadbourne & Parke at the second-rank of the lawyers who handled specific tobacco industry problems (The first rank were Covington & Burling, Shook Hardy & Bacon, and Arnold & Porter).

He appears to have been used more for political battles during the Clinton Administration in fighting against regulatory take over of cigarette control by the FDA [1], and during the George HW Bush Administration to attack the EPA's ETS Risk Assessment.[2]

He represented American Tobacco, and then some of the smaller companies. Later Philip Morris and British-American Tobacco.

Documents & Timeline

1989 Sep 27 Oechler was a member of the Tobacco Institute's 'core constituency' of disinformation executives and lawyers who receive carbon copies of confidential information about the TI's corrupt activities. This key document is a briefing by James W Johnston, Chairman of the Executive Committee, Tobacco Institute, about their propaganda and science-corruption operations.

[NO ONE RECEIVING A COPY OF THIS DOCUMENT CAN CLAIM NOT TO BE PART OF THE TOBACCO INDUSTRY'S CONSPIRACIES] See the cc list on last page.

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1990 July 13-15 an Industry-wide Planning Conference has been organised by David Zelkowitz (PM) to be held at the golf-tennis resort of Greenbrier (West Virginia). Those invited are the key tort-reform lobbyists and lawyers from the various companies (Neal Cohen, Jim Goold, etc) and also their wives. The corporate jet will fly them down.

Participants are: Gene Ainsworth (Joy); Neal Cohen (Ellen Mignoni); Joe Doss (Michele); Jim Goold (Dabne); Dave Harfst (guest); Richard Kingham (Justine); Karen Kremer (Ernie Dubester); John David Myles (Mary Helen); Kurt Malmgren (Gail); Roger Mozingo (Wanda); Fred Newman (Mary); Henry J. Oechler, Jr. (guest); Jack Quinn (Diane); Stu Rickerson (guest); J. Bernard Robinson (Bess); David Zelkowitz (Suzy). [3]

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1991 Jan 4 Industry strategies to defeat the ETS risk assessment.
Objectives
1. To block the release of, or, short of that, to modify the EPA risk assessment and workplace policy guide to reflect more accurately the scientific consensus on ETS,
2. To build a record of the flaws and controversies surrounding the risk assessment and policy guide and the SAB review of those documents for use in legislative and regulatory battles on ETS . [Much more on Strategies] [4] Also an accompanying notice to TI [5] [Henry Oechler was the American Tobacco representative in this group]

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1991 Apr A Distribution list for key documents by the EPA/OSHA Task Force includes:

• Tobacco Institute: Samuel D Chilcote, Bob Lewis, Kay Thomas
• Chadbourne & Parke: Henry Oechler
• Philip Morris: Amy Miliman, Steve Parrish
• RJ Reynolds: Tom Griscom, Burleigh Leonard
• Covington & Burling: Clausen Ely, John Rupp
• Shook Hardy & Bacon: Leo Dreyer
• Wynder Ryan Cannon & Thelen: Mike Forscey
  

Oechler would have been representing the interests of the smaller cigarette companies here: American Tobacco, Liggett & Myers, Lorillard, etc.

References

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