The most recent head, John Graham, has “demonstrated consistent hostility to protections for public health, safety and the environment over his career.” And according to Frank O’Donnell of Clean Air Watch, Dudley “makes John Graham look like Ralph Nader.”

As the director of regulatory studies at the industry-backed Mercatus Center she has worked to oppose vital public health regulation as a “hidden tax” that hinders profits. Some of her targets:

– Opposed EPA plans to set tougher public health standards for smog.

– Opposed lower-polluting cars and SUVs and cleaner gasoline.

– Opposed air bags in cars, preferring to leave public safety decisions “to the market place.”

– Opposed stronger regulations for arsenic in drinking water, claming that there “is a wide range of uncertainty in the science surrounding the health effects of arsenic in U.S. drinking water supplies.”

– Opposed measures to curb global warming, stating that the “evidence regarding global warming and human contribution to it is mixed, and…if a slight warming does occur, historical evidence suggests it is likely to be beneficial, occurring at night, in the winter, and at the poles. Taking ‘precautionary action’ to protect human health based on a series of tenuous linkages would likely create a new set of risks.”

Not surprisingly, Exxon Mobil has donated $80,000 to Dudley’s think tank.

UPDATE: The global warming document that opposed measures to curb global warming was written by a Mercatus colleague of Susan Dudley, not by Dudley herself. We regret the error.

Yet Schwarzenegger recently announced his opposition to the Clean Alternative Energy Initiative, a landmark ballot measure that would finance alternative energy research and development by imposing a tax on oil companies. (The initiative is backed by dozens of California green groups, and would boost the state’s economy according to UC Berkeley’s Goldman School of Public Policy.)

The governor’s opposition might have something to do with the nearly $2 million in campaign contributions from oil companies he’s received since 2002. Chevron gave a total of $600,000 to his campaign and paid for his trip to the 2004 Republican National Convention in New York City. Chevron also reportedly enjoyed “considerable influence” over the content of the Governor’s major reform proposals in 2004, which included significant benefits for the oil industry.

And which oil company is the #1 donor to the group opposing the clean energy initiative? Chevron, which has given a whopping $3,740,000, more than three times the amount of the next 14 donors combined.