Rick Berman's Public Face
 Rick
Berman founded and runs a trio of shadowy tax-exempt food, tobacco,
and beverage industry front groups. For a hefty fee, these nonprofit
organizations hire Berman as executive director. Berman then uses
his own privately owned public relations company to do work for
the nonprofit organization. In this way, Berman channels between
49 and 79 percent of the donations given to these nonprofit groups
into his own pocket. In 1998, this amounted to more than $1 million
for just one of these groups.
Berman’s trio of tax-exempt groups includes:
- The Center for Consumer Freedom (CCF) The CCF
attacks anyone who criticizes smoking, fastfood, or alcohol‹from
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) to Mothers
Against Drunk Driving (MADD) to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention (CDC).
- The American Beverage Institute (ABI) The ABI
fights laws designed to curb drunk driving‹in part by claiming
that even a blood alcohol level of 0.08 is within the realms of
responsible, social drinking.
- The Employment Policies Institute (EPI) The
EPI is opposed to raising the minimum wage, particularly in the
labor-intensive restaurant industry. It promotes the specious
concept that an increased minimum wage would drive the poor and
uneducated out of the job market.
All three of these industry front groups parade behind the banner
of free choice, which really means continued big profits for their
clients.
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