WASHINGTON - March 24 - In the third consecutive Special Interest Spotlight report on President Bush's fundraisers from the battleground state of Ohio, Campaign Money Watch released "Bush's Money Laundry-ing" today, an analysis of the influence of Cintas Corp. had on Bush Administration environmental policy.

On November 20, 2003, six weeks after Cintas Corp. Chairman Richard T. Farmer co-hosted a $1.7 million fundraiser for George W. Bush in Cincinnati, Bush's Environmental Protection Agency proposed exempting industrial laundries like Cintas from rules that protect workers from handling poisonous materials. The E.P.A. says the rules could "save affected facilities over $30 million per year."

"This is yet another in a long line of examples of Bush White House policy that benefit political donors at the expense of workers and public health," said David Donnelly, director of Campaign Money Watch. "And, on this one, the American public is being taken to the cleaners."

The entire Special Interest Spotlight - which comes out once a week on Wednesdays - can be found at http://www.campaignmoney.org/spotlight/sis03_23_04.htm. It is the third in a series of reports on Ohio. The first two, one on W.R. Timken of The Timken Company and the other on Mal Mixon of Invacare Corp., covered job loss in the Buckeye state.

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