Advocates of campaign finance reform often cite the unhealthy effect big money has upon the political process. A new report released this week on the close relationship between the chemical industry and Congress suggests the effect may be downright poisonous.

“Unreasonable Risk: The Politics of Pesticides” is the result of an exhaustive study by the Center for Public Integrity. While previous explorations of money and politics have been disturbing to those Americans who take democracy seriously, this one should be infuriating to anyone who eats.

The central findings are these: Between 1987 and 1995, the chemical, agriculture and supermarket industries, banding together as what they call the Food Chain Coalition, have poured at least $85 million into congressional campaigns; the primary targets of that generosity have been congressional leaders and those who sit on the crucial committees that oversee agriculture and environmental matters; a chemical-industry subset of the coalition, an organization that goes by the Orwellian name of Responsible Industry for a Sound Environment (RISE), has working for it 219 full-time lobbyists, most of whom have recently exited the revolving door from serving in Congress themselves, on congressional staffs, in the White House or in relevant federal agencies.

The Food Chain Coalition and RISE paid a good price for their Congress and the return on investment has been handsome. During that same eight-year period, more than 65 bills were introduced in Congress to tighten pesticide regulations. Not one passed.

In 1996, Congress did, however, pass the Food Quality Protection Act. This misnamed legislation replaced the previous law, which simply banned any additives from processed food that induce cancer in humans or animals, with one of those byzantine cost-benefit, risk analysis regimes that the Environmental Protection Agency is still trying to figure out, much less enforce.

The EPA, in fact, is so cowed by pressure from Congress and the White House (Al Gore, at the behest of beholden Democrats, personally asked the agency to ease up) that when it discovered a subsidiary of Dow Chemical had hid from federal regulators for 10 years the 302 claims for damages resulting from the potent pesticide Dursban, the best the EPA could do was a trifling $876,000 fine, an amount roughly equal to what Dow spends each summer on golf club memberships.

Such blatant influence peddling and bribery adds to the already strong case for campaign finance reform, at the very least a ban on unregulated soft money contributions, yet the prospects are as dim as ever.

The Senate, of course, tucked reform in for a long nap this winter. The House has two good measures before it, but Republican leadership has so larded them down with irrelevant or unpalatable amendments — 250 at last count — that they may never come to an up-or-down vote.

But Majority Leader Dick Armey, one of the leading obstructionists, has promised the House will complete its work on reform between the time it reconvenes after the Fourth of July break and its August recess. So with Congress home for a festive weekend, this might be a good time to fire up the grill, invite the local pol over for a burger or an ear of corn and talk campaign finance reform. Just don’t eat anything yourself — that stuff could kill you.