From: Jim Whitehead (ejw@cse.ucsc.edu)
Date: Mon Oct 16 2000 - 10:01:39 PDT
Wow, until Yangkun showed me the way, I never knew how much fun I could have
sending election spam to FoRK. I have definitely seen the light.
http://www.ewg.org/pub/home/Reports/GeorgeWBush/enviro_advisors.html
George W. Bush's Anti-Environmental Advisors
Beyond the Official Bios
A recent article in The National Journal ("A Few Hints of Green," August 7,
1999) introduced a group of people gathered to advise George W. Bush on
crafting a "positive, conservative environmental agenda." What most voters
do not know is that the assembled group of policy advisors do not represent
a mainstream environmental perspective.
Many are associated with right-wing groups that receive a good portion of
their funding from large polluting corporations and right wing foundations
that in turn support a wide array of anti-environmental causes– everything
from "takings" legislation and dismantling the Endangered Species Act, to
denying the existence of global warming and the seriousness of air
pollution. The group does not generally value the environment outside of
conservative economic terms, and broadly opposes environmental protections
that the American people consistently support in political polls.
A few individuals even have ties to the so-called "wise use" movement, a
primarily western movement whose 25 stated goals include "immediate wise
development of the petroleum resources of the Arctic National Wildlife
Refuge" and "creation of National Mining System" under which "all public
lands including wilderness and national parks shall be open to mineral and
energy production under wise use technologies."(The Wise Use Agenda, edited
by Alan Gottlieb, 1989).
Not exactly the kind of people Americans want potentially guiding the
nation's environmental future.
Gale Norton
Norton began her private legal career as a staffer at the anti-environmental
Denver-based Mountain States Legal Foundation where she spent four years
before being elected to two terms as Colorado's attorney general. Other
Mountain States Legal Foundation alumni include Anne Gorsuch, Reagan's
controversial EPA head who was forced to resign amidst scandal, Roger and
Nancie Marzulla of the Defenders of Property Rights (another extreme
property rights legal foundation), Wayne Hage, a founder of the "Sagebrush
Rebellion" who is now engaged to the controversial Rep. Helen Chenoweth
(R-ID), and Clint Bolick and William "Chip" Mellor who founded Washington,
DC's conservative Institute for Justice.
The Mountain States Legal Foundation (MSLF)was founded in 1977 with initial
funding provided by well-known supporter of far-right and anti-environmental
causes, Joseph Coors. The organization’s first president was James Watt,
President Ronald Reagan's notorious Secretary of the Interior. MSLF claimed
to have received donations from over 175 corporations in its first year.
MSLF also receives significant funding from many right-wing foundations,
including the Coors-run Castle Rock.
Among other issues, MSLF promotes "takings" legislation, which would
compensate land owners for not breaking environmental laws. MSLF has been
extremely active in the so-called "wise use" movement and has aggressively
litigated against environmental protection. In addition to courtroom
activities, MSLF was a sponsor of the first "wise use" conference in Reno,
Nevada in 1988. The conference was organized by hard-core anti-environmental
leaders Ron Arnold and Alan Gottlieb of the Center for the Defense of Free
Enterprise and funded by companies such as Boise Cascade, DuPont, and
Louisiana Pacific. Conferees authored the 25 point agenda cited in the
opening paragraphs.
Norton has also been a member of many other extreme "property rights"
groups. She was a member of the Legal Advisory Council for Defenders of
Property Rights and co-chaired an environmental forum at the National Policy
Forum which is headed by Republican Party Chair Haley Barbour. She was a
member of the Farm Credit Bank Property Rights Task Force, the ad hoc group
that was formed in 1994 with the purpose of launching the Farm Credit
Property Rights Foundation.
Lynn Scarlett
Scarlett is the Executive Director of the Reason Public Policy Institute, a
project of the Reason Foundation. The Reason Public Policy Insitute also
favors "free market" solutions to environmental problems. Reason downplays
the risks from global warming and opposes tighter standards for particulate
air pollution.
David H. Koch of Koch Industries, a massive oil company, sits on the board
of the Reason Foundation and is also a funder. Koch Industries is currently
under two unrelated investigations by the EPA for environmental violations
in Minnesota and the southwest, and has paid millions in environmental fines
for other violations of the Clean Air and Clean Water Acts. The Reason
Institute, like the Pacific Research Institute, is a member of the Heritage
Foundation's State Policy Network.
Scarlett was a senior fellow at the Foundation for Research on Economics and
the Environment (FREE), the Montana-based organization that was exposed last
year by The Washington Post for holding anti-environmental junkets for
federal judges at a Montana dude ranch. FREE is bankrolled by polluting
interests that fund litigation before the federal bench.
The Reason Foundation has received funding from the Farm Bureau, Amoco,
Arco, Chevron, Coors, David H. Koch Foundation, Eli Lilly, Exxon, Ford
Motors, Olin Foundation, Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, Mobil, Pfizer,
Philip Morris, Sarah Scaife Foundation, Texaco, Unocal, and Xerox.
Christopher C. DeMuth
DeMuth is the president of the American Enterprise Institute for Public
Policy Research (AEI), which "aims to preserve and strengthen the
foundations of a free society– limited government, competitive private
enterprise, vital culture and political institutions, and vigilant defense
through rigorous inquiry, debate and writing" (from AEI's mission
statement). A fellow of AEI, Charles Murray, wrote the controversial book,
The Bell Curve, which suggests a correlation between race and intelligence.
AEI’s directors and trustees represent Dow Chemical, Procter and Gamble,
American Cynamid, FORBES, Coca Cola, Texaco, New England Electrical Systems,
Eli Lilly and GTE. AEI has been funded by Procter and Gamble, Amoco
Foundation, ARCO Foundation, Chevron, Union Carbide, Scaife Family
Foundation, John M. Olin Foundation, Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, the
Coors-run Castle Rock Foundation and the Sarah Scaife Foundation.
Terry L. Anderson
Anderson is the Executive Director of the Political Economy Research Center
(PERC) in Bozeman, MT. PERC bills itself as a "free market environmental
think tank", meaning it opposes most environmental regulations in favor of
"market solutions". PERC has received funding from Amoco, Arco, The Chemical
Manufacturers Association, Conoco, Eli Lilly and Co., Pfizer, Coors, and the
conservative foundations of the JM Foundation, the Scaife-run Carthage
Foundation, Olin Foundation, Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, Sarah
Scaife Foundation, and the Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation. PERC is
listed as a "networking participant" in the "wise-use" umbrella
organization, Alliance for America.
Anderson has also been an adjunct scholar at the libertarian/conservative
Koch-funded Cato Institute and a fellow at the Hoover Institution at
Stanford University.
Steven Hayward
Hayward is a senior fellow at the Pacific Research Institute for Public
Policy in San Francisco. The Pacific Research Institute, a libertarian
free-market think tank, is a member of the State Policy Network, an
association of state think tanks organized by the ultra-conservative
Heritage Foundation. Pacific Research Institute has received funding from
most of the large conservative foundations: Sarah Scaife Foundation, the
David H. Koch Foundation, the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, and the
John M. Olin Foundation.
The Pacific Research Institute recently published Environmental Gore, A
Constructive Response to Earth in the Balance. Contributing authors include
John Baden of FREE, global warming deniers Robert Balling, Hugh Ellseasser,
and Richard Lindzen, Lynn Scarlett of Reason, and Mountain States Legal
Foundation alumna Nancie Marzulla, now of Defenders of Property Rights.
Contact: Emily Headen, Analyst, Environmental Working Group, 202-667-6982.
Funding and affiliation research comes from EWG's database system designed
to track the anti-environmental movement collected over a period of years.
Please contact us if you have specific questions.
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