(Archived document, may contain errors)

19

June 1982

THE ENVIRONMENTAL COMPLEX.- PART N

(Executive summary)

The environmental activist movement in the United States appears to be enjoying a resurgence, at least in part because of its skillful exploitation of Reagan Administration environmental policies. The movement's "new vigor" is shown in the significant gains made by such organizations as the Sierra Club, Natural Resources Defense Council, Environmental Defense Fund, and Friends of the Earth in both membership and contributions. Also, litiga- tion groups like the Sierra Club Legal Defense Fund, NRDC, and EDF have reported major increases in the numbers of cases in which they are involved; EDF, for example, with more than seventy active cases, filed three times as many lawsuits during the last six months of 1981 as during the preceding year, while NRDC, as of March 1982, reported filing more cases during the last year than during the entire four years of the Carter Administration. Many key elements of the environmental complex have been able to rely on financial support provided by tax-exempt founda- tions created with the help of corporate money and even, in some cases, on funds provided by corporations themselves. At the same time, several of these groups have assumed a blatantly adversary posture toward the corporation. The inevitable question is whether corporations and foundations, however unknowingly, have supported organizations which, though ostensibly dedicated to safeguarding the environment, in fact operate with an institutional bias against the free enterprise system, or at least against the corporation which serves as so essential a part of that system.

For Parts I and II, see Heritage Foundation Institution Analysis No. 4, "The Environmental Complex," November 1977, and Institution Analysis No. 6, "The Environmental Complex: Part II," April 1978.

With respect to the five organizations covered in the attached study -- the Sierra Club, Natural Resources Defense Council, Friends of the Earth, Environmental Defense Fund, and Environmen- tal Action -- while the degree of overt anti-corporate animus may vary from case to case, the answer appears to be "yes."

These five groups claim impressive memberships: 300,000 for the Sierra Club, 41,000 for the Natural Resources Defense Council, 27,000 for Friends of the Earth, 46,000 for the Environmental Defense Fund, and 21,000 for Environmental Action. They also boast fairly impressive budgets: $8,500,000 in 1979 and a proposed $9,000,000 in 1980 for the Sierra Club, with $1,800,000 in 1979 for SCIs affiliated Sierra Club Foundation and a proposed $850,000 in fiscal year 1980 for the Sierra Club Legal Defense Fund; an estimated $3,500,000 in 1980 for the Natural Resources Defense Council; an estimated $1,100,000 in 1980 for Friends of the Earth, with an additional $225,000 in 1980 for FOE's affiliated Friends of the Earth Foundation; a proposed $2,100,000 in 1981 for the Environmental Defense Fund; and a proposed $550,000 and $300,000 in 1980 for, respectively, Environmental Action and its affiliated Environmental Action Foundation. The Sierra Club, Friends of the Earth, and Environmental Action engage overtly in lobbying and are not tax-exempt; the Sierra Club Foundation, SC Legal Defense Fund, Natural Resources Defense Council, Friends of the Earth Foundation, Environmental Defense Fund, and Environmental Action Foundation, however, are all classified as 501(c)(3) organizations, contributions to which are therefore deductible for income tax purposes.

Foundation support for these groups has been of significant dimensions. The Rockefeller Family Fund, for example, has given $50,000*annually to the Sierra Club Legal Defense Fund and has provided funding for such other groups as the Natural Resources Defense Council, Environmental Defense Fund, and Environmental Action Foundation. The Ford Foundation, which curtailed support for public interest law firms in 1979, has provided support for SCLDF, EDF, and NRDC. The Scherman Foundation has made grants to, among others, the SCLDF, NRDC, and EDF, while the Shalan Foundation has supported both EDF and EAF. NRDC has benefitted from an especially large number of foundation giants, as well as from funds provided by the Youth Project, a principal source of support for anti-corporate groups and other elements of the left in the United States, including the Institute for Policy Studies and numerous IPS projects. The Environmental Action Foundation has likewise been among groups receiving recent grants from the Youth Project. Both NRDC and EDF have acknowledged receiving "some corporate support," but Friends of the Earth abandoned its corporate fundraising program after "disappointing results." Several other organizations, however, many of them strongly oriented toward wildlife protection and conservation, have recorded significant levels of corporate support.

Anti-corporate rhetoric is basic to several environmental activist organizations, despite the fact that most disclaim any

specifically anti-corporate bias. A former president of the Sierra Club, for example, claims that "the environmental movement is the best friend of the corporation," although SCLDF literature has spoken of "the re-awakening of the 'robber baron' spirit, the 19th-century idea that the earth and its resources are here to exploit with impunity, and that the health and well-being of the many must give way to the avarice of the few." NRDC and FOE have frequently appealed for support by raising the specter of corporate "polluters" and their "powerful lobbyists" and arguing the urgent need for "a sound solar energy policy, one that-is based upon public need, not corporate greed." The president of FOE has written colorfully of the "power" of "the giant oil and utility companies" and of how FOE is "Leading the way" in "fighting those giants and their profit-oriented priorities." And EDF, though claiming to be "neither 'anti-growth' nor 'anti-progress"' and espousing a policy of cooperation with industry and government representatives in some areas, has generated support by claiming that the Reagan Adminstration is packed "with anti-environmental- ists enlisted from the ranks of the mining, oil, and timber interests' most ardent advocates" and saying that "our environment [may be] about to go up in smoke" if "big business and its friends in the White House have their way!"

Perhaps the most stridently anti-corporate of these groups is Environmental Action, which has had as two of its principal efforts the "Dirty Dozen Campaign" and the successor "Filthy Five Campaign." The latter is designed "to make voters--and politi- cians--aware of the large polluting corporations that contribute lavishly to candidates all around the country" and "to persuade all House and Senate candidates to refuse contributions from these companies." The "Filthy Five" for 1980 included the Dow Chemical Company, Standard Oil Company of Indiana, Occidental Petroleum Corporation, Republic Steel Corporation, and Interna- tional Paper Company. EA and EAF literature has been particularly critical of "the nation's utility companies" as a "major source of our nation's energy problems" and has emphasized the claim that "industrial interests" are going to capitalize on the results of the 1980 elections by seeking "a license to degrade America's cleanest air ... until it is as bad as the air in our urban areas." In like manner, EA has claimed that "the real villain" in the nation's gasoline shortages "is the oil industry" and its "greedy manipulation of a small energy crunch into a full-blown disaster." To deal with "Big Oil's bullying" and "the oil industry's money, staff, or slick propaganda," EA argues the urgent need "to reach activists across the country, the press and ... Congress to let them know that a clean and healthy environment must not be sacri- ficed to a profit-hungry oil industry."

Of course, just as "taking corporate money doesn't mean that a group has suddenly joined with the Chamber of Commerce in supporting big business", corporate and foundation giving to environmental groups does not necessarily mean conscious support for activity that is primarily anti-corporate in nature. Many companies, especially corporations like Exxon and Mobil, appear

to have concentrated on areas like conservation and wildlife protection rather than on litigation by so-called public interest law firms like NRDC and EDF; and, in general, corporate donations do not constitute a really substantial portion of the typical environmental organization's budget. Nevertheless, corporate, and especially foundation, support for some environmental activist groups has often been extremely generous; and, with respect to the five organizations emphasized in the attached study, this support has gone to groups whose activities and rhetoric are frequently and demonstrably anti-corporate. In such cases, it would seem that corporations and foundations should examine requests for funds with particular care. As noted by former Treasury Secretary William E. Simon, "Capitalism has no duty to subsidize its enemies," a sentiment echoed in 1976 by Henry Ford II upon resigning from the board of the Ford Foundation as a result of his concern over funding of certain public interest law firms and environmental activist groups: "I'm just suggesting to the trustees and the staff that the system that makes the Founda- tion possible very probably is worth preserving."

THE ENVIRONMENTAL COMPLEX: PART III

INTRODUCTION

The environmental activist movement in the United States appears to be enjoying a significant resurgence, at least in part because of its skillful exploitation of the Reagan Administration's attempts to redirect national environmental policy. As reported by William H. Miller in a detailed examination, "Environmental Activism Is Back," published in the March 8, 1982, issue of Industry Week, "environmentalists' alarm over the pro-development policies of the Reagan Administration" has led to a "new vigor" within the movement. Specifically,

With their war chests bulging, several environmental groups have begun to intensify action on the legal battlefront. The Sierra Club's Legal Defense Fund, for instance, is involved in more than 100 court cases--twice as many as a year ago. Similarly, the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), a 15-year-old Washington environ- mental group that emphasizes litigation, says it has filed more cases in the last year than during the entire four years of the Carter Administration. And EDF [Environmental Defense Fund], which also is heavily involved in litigation, reports that it filed three times as many lawsuits during the last six months of 1981 as it did in the year-earlier period. It now has more than 70 active cases.

Because of their ability to capitalize on this purported "alarm," reports Miller, "environmental and conservation groups are enjoying their biggest boom since the heady era of Earth Day more than a.decade ago." Examples are described as follows:

\u239\'95 The National Audubon Society, New York, the nation's second-largest conservation group, recorded an impres- sive 44% gain in membership during 1981--from 313,000 to 452,000. Meanwhile, its "Citizens' Mobilization Campaign" generated nearly $1 million in special contributions.

\u239\'95 The Sierra Club, San Francisco, also boosted its roster by 44%--from 180,000 to 260,000--during its last fiscal year. Its financial appeals brought in 20% more than its most optimistic projections had anticipated.

\u239\'95 The Wilderness Society, Washington, reported an even larger membership surge of 62% during calendar 1981. Besides growing from 37,000 to 60,000 members, it saw contributions more than double--to $537,000. \u239\'95 The Natural Resources Defense Council, New York, reversed a decline as its membership climbed from 40,000 to 41,000. But despite the relatively small increase in members, contributions from members soared 54%.

\u239\'95 The Environmental Defense Fund, Washington, also ended a no-growth period by signing up 1,000 new recruits--increasing its total membership to 46,000. And its contributions were up 20% without the help of a special appeal.

\u239\'95 Friends of the Earth, San Francisco, saw its member- ship climb to 27,000--up 35% from 1980.

\u239\'95 The National Wildlife Federation, Washington, the nation's largest conservation organization, boasted a 20% revenue increase through much of last year--even though the number of members and financial supporters actually fell [emphasis in original] from 4.5 million to 4.2 mill-ion. (Its membership is closely linked to subscriptions to its magazine.)

To a significant extent, key elements of the environmental complex have been able to rely on the largesse of tax-exempt foundations created with the help of corporate money -- and, in some cases, on funds provided by corporations themselves. At the same time, however, many of these same groups have assumed a blatantly adversary posture toward the corporation. The question inevitably arises: Are corporations and foundations, albeit unknowingly, supporting organizations which, though ostensibly dedicated to safeguarding the environment, in fact operate with an institutional bias against the free enterprise system, or at least against the corporation which serves as so essential a part of that system? With respect to the five organizations emphasized in this study -- the Sierra Club, Natural Resources Defense Council, Friends of the Earth, Environmental Defense Fund, and Environmental Action ---the evidence speaks for itself; and the answer, while the degree of overt anti-corporate animus may vary from case to case, appears to be "yes."

SIERRA CLUB

Characterized by New York Times writer William R. Carlsen as "the oldest, most influential and most respected environmental protection group in the nation" and by a "recent Environmental Protection Agency officer" as "the strongest of the environmental groups which lobby", the Sierra Club was founded in 1892 by famed naturalist John Muir. Its first staff members were hired in 1952, and its Washington, D.C., office was opened eleven years later. Membership has grown from 10,000 in 1956 to the 300,000 claimed in a mailing circulated by the organization in May 1982. As of publication of a 1980 study prepared by the Foundation for Public Affairs, the Sierra Club had "a staff of 130, about 60 percent of whom are professionals." Headquarters staff numbered 100, with fourteen in the group's Washington office. The affili- ated Sierra Club Foundation had "thirteen staff members in San Francisco, and two in New York City." Another affiliate, the Sierra Club Legal Defense Fund, employed "ten attorneys in San Francisco, California; Denver, Colorado; Washington, D.C.; and Juneau, Alaska."

The same source reported that the Sierra Club is "a national organization, with 180,000 members organized into 53 chapters and 284 local groups." In addition, there were "Branch offices ... in Anchorage, Alaska; Los Angeles, California; Madison, Wisconsin; New York, New York; Lander, Wyoming; Seattle, Washington; Sacramen- to, California; Tucson, Arizona; and Washington, D.C." and "Cana- dian offices ... in Toronto and Vancouver." With specific reference to the Club's affiliates, the study noted that

The Sierra Club Foundation was incorporated in 1960, but its activities remained limited in scope until 1968. In 1967, following the Club's ads in major newspapers on behalf of Grand Canyon protection, the Internal Revenue Service ruled that contributions to the Sierra Club were no longer tax-deductible because of its substantial legislative effort. The Foundation then took over receipt of contributions for some of the non-legislative programs of the Sierra Club. The Foundation has grown steadily since then, and now supports most of the Club's educational, legal, scienti- fic, and literary projects.

The Legal Defense Fund was established in 1971. Its major accomplishments include: preventing the North Slope gas pipeline from being routed through the Arctic Wildlife Refuge; extensive litigation leading to the designation of Admiralty Island, Alaska as a national monument; and protection of Redwood National Park.

The Sierra Club is classified as a 501(c)(4) organization, while both the Sierra Club Foundation and the Sierra Club Legal Defense Fund are classified as 501(c)(3) organizations. Thus, contributions to the Club itself are not tax-deductible, although contributions to both the Foundation and the Legal Defense Fund are deductible for income tax purposes. Funding for the Sierra Club and certain other environmental activist groups by foundations and other sources, including corporations, is examined in later sections of this study; but it should be noted that, in general, as reported by the Foundation for Public Affairs, "approximately 34 percent of the Club's budget is supplied by member dues."*

*The same source noted in 1980 that "The Sierra Club's budget was $8.5 million in 1979, with $9 million proposed for 1980. During 1979, the Founda- tion's budget was $1.8 million. The Legal Defense Fund had a budget of $800,000 for the fiscal year ending July 31, 1979, and $850,000 is proposed for fiscal year 1980.11 other sources include 1114 percent... from outings and lodge fees; 23 percent from book sales and royalties; 16 percent from contri- butions from the Legal Defense Fund and Sierra Club Foundation; and 10 percent from outside donations." Further,

The Rockefeller Family Fund has been donating $50,000 annually to the Legal Defense Fund for its Rocky Mountain office and for energy litigation. The Legal Defense Fund received $85,000 from the Ford Foundation in 1977 and again in 197S. The Ford.Founda- tion curtailed its funding of public interest law firms in 1979, and closed out its support to the Legal Defense Fund with a grant of $170,000 to facilitate future fundralsing. During 1980, the Sierra Club has made a commitment to raise $340,000 of the Legal Defense Fund's budget.

The Sierra Club Foundation receives most of its support from individual contributions and foundation grants.

In a promotional brochure circulated with a membership solicitation letter in May 1982, the Sierra Club emphasized its "major role in the formation of the National Park Service and the Forest Service" and claimed it had been "a moving force behind the creation of the Wilderness Preservation System and the Wild and Scenic Rivers System." The letter accompanying this document reported that "In 1980, we saw 10 years of hard work come to fruition when Congress passed the Alaska Lands Act" and added that "in 1982, 95,000 (!) new members joined our ranks largely because the anti-environmental stance of James Watt, Anne Gorsuch and other administration officials once again awakened public support for protecting our wilderness and parks, forests and range lands, air and water [punctuation as in original]." The letter began by declaring that "Just a short while ago, one million Americans signed a petition circulated by the Sierra Club, calling for the removal from office of James Watt, the reckless, environment-threatening Secretary of Interior."

The Foundation for Public Affairs reports that former Sierra Club President William Futrell has said, "The Sierra Club's motto since 1892 has been 'not blind opposition to progress, but opposi- tion to blind progress.' We know the word tradeoff, we know the words compromise and settlement.". Also, Futrell is quoted as noting that "the environmental movement is the best friend of the corporation, really" and that "Many companies are beginning to realize that now, especially those that plan to be around 10 years from now, because corporations want a stable society to exist in."

Despite this seemingly conciliatory posture, however, a fundraising letter circulated by the Sierra Club Legal Defense Fund over the signature of Morris K. Udall in March 1980 was replete with rhetoric about the "well-heeled special interests" and "the well-funded special interests -- the loggers, the mining companies, the developers, the oil companies and the international cartels" which allegedly "see Alaska as one of their last great opportunities." And a more recent appeal circulated in January 1982 spoke yet more colorfully about "the re-awakening of the 'robber baron' spirit, the 19th-century idea that the earth and its resources are here to exploit with impunity, and that the health and well-being of the many must give way to the avarice of the few."

NATURAL RESOURCES DEFENSE COUNCIL AND FRIENDS OF THE EARTH

Both the Natural Resources Defense Council and Friends of the Earth were treated at some length in a 1977 study,* but there have been a number of noteworthy developments since then.

In 1980, the Foundation for Public Affairs reported that NRDC had 1177 staff members, including 25 attorneys, 5 scientists, and 14 project staff." As "a national organization of approxi- mately 40,000 members engaged in litigation and education on environmental issuesil, NRDC "has offices in New York, New York, Washington, D.C., and San Francisco, California." FOE was credit- ed with 1151 staff members; 42 professional, 4 support, 5 clerical. These figures include 5 [Friends of the Earth] Foundation staff members and 18 lobbyists in the Washington Office and state capitals." The study further stated that "FOE has 25,000 members, 7 local branches and staff representatives in 60 locations around the country" with "principal offices ... in San Francisco, California and Washington, D.C." and "field offices in Anchorage, Alaska; Billings, Montana; Boston, Massachusetts; Columbia, Missouri; Colorado Plateau, Utah; Sacramento, California; Santa Fe, New Mexico; Denver, Colorado; New York, New York; and Seattle, Washing- ton." In addition, Friends of the Earth "has sister organizations" which "raise their own funds and take independent policy positions" in Australia, Belgium, Canada, El Salvador, Ehgland, France, West Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Thailand, and Yugoslavia.

*See Heritage Foundation Institution Analysis No. 4. "The Environmental Complex," November 1977. This study, in addition to sections on NRDC and FOE, includes detailed discussions of the Friends of the Earth Foundation and the Conservation Foundation, as well as an overview of the environmentalist movement generally. A related study, Heritage Foundation Institution Analysis No. 6, "The Environmental Complex: Part II," April 1978, includes sections devoted to the views of Amory Lovins and Ralph Nader; the Ford Foundation Energy Policy Project and its report A Time to Choose: America's Energy Future; and the Environmental Agenda Task Force, which was funded by the Rockefel Brothers Fund and produced The Unfinished Agenda: The Citizen's Policy Guide to Environmental Issues. As one of the nation's preeminent environmental "public interest" law firms, NRDC is classified as a 501(c)(3) organiza- tion, contributions to which are tax-deductible. Friends of the Earth, which engages overtly in lobbying, is classified as a 501(c)(4) organization, while the affiliated FOE Foundation, which purports to engage in activities more purely educational in nature, is classified as a 501(c)(3) organization. Thus, contri- butions to the Foundation are deductible for income tax purposes, while contributions to the parent organization are not.

As of 1978, according to the Foundation for Public Affairs, "approximately 55 percent of NRDC's income came from foundation grants, 36 percent from individual contributions, and 3 percent from the sale of publications." During the same year, "major foundation grants" ranging from $50,000 to $340,000 were received from the Gund Foundation, Rockefeller Brothers Fund, Ford Founda- tion, and Cary Charitable Trust; during 1979, grants of from $25,000 to $50,000 were received from such institutions as the Noyes Foundation, Clark Foundation, Rockefeller Family Fund, and Victoria Foundation. In October 1978, Ford "helped NRDC launch a capital fund with an outright grant of $1 million and an additional one-to-one matching grant of $750,000. NRDC noted in its 1978/79 Annual Report that, 'over $500,000 of the $750,000 has already been committed or paid."' As reported in the August 21, 1981, edition of the Washington Post, NRDC was also to "be included in the charities sharing in the Combined Federal Campaign, starting this October." FOE, on the other hand, is supported primarily by individual membership fees, the categories of membership including "Regular, $25; Supporting, $35; Contributing, $60; Sponsor, $100; Sustaining, $250; and Life, $1,000.11 As a tax-exempt instrumental- ity, the FOE Foundation benefits from support provided by indivi- duals and foundations. NRDC's budget in 1979 was $3,000,000, which was increased to an estimated $3,500,000 in 1980. FOE's proposed budget for 1980 was $1,100,000, while that of the FOE Foundation was approximately $225,000.

NRDC's concerns are varied. A membership and fundraising appeal circulated by the organization early in 1980 declared that IINRDC's projects include clean energy,, wilderness preservation, air quality maintenance, improved mass transit, control of cancer causing agents in our environment and protection of our waterways and oceans." Special appeals have been circulated on such subjects as clean water and toxic wastes, "radioactive waste" and "nuclear responsibility," and "agribusiness methods" and "the soil crisis." NRDC litigation has frequently been directed at utilities and at government agencies charged with implementation of environmentally related policies and legislation, and the organization has joined in a number of coalition efforts with groups like the Sierra Club and Friends of the Earth on such issues as coastal barrier islands protection and 11synfuel panic." in an action whose relationship to NRDC's ostensible commitment to the environment is not alto- gether clear, the group in 1980 joined 146 other organizations in a coalition organized by the AFL-CIO to oppose attempts to reduce inflation by cutting budget allocations for costly and often controversial social services. Like NRDC, Friends of the Earth has engaged in a number of coalition efforts, working with such groups as NRDC, the Sierra Club, and Ralph Nader's Critical Mass Energy Project on issues like mining in Utah's Alton coalfield, President Carter's proposed reorganization of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and 11synfuel panic." Amory Lovins, FOE's United Kingdom Representative, is a leading advocate of "soft" energy technology; and the FOE Founda- tion has created an International Project for Soft Energy Paths that is designed "to spread information about alternative energy." Prominently identified with the anti-nuclear position, FOE has also been active in opposing the supersonic transport (SST), in delaying the construction of the trans-Alaskan pipeline, in preservation of wildlife, and in litigation on legislation like the Clean Air Act and issues like the sale of nuclear technology.

According to the Foundation for Public Affairs, "In its litigation activities, NRDC is nonpartisan, but the interests it represents are often critical of industry and government." Dr. H. Peter Metzger of the Public Service Company of Colorado, who has done extensive analyses of environmental groups and their policies, charged in 1979 that NRDC is both "anti-growth" and "anti-business." NRDC trustee John B. Oakes, on the other hand, has written that "What environmentalists are trying to do is to protect the long-range interests of human society on this wasting planet from those who would plunder it now and let the future take care of itself." Such rhetoric is reminiscent of Sierra Club material, as is the language of a clean-water letter circulated by NRDC in October 1979. This document strongly emphasized the role of the corporate "polluters" and their "powerful lobbyists" in working "to delay and undermine enforcement" of the Federal Water Pollution Control Act of 1972. The "enormous power of special interests" and "their ability to smother the protests of elected officials who know better" was characterized in colorful terms as "a David-and-Goliath situation if you measure the enormous budgets and political clout of big business interests against the limited resources of NRDC and other environmentalists."*

Friends of the Earth has likewise been demonstrably anti- corporate in some of its pronouncements. The Foundation for Public Affairs reports that an FOE staff member was quoted in the Spring 1980 issue of Business and Society Review as saying that "In the capitalist system, one expects corporations to emphasize maximization of profit in the short term, which often includes replacement of jobs by energy and capital" but that "they wouldn't

*This imagery has also been used by at least one other major environmental activist group. In a 1979 fundraising appeal in behalf of Environmental Action, according to the Foundation for Public Affairs, actor Edward Asner observed that "Should one seek to compare the batting average of various environmental groups, I'm sure Environmental Action would head the list. Though David-like in size, its effectiveness in bringing down the Goliaths of air, water, field and political pollution is universally noted."

 

get away with this and other atrocities like pollution without the help (direct and indirect) of the federal government." And in a fundraising letter circulated during 1979, FOE President David R. Brower wrote:

Some opponents of conservationists have tried to discredit efforts on behalf of protecting the environment by saying we're against jobs and progress. Not so! We're very much concerned about creating jobs and have shown that maintaining a healthy environment creates many healthful jobs. we're very much in favor of progress ... real progress. But to our way of thinking, it's not progress when you create sickness, maim our countryside and irreplaceable wilderness areas, needless- ly kill animals and endanger human beings, just so some misguided industrialists can show an ever-growing record profit [emphasis and punctuation as in original].

This letter was explicit with respect to the pressing need for "a sound solar energy policy one that is based upon public need, not corporate greed." It @mphasized the problems allegedly posed by "domination" of solar energy technology by "the giant oil and utility companies" and reinforced the point by claiming that the "power" of these "corporate giants" was being used to secure "shortcuts through essential safety regulations and multi- billion dollar subsidies from you" and "to convince government decision-makers that the only energy route to take is one in which only 1hey, the oil and utility industries, provide energy and energy sy--temY [ei5pha'sis in origiFal].11 Such a policy would result in a delay in "the development of solar energy until the corporations have squeezed the last drop of profits from conven- tional energy sources." FOE, however, was "Leading the way" in "fighting those giants and their profit-oriented priorities.

"ENVIRONMENTAL DEFENSE FUND

The Environmental Defense Fund was founded in 1967 and has described itself in one of its basic promotional brochures as "a nationwide organization of scientists, lawyers and economists working to protect the public interest in the broad areas of environmental quality, energy, health and consumer welfare." This source further declares that IIEDF scored its first major victory by winning a lawsuit that brought about the banning of the pesticide DDT in the United States" and that the organization's "effectiveness stems from a unique blending of solidly researched scientific data, skilled legal work, public education and lobbying at both the Congressional and State levels." In a fundraising letter circulated during October 1981, the Fund claimed 45,000 members. Other EDF literature states that the group maintains offices in New York, New York; Washington, D.C.; Berkeley, Cali- fornia; and Denver, Colorado. The Foundation for Public Affairs reports that EDF has 1141 staff members; 31 professional, 10 clerical" and that "Twelve of the professionals are attorneys." The Environmental Defense Fund is classified as a 501(c)(3) organization, contributions to which are therefore tax-deductible. With a proposed budget 'of $2,100,000 for 1981, according to the Foundation for Public Affairs, IIEDF reports its principal sources of funding as memberships, foundation grants and individual gifts, and during 1978, EDF received about 40% of its total support from foundations." A recent EDF mailing specified at least five categories of membership: "Associate," "Family,11 "Supporting," "Sustaining," and "Founding" at, respectively, $15, $25, $50, $100, and $500 per year. When the Ford Foundation "curtailed its funding of public interest law in 1979,11 it "closed out its support of EDF with a $750,000 grant." During 1978 and 1979, grants amounting to from $10,000 to $50,000 were also provided by such institutions as the Cary Foundation, Rockefeller Family Fund, Babcock Foundation, Stern Fund, Noble Foundation, Ripple Foundation, Shalan Foundation, Noyes Foundation, and Public Welfare Foundation.

EDF's activities, like those of other environmental activist groups, are wide-ranging and include litigation, testimony before government agencies, publication of educational materials, and various undertakings in coalition with other like-minded organiza- tions around such issues as nuclear and coal-fired plants, business attempts to cut back government regulatory activity, and synthetic fuels. In addition to playing a major role in securing the ban on DDT, the Fund claims that its "lawsuits and scientific studies have led to such environmental landmarks as ... strengthening of the Clean Air Act" and "passage of the Safe Drinking Water Act." Other IIEDF efforts have led to" a ban on the flame-retardant chemical Tris, "elimination of carcinogenic materials used in hair dyes," and "regulation of 65 toxic substances that were being discharged into United States waterways." At the state level, EDF has "helped bring about a complete revision of Califor- nia's pesticide regulations to decrease reliance on chemical pesticides."

A recently inaugurated "new program of the Environmental Defense Fund" is the S.O.S. (Save Our Species) Wildlife Campaign for the protection of "more than 200 ... species of American wild- life" threatened with extinction. The breadth of EDF's current concerns is indicated by the following paragraph in the October 1981 letter:

This year, with the Reagan Administration in place, we must greatly intensify our efforts in the areas of clean air, toxic chemicals, water usage, coal conversion and its impact on the air, pesticides, energy economics, wildlife and wilderness preservation, and the protection of surface and ground-water drinking water resources.

According to the Foundation for Public Affairs, the Environ- mental Defense Fund claims to be "neither 'anti-growth' nor 'anti-progress.' It is EDF policy to propose workable alternatives to practices it may oppose-" While the "interests EDF represents often'lead it into conflict with industry and government ... EDF is not adverse to a cooperative approach on certain issues" and has "worked closely with industry and government representatives in many areas."

Nonetheless, as with so many other environmental activist groups, EDF relies to a significant extent on its adversary relationship with the corporation in raising funds and demonstrat- ing its,credentials. 'An undated mailing reviewing EDF's first twelve years, for example, spoke of-the organization's "remarkable breakthroughs" in such areas as control of toxic chemicals and water, air, and noise pollution and proclaimed that "Today, when we file suit, polluters cringe." And a recent appeal accuses "Twenty-five of the biggest corporations in America -- chemical, steel, energy, and paper" of working through the National Environ- mental Development Association to organize "a project whose purpose is to gut the Clean Air Act. If they succeed in reducing the public health standards for clean air, the results will be disastrous." This letter also accuses President Reagan of packing "his Administration with anti-environmentalists enlisted from the ranks of the mining, oil, and timber interests' most ardent advocates." In dramatic language, it begins by asking "Is our environment about to go up in smoke?" and answering that "It may, if big business and its friends in the White House have their way!"*

ENVIRONMENTAL ACTION

Environmental Action was founded in 1970, when it served as coordinator for the first Earth Day. In a 1977 promotional

*As reported in the April 15, 1982, issue of Engineering News-Record, "In the name of 'getting the government off our backs,' President Reagan and his appointed officials are 'giving away our natural heritage' to private businesses, a group of the country's largest environmental organizations charged last week." At the same time, the "former head of the Justice Department's hazardous wasce litigation group" testified before a subcommittee of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce that Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Anne Gorsuch is "nothing more than a pawn in Ronald Reagan's scheme to get the government off the back of industry, which translate[s] into no enforcement of environmental laws and reduction of regulatory standards." The environmental groups reportedly "claim the White House has supported huge subsidies for 'white elephant' nuclear and synfuels programs while cutting federal aid for solar and conservation efforts" and that the administration is ignoring the national consensus in favor of environmental protection. "'Not only do the Reagan policies threaten every aspect of the quality of life" says John Adams, of the Natural Resources Defense Council, 'but they also undermine the efforts of those industries that have responsibly complied with environmental laws and regulations."' Among the organizations supporting these allegations, according to ENR, were the following: Friends of the Earth, Natural Resources Defense Council, Wilderness Society, Sierra Club, National Audubon Society, Environmental Defense Fund, Environmental Policy Center, Environmental Action, Defenders of Wildlife, and Solar Lobby.

mailing, the organization described itself as "a national environ- mental lobbying organization" which has worked successfully "to impose stringent air and water pollution control laws, cancel the supersonic transport (SST) project, and shift the direction of the Highway Trust Fund to include funding for mass transit." other claimed successes include "passage of the Resource Conser- vation Act -- the most stringent law yet in our battle against garbage and waste -- and the Toxic Substances Control Act -- controlling, for the first time, the proliferation of dangerous chemicals in our environment." The Foundation for Public Affairs reports that EA has "over 21,000 members" and "a staff of 11, including 4 lobbyists." The Environmental Action Foundation, an affiliated, non-membership organization created in 1971 to conduct "educational and research activities" related to EA's concerns, "employs 12 clearinghouse and research staff." Both organizations maintain their offices in Washington, D.C.

As an avowed lobbying organization, Environmental Action does not enjoy tax-exempt status; the Environmental Action Founda- ti'on, however, is classified as a 501(c)(3) organization, contri- butions to which are deductible for income tax purposes. According to the Foundation for Public Affairs, EA had a budget of $497,000 in 1979 and a proposed budget of $550,000 for 1980, while the Foundation's proposed budget for 1980 was $300,000. EA's annual report for 1980 reported total expenditures of $529,703; and EAF's annual report for 1979 reflected total expenditures of $308,519. EA's largest sources of revenue are membership dues and contributions, which amounted to $316,104 and $153,302, respectively, during 1980; the Foundation's principal income is derived from sales of its publications and from foundation grants. In 1980, the Foundation for Public Affairs reported that grants in amounts ranging from $3,000 to $20,000 were "received during the past two years" from the Rockefeller Family Fund, Shalan Foundation, Babcock Foundation, and Stern Fund.

EA's lobbying activities have included support for Solar Bank legislation, a significant role in securing passage of the so-called Superfund bill, a national "bottle bill" campaign for mandatory deposits on beer and soft drink containers, and opposi- tion to cuts in Amtrak funding and creation of an Energy Mobiliza- tion Board. EA's position on nuclear power is succinct: "For 10 years, Environmental Action has been trying to stop nuclear power." Its plans for 1981 included "taking this fight to Congress" to "argue for a safe nuclear waste disposal plan and for taking environmental impacts into consideration in any equation assessing the cost of nuclear power." EA also works "at the grassroots with citizens trying to pass antinuclear initiatives." In June 1980, working with the Sierra Club, EA created a "Hunt the Dump" Campaign, described in the group's annual report for 1980 as an effort "to help citizens get the nitty gritty data on abandoned, leaking toxic dumps and then force polluting companies to clean them up." Two of the organization's principal long-term efforts have been the "Dirty Dozen Campaign" and the successor "Filthy Five Campaign." The former focused on 1112 of the most obvious anti- environment 'bad guys' in Congress"; in 1980, the Foundation for Public Affairs reported that "Since the Dirty Dozen Campaign began in 1970, 55 percent of the incumbents targeted by EA have been defeated." The latter, announced in March 1980, is intended "to make voters--and politicians--aware of the large polluting corporations that contribute lavishly to candidates all around the country" and "to persuade all House and Senate candidates to refuse contributions from these companies." The "Filthy Five', for 1980 included the Dow Chemical Company, Standard Oil Company of Indiana, Occidental Petroleum Corporation, Republic Steel Corporation, and International Paper Company.

An effort like the "Filthy Five Campaign" obviously bespeaks an aggressively anti-corporate bias, as does other literature circulated by both EA and EAF in recent years. In an early 1981 mailing, for example, EAF recounted how, since 1972, it "has successfully analyzed, criticized, and challenged one major source of our nation's energy problems -- the $200-billion electric utility industry" and appealed for support by saying that "Challeng- ing the power industry, of course, is a tough job." (In 1978, EAF used somewhat stronger language, telling of how it had "inves- tigated, analyzed and criticized the nation's utility companies" and adding that "Fighting the power industry is a tough job (emphasis added].") Similarly, a 1979 mailing spoke of how, "encouraged by the timidity of our policymakers, energy conglomer- ates fearful of losing their financial advantage have tightened their stranglehold on our energy supply." Another early 1981 appeal sounded the alarm against "industrial interests" which, as a result of the 1980 elections, will now be seeking "a license to degrade America's cleanest air, including the air of our national parks, until it is as bad as the air in our urban areas."

An especially strident note was struck in a 1979 "Dear E.A. member" letter, which evoked images of people "sweltering" in gasoline lines while "hearing that oil company profits skyrocketed" and declared that "The reason for all this, and the real villain (you're right!) is the oil industry" and its "greedy manipulation of a small energy crunch into a full-blown disaster" that "has hit all of us in the pocket." The oil companies were accused of being "Determined to keep America hooked on high energy use, conservation be damned," to which was added the allegation that "Nothing that stands in their way is sacred--fresh air, safe drinking water, wilderness." Preservation of the Clean Air Act was menaced by "pressure by Big Oil and other industrial polluters." Legislation would be needed "to clean up hazardous waste dumps and oil spills" because, "despite their obscene windfall profits, oil companies are not about to invest their dollars in cleaning up. That is, unless Environmental Action, with your help, can pass a tough law." Thus, faced with "Big Oil's bullying" and "the oil industry's money,.staff, or slick propaganda," EA argued the "need to reach activists across the country, the press and, very importantly, Congress to let them know that a clean and healthy environment must not be sacrificed to a profit-hungry oil industry."

SOURCES OF FUNDING: FOUNDATIONS

While many organizations within the environmental complex must rely heavily on membership fees, sales of literature, personal contributions, and the like, several have also benefitted to a not inconsiderable extent from other sources,'among which,' in many instances, the most significant in terms of dollar amounts is probably a group of the nation's tax-exempt foundations. Both the Conservation Foundation and the Natural Resources Defense Council, for example, were materially assisted initially by grants from the Ford Foundation, while such other groups as the Environmental Defense Fund, Sierra Club Legal Defense Fund, and Environmental Action Foundation have also derived often consider- able income from foundation grants.

Data excerpted from a compilation prepared by the National Legal Center for the Public Interest reflect recent grants made by foundations to a number of environmental activist organizations:

\u239\'95 Arcadia Foundation, Norristown, Pennsylvania, $5,000 to the Wilderness Society.

\u239\'95 Austin Memorial Foundation, Cleveland, Ohio, $12,000 to the Environmental Action Foundation.

\u239\'95 Mary Reynolds Babcock Foundation, Winston-Salem, North Carolina, grants of $20,000 and $30,000 to the Environmen- tal Defense Fund.

\u239\'95 Edwin J. Beinecke Trust, Greenwich, Connecticut, $60,000 to the Natural Resources Defense Council.

\u239\'95 Frederick W. Beinecke Fund, New York, New York, $17,500 to the Natural Resources Defense Council, $5,DOO to the Environmental Defense Fund, and $5,000 to the Wilderness Society.

\u239\'95 Booth Ferris Foundation, New York, New York, $25,000 to the Natural Resources Defense Council.

Bydale Foundation, New York, New York, $20,000 to the Environmental Policy Institute, $10,000 to the Environmental Defense Fund, and $5,000 to the Natural Resources Defense council.

Mary Flagler Cary Charitable Trust, Millbrook, New York, $40,000 to the Natural Resources Defense Council and $15,000 to the Environmental Defense Fund.

14

\u239\'95 Clark Foundation, New York, New York, $15,000 to the Natural Resources Defense Council.

 

\u239\'95 Robert Sterling Clark Foundation, New York, New York, $50,000 to the Natural Resources Defense Council.

\u239\'95 Compton Foundation, New York, New York, $5,000 to the Natural Resources Defense Council and $1,000 to Friends of the Earth.

\u239\'95 Chase Manhattan Bank Charitable Contributions Program, New York, New York, $1,000 to the Environmental Defense Fund.

\u239\'95 Ford Foundation, New York, New York, grants of $340,000 and $515,000 to the Natural Resources Defense Council.

\u239\'95 Foundation for the Needs of Others, New York, New York, $55,000 to the Natural Resources Defense Council and $40,000 to the Sierra Club Foundation.

\u239\'95 Wallace Alexander Gerbode Foundation, San Francisco, California, $12,000 to the Natural Resources Defense Council.

\u239\'95 Evelyn and Walter Haas, Jr., Fund, San Francisco, Califor- nia, $14,130 to the Wilderness Society.

\u239\'95 Harder Foundation, Detroit, Michigan, $1,750 to the Natural Resources Defense Council.

\u239\'95 Huber Foundation, Rumson, New Jersey, $10,000 to the Natural Resources Defense Council.

\u239\'95 J.M. Kaplan Foundation, New York, New York, $20,000 to the Natural Resources Defense Council.

\u239\'95 Henry P. Kendall Foundation Trust, Boston, Massachusetts, grants of $55,000 and $55,320 to Friends of the Earth, $25,000 and $50,000 to the Natural Resources Defense Council, and $5,000 to the Wilderness Society.

\u239\'95 L.A.W. Fund, New York, New York, $30,000 to the Natural Resources Defense Council.

\u239\'95 L.A.W. Fund, Mount Kisco, New York, $30,000 to the Natural Resources Defense Council and $10,000 to the Environmental Defense Fund.

\u239\'95 Albert A. List Foundation, Greenwich, Connecticut, $50,000 to the Environmental Defense Fund, $10,000 to the Natural Resources Defense Council, $15,000 to the Environmental Action Foundation, and $15,000 to the Environmental Policy Institute. \u239\'95 McDonald's National Contribution Program, Oak Brook, Illinois, $3,500 to the Conservation Foundation.

\u239\'95 McIntosh Foundation, West Palm Beach, Florida, $5,000 to the Environmental Action Foundation, $5,000 to the Friends of the Earth Foundation, and $4,000 to the Wilderness Society.

\u239\'95 Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, New York, New York, $500,000 to the Conservation Foundation.

\u239\'95 Richard King Mellon Foundation, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, $600,000 to the Conservation Foundation and $50,000 to the Wilderness society.

\u239\'95 Joyce Mertz-Gilmore Foundation, New York, New York, $5,000 to the Natural Resources Defense Council.

\u239\'95 Morgan Guaranty Trust Company of New York Charitable Trust, New York, New York, grants of $2,000 and $3,000 to the Natural Resources Defense Council.

\u239\'95 Edward John Noble Foundation, New York, New York, two grants of $30,000 each to the Environmental Defense Fund.

\u239\'95 Jessie Smith Noyes Foundation, New York, New York, grants of $27,000 and $54,000 to the Environmental Defense Fund.

\u239\'95 Orleton Trust Fund, San Mateo, California, $1,000 to the Environmental Defense Fund.

\u239\'95 Public Welfare Foundation, Washington, D.C., $50,000 to the Environmental Defense Fund.

\u239\'95 Rockefeller Family Fund, New York, New York, $50,000 to the Sierra Club Legal Defense Fund, $17,500 to the Environ- mental Action Foundation, and $25,000 to the Environmental Defense Fund.

\u239\'95 Scherman Foundation, New York, New York, $25,000 to the Natural Resources Defense Council, $10,000 to the Environ- mental Defense Fund, and $10,000 to the Sierra Club (For Legal Defense).

\u239\'95 Van Ameringen Foundation, New York, New York, $25,000 to the Environmental Defense Fund and $10,000 to the Natural Resources Defense council.

\u239\'95 Virginia Environmental Endowment, Richmond, Virginia, $16,042 to the Conservation Foundation.

\u239\'95 Vollmer Foundation, New York, New York, $5,000 to the Sierra Club Foundation. SOURCES OF FUNDING: THE YOUTH PROJECT

Several of these foundations -- Bydale, Ford, Public Welfare, Rockefeller Family, Scherman, and van Ameringen -- have also been among recent supporters of the Youth Project, one of the more active sources of funding for anti-corporate and other elements of the left in the United States. YP's most recent annual report, which actually covers the eighteen-month period from January 1, 1980, through June 30, 1981, reflects often substantial support for such anti-corporate groups as the Council on Economic Priori- ties, Democracy Project, and Institute for Policy Studies, along with-such IPS-related entities as the avowedly socialist newspaper In These Times, Institute for Southern Studies, Conference on Alternative State and Local Policies, Foundation for National Progress, and New School for Democratic Management, the last named being an FNP project characterized by economic democracy theoretician Derek Shearer as an "Alternative Business School', designed to serve as "an ideological challenge to the rest of society."*

The same report also lists funding by the Youth Project for at least five major environmental activist organizations:

\u239\'95 the Environmental Action Foundation, which "received support for a program designed to increase the effective- ness of local energy activists in using economic arguments to challenge nuclear power development, $15,000.11

\u239\'95 the Environmental Policy Center, "a national information center which provides data on environmental and energy policies to citizens and local groups across the country" and "assists local groups with their approaches to state and federal agencies on water resources, coal, oil and gas, conservation, synthetic fuels, rural energy and the preservation of prime farmlands; $62,530 in supplemental funds committed from three sources [in addition to $35,000 and $7,000, respectively, from YP's "donor advised" CR Fund and Fund for Safe Energy and Nuclear Disarmament]."

*For extensive background information on the Institute for Policy Studies, its various subsidiaries and "spinoffs," and its activities, see Heritage Foundation Institution Analys!.s No. 2, "Institute for Policy Studies," May 1977; Institution Analysis No. 9, "The New Left in Government: From Protest to Policy-Making," November 1978; Institution Analysis No. 13, "Campaign for Economic Democracy: Part I, The New Left in Politics," Septe@ er 1980; Institu- tion Analysis No. 14, "Campaign for Economic Democracy: Part II, The Institute for Policy Studies Network," April 1981; Institution Analysis No. 15 ' "The Attack on the Corporation," September 1981; and Institution Analysis No. 17, "The New Left in Government: Part II, The VISTA Program as 'Institution- Building,"' February 1982. Additional material may be found in Heritage Foundation Backgrounder No. 113, "The Corporate Democracy Act and Big Business Day: Rhetoric vs. Reality," March 11, 1980. \u239\'95 the Environmental Policy Institute, which "received support [from the "donor advised" Resource Fund] for its analyses of federal programs related to environmental and energy policy, $20,000.11

\u239\'95 Environmentalists for Full Employment, which received $15,000 from the "donor advised" Resource Fund "for their work to promote the concept that there need not be a conflict between providing healthy, socially useful jobs and safe, clean workplace and community environments" and $10,000 from the "donor advised" Sunrise Fund "for its efforts to bring labor and environmental organizations closer together to promote conservation, solar energy and job development."

\u239\'95 the Natural Resources Defense Council, which received $3,000 and $15,000 from the CR Fund and Resource Fund, respectively, "to help defray travel expenses for represen- tatives of grassroots organizations in the Intermountain West, Midwest and Appalachia to attend the Synfuels Strate- gy Session of March, 1981,11 and to support "its Northwest Energy Conservation Project to enhance citizen understand- ing and participation in the energy planning process in the Northwest."

SOURCES OF FUNDING: CORPORATIONS

A third source of financial support for elements of the environmental complex is of particular significance. A detailed account in the September 1980 Environmental Action reported that "there clearly is an explosion of interest in corporate giving among many environmental groups" and cited as an example a dona- tion of $400,000 made to the National Audubon Society by the Celanese Corporation, this donation being "the largest ever received by Audubon." The article further revealed that Audubon "reports that it has 80 corporate members" and that "each contri- buted a minimum of $1,000 to the group last year, including Allied Chemical, ARCO, Conoco, Dow, Exxon, Dupont, Getty Oil, International Paper, Union Carbide, U.S. Steel and Weyerhaeuser."

While "Many nonprofit organizations" like the Conservation Foundation and Environmental Action Foundation "have relied principally on the support of foundations" and "Neither Solar Lobby nor Environmental Action currently seeks corporate donations, and neither plans to do so in the near future", and while Friends of the Earth had abandoned its "corporate fundraising program" after "disappointing" results, the author of the article was able to cite several examples of environmental activist organizations which had successfully enlisted corporate support:

the Nature Conservancy, "which purchases and protects important natural areas" and "not only accepts corporate money, but goes to great pains to get it." Specifically,

"In 1978, Union Camp, a giant paper company, donated 16,600 acres of Georgia land, worth $6.5 million, to the organization, while ARCO gave $1 million toward the group's purchase of an island off southern California. Other donors include Dow, Dupont, Johns-Manville, McDonald's and Mobil."

\u239\'95 the National Wildlife Federation, which "also aggressively seeks corporate money. In 1976, with the aid of a grant from Exxon, the federation unleashed its Raptor Information Center, which dispenses materials on birds of prey."

\u239\'95 the World Wildlife Fund, which "receives $10,000 or more a year from each of its corporate patrons, $5,000 and up from corporate sponsors and $1,000 or more from corporate associates. The fund's list of 198 corporate contributors includes Allied Chemical, ARCO, ITT, Mobil, Texaco and Rockwell International."

\u239\'95 the Wilderness Society, which "recently launched a corporate development project under the leadership of its new execu- tive director, William Turnage.11

\u239\'95 the Environmental Policy Center, "which has lobbied for legislation imposing fees on users of environmentally destructive waterways" and "enlisted support from the railroads, which believe they can't compete with waterways as long as waterway users aren't forced to pay their own way. EPC is trying to enlist the support of other corpora- tions that agree with the group's ongoing programs."

\u239\'95 the Conservation Foundation, "a nonprofit research group which works on land use and other issues" and which "last year received a total of $182,000, or about 8 percent of its budgetT, from 63 corporations."

\u239\'95 the Environmental Law Institute, Environmental Defense Fund, and Natural Resources Defense Council, all of which "receive some corporate support and say they would accept more" while agreeing "that corporate fundraising for public interest law firms must proceed with extreme caution. As NRDC's Ann Pritchard put it, 'We have to be free not to sue Exxon [emphasis in original]."'

\u239\'95 the Sierra Club, whose "spokesperson Len Levitt says the club has not 'done much soliciting [of] funds from corpora- tions,' although it will be hiring a new fundraiser to do just that."

CONCLUSION

As observed in the Environmental Action article, "Merely taking corporate money doesn't mean that a group has suddenly joined with the Chamber of commerce in supporting big business." On the other hand, the converse is equally true., corporate giving to environmental groups does not necessarily mean conscious support for activity that is primarily anti-corporate in nature. certainly, companies like Exxon and Mobil appear to have conce;1- trated their benefactions on areas like conservation and wildlife. protection rather than on environmental litigation and so-called public interest law firms. Also, as the article further observes, "corporate donations do not comprise a.substantial share of the typical environmental group's budget." Indeed, "corporations make no bones about the fact that they prefer the less controver- sial conservation organizations and issues to the more activist and controversial ones."

Nevertheless, corporate, and especially foundation, support for some environmental activist organizations has often been extremely generous; and, with respect to the five organizations emphasized in this study, support has gone to groups whose activi- ties and rhetoric are oftenblearly anti-corporate to a not insignificant degree. In such cases,.corporations and foundations might do well to scrutinize requests for funds with particular care. As noted by former Secretary of the Treasury William E. Simon, "Capitalism has no duty to subsidize its enemies," a - sentiment echoed in essence by ffenry Ford II upon resigning from the board'of the Ford Foundation in December 1976, partly because of concern over Foundation funding of certain public interest law firms and environmental activist groups: "I'm not playing the role of the hardheaded tycoon who thinks all philanthropoids are Socialists and all university professors are communists. I'm just suggesting to the trustees and the staff that the system that makes the Foundation possible very probably is worth preserv- ing.11

William T. Poole Senior Policy Analyst

The foregoing analysis is one in a series published by The Heritage Foundation. This publication is intended as a background analysis of an important organiza- tion which affects public policy. Any views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the Foundation. Any comments should be addressed to the Director of Research at The Heritage Foundation, 513 C Street, N.E., Washington, D.C. 20002.