The public relations firm known today as the
National Environmental Trust began very quietly in 1993
when Joshua Reichert, environmental
director of Pew Charitable Trusts, circulated a proposal to other
foundation leaders to join in funding a new venture called
“Environmental Strategies.” Its foundationese mission statement was
“to assist environmental organizations to conduct public education
campaigns on priority national environmental issues.”
What that really meant was to help environmentalists split the wise
use movement with wedge issues and smear wise users as being
anti-environment rather than being anti-environmentalist.
Most of the people who received Reichert’s proposal had been at the
1992 Environmental Grantmakers Association retreat (click
here to visit the Center’s archive of transcriptions from their
sessions). They agreed with Chuck Clusen’s panel (click
here for transcription) that no single Green Group had produced
a full-spectrum power and pressure machine. Most agreed with Hooper
Brooks that the foundations had to become prescriptive in order to
force into existence the coalitions and alliances which could form
that machine. The real job of the new public relations group would
be to create synthetic coalitions. According to Mark Dowie’s book,
Losing Ground, the concept paper for Environmental Strategies
said:
For considerable sums of money, public opinion can be molded,
constituents mobilized, issues researched, and public officials
button-holed, all in a symphonic arrangement. There are media spots,
direct mail drops, phone banks, and old fashioned lobbying, tactics
employed in specific target areas, all informed by opinion research.
While business and industry has made extensive use of them,
environmentalists have been slow to employ and, equally important,
to coordinate these new political arts. As a result environmentalism
has fallen behind in a political arms race that requires even higher
levels of organized constituent involvement to influence officials
and engender administrative or legislative action.
When Ron Arnold read this quote into the congressional hearing on
Undue Influence (click
here for witness testimony), Pew Charitable Trusts went
ballistic and Dowie, a multiple National Magazine Award winner,
recanted the quote (click
here for Dowie’s letter).
Regardless who wrote the quote, Environmental Strategies was very
quietly incorporated in Washington, D.C., on February 4, 1994. The
incorporators were: Frances Beinecke,
Natural Resources
Defense Council; Donald K. Ross,
Rockefeller Family Fund; Douglas Foy, Conservation Law
Foundation; and Thomas Wathen,
Pew Charitable Trusts (which gave $650,000 for startup through
the Tides
Foundation—another donor-advised fund).
Wathen subsequently became an officer in the PR firm now known as
the National Environmental Trust with a current salary of $135,000
and benefits of $22,797.
Who are these symphonic arrangers?
Donald K. Ross is profiled on the
Rockefeller Family Fund page and the
USPIRG page.
If you’ve visited the Yale University campus, you know the name
Beinecke seems to be everywhere, Beinceke Plaza, Beinecke Library.
The NRDC’s deputy director at the time, Frances Beinecke (Yale Class
of ’71), is the daughter of William S. Beinecke, retired CEO of
Sperry & Hutchinson, who was the principal donor of the Beinecke
Library. Frances is a trustee of the Yale Corporation (governing
board of the university). She has since become the NRDC’s executive
director (1998). She co-founded the New York League of Conservation
Voters (NYLCV) in 1989 with Paul Elston (her husband), Robert F.
Kennedy Jr. and Larry Rockefeller, a lawyer with NRDC. When she
helped incorporate Environmental Strategies, she was earning $88,718
a year at NRDC, with a $10,284 benefit package, a nice frill to the
family fortune. She’s rich and powerful and connected.
Who’s Douglas Foy? Aside from being the head of the Boston-based,
foundation-nourished Conservation Law Foundation, he’s a Princeton
man (Class of ’69) —the old school tie to Joshua Reichert. Foy
received Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson Award in recognition
of his achievements, which were cited as an example of Wilson’s
vision for “Princeton in the nation’s service.” He’s very much the
strategic thinker, as he showed himself in a lecture at his alma
mater, stressing “that top-down regulation by government is an
abject failure and that local involvement in environmental issues is
essential since it fosters credibility and teaches what community
means.”
Tom Wathen, last of the incorporators, had been an all-around Pew
operative, Reichert’s front man in the field cultivating the grass
roots.
Environmental Strategies received a good dose of start-up money
($125,000) from the W. Alton Jones Foundation, even though Jones
didn’t sign on as a named incorporator. The Pew/Rockefeller/Jones
cluster pressured other foundations to fund their effort:
Jessie Smith Noyes Foundation, Public Welfare Foundation, and
Bill Moyers’
Florence and John Schumann Foundation, among others, joined in.
Environmental Strategies started with $2 million but no leader.
By the summer of 1994, Reichert had interviewed scores of candidates
for the top jobs at Environmental Strategies before finding the
right team.
The original staff is indicative: it was a virtual Who’s Who of
Democratic Party politics. Philip E. Clapp, executive director (now
president), was a member of the national steering committee of
Environmentalists for Clinton-Gore. Mike Casey, media relations
director, came directly from the Democratic Congressional Campaign
Committee. Staffer Arlie Schardt served as press secretary for Al
Gore’s first unsuccessful presidential bid. Schardt runs his own
outfit, Environmental Media Services.
The media contracts were handled by Washington, D.C.-based Fenton
Communications, long a favorite of the far left: During the 1980s,
for example, Fenton Communications had contracts with the Christic
Institute and the communist regimes of Angola and Nicaragua as a
registered agent of a foreign government. Fenton Communications is
best known for engineering the Alar scare that destroyed hundreds of
family apple orchard businesses. David Fenton talked CBS’s “60
Minutes” into reporting as fact an unproven claim by Beinecke’s
Natural Resources Defense Council that Alar, a root-applied chemical
used to ripen apples, was a serious cancer risk to children.
Horrified parents across the nation quit purchasing apples as a
result of the report, which bankrupted whole communities of apple
orchardists. In fact, the government was already phasing out Alar
(which the NRDC knew) and not a single case of any disease at all
was ever attributed to Alar. Shardt’s
Environmental Media
Services shares office space with Fenton Communications.
That original name, Environmental Strategies, was not very cuddly.
Two months after incorporating, on April 3, 1994, the incorporators
changed it to Environmental Information Center and went public in
November. Even that wasn’t good enough, because it’s now called “the
National Environmental Trust.”
From “Strategies” to “Trust” with “Information” in the middle.
The archetype of foundationese.
The PR outfit’s first task was to combat the emerging wise use
movement, then to create a new grassroots movement for
environmentalists who had lost their authentic supporters.
The Environmental Information Center’s original PR kit said it was
“founded in November 1994 to combat environmental misinformation and
help strengthen grassroots support for environmental protection.”
(No mention of the February 1994 Environmental Strategies
incarnation shown on the articles of incorporation.)
Then the adequately grant-driven Environmental Information Center
launched a series of “Strategy Sessions” in a dozen cities across
the country to get things moving. The sessions were for local
environmental group leaders only, no reporters invited. The programs
went like this:
After a hosted breakfast, EIC executive director Phil Clapp opened
each session with a short pep talk about the goals of the meeting,
how the Endangered Species Act debate was shaping up, and comments
from a trusted (and already-funded) local leader.
Then came a session called “Coalition-Building” where everyone said
who they were, who they’d been working with, and how they built a
winning coalition in their area of specialization.
A “Message” session produced a handout ballot for everyone to vote
on which messages they found to work best with fellow activists,
general public, legislators, and media.
Just before lunch came the guts of the spontaneous grassroots
campaign. The schedule said, “Discussion of successful techniques
including targeting, canvassing, literature drops, petitions, press
conferences and stunts, direct mail, phone banking, sign-on letters,
constituent visits, paid ads attacking foes and defending friends,
radio and TV actualities and PSAs, talk shows, newspaper op-eds,
letters to the editor; and editorial board briefings, and opposition
research and debunking, opinion polls.”
Organizers from the Pacific Northwest, Northern Rockies, and Alaska
told the session what they’d found did and didn’t work in their
campaigns.
After lunch, David Fenton of Fenton Communications told the group
about the media, its role in politics, and how to use it better.
Fenton stressed, “Educating the media so as to educate the public,”
and gave examples from actual news reports. The Seattle session
featured a Post-Intelligencer story he had planted on how logging
kills salmon.
Fenton also emphasized “reaching different audiences on the
Endangered Species Act such as religious, scientific, health, and
children’s constituencies. How we avoid creating sympathy for the
other side.”
John Hoyt of Pyramid Communications led a short panel discussion on
what works to get on the radar screen of a member of Congress,
followed by role playing on a visit to a reluctant congressman’s
office, using the technique of showing news media results to members
and staff for maximum payoff.
Late in the day the group split into sections to discuss goals for
the next 10 weeks, then worked backwards to set priorities, assess
the people and resources needed, decide who does what, and write a
timetable.
They ended the day trading phone, fax and email information, then
retired to cocktails for an hour of “informal discussion and
networking.”
At no time did anyone talk about doing anything directly on the
ground in the environment, like planting trees or growing food.
Only a few invitees in the room had any idea of the magnitude of the
campaign they had been invited into, and none knew who was paying
for it.
As the EIC’s Strategy Sessions rolled across the country,
environmental groups by the dozen put their hands out for large
grants to “reinvigorate the grassroots,” an activity that hadn’t
previously interested them. They got the money. And did what they
had been taught.
Media outlets subsequently reported a large and spontaneous growth
of grassroots environmentalism. Why did the media cooperate?
Public Media Center:$300,000 from Pew Charitable Trusts. “To design,
coordinate and place series of issue and information bulletins in
major newspapers to inform and educate policy makers, opinion
leaders and American public about global stewardship issues.”
Foundation for American Communications:
$75,000 from W. Alton Jones Foundation. “To train journalists to
cover environmental issues in the context of major current events,
and to put these issues into a local perspective.”
Center for Investigative Reporting:
$100,000 from W. Alton Jones Foundation. “For reporting on current
dynamics of national environmental organizing efforts.”
$105,000
from Florence and John Schumann Foundation. “For research on
environmental conflicts in the West.”
Center for Media in the Public Interest:
$25,000 from Florence and John Schumann Foundation. “To train
activists to effectively use advocacy media.”
Society of Environmental Journalists:
$50,000 from W. Alton Jones Foundation. “To improve the quality and
visibility of responsible reporting on key environmental policy
issues.”
World Media Foundation: $250,000 from W.
Alton Jones Foundation. “For a weekly environmental news and
information program, LIVING ON EARTH.”
Environmental Media Association: $25,000
from Heinz Family Foundation. “Toward creating public service
announcements (PSAs) on the environment.”
Cartoonists & Writers Syndicate: $100,000
from W. Alton Jones Foundation. “Ecotoons: A project to syndicate
and publish collections of political cartoons with environmental
themes.”
The National Environmental Trust sounds like it’s a great repository
of environmental treasures, like the national park system or
something. In fact, it’s just a public relations firm in the service
of wealthy foundations with social and political agendas.
Grants:
The Foundation Center database contains records of
55
grants to the National Environmental Trust. In
their records:
Pew Charitable Trusts gave a total of $21,000,000.
Turner
Foundation gave a total of $12,290,000.
The
Energy
Foundation gave a total of $1,659,600.
W. Alton Jones Foundation gave a total of
$1,350,000.
John Merck Fund gave a total of $730,000.
Bauman Family Foundation gave a total of
$350,000.
The Scherman Foundation gave a total of $250,000.
-
Foundation Name:
The Pew Charitable Trusts
Abstract: For general operating support
Amount: $3,000,000 Year Authorized: 2002
-
Foundation Name:
The Ford
Foundation
Abstract: To develop national trade policy campaign
Amount: $50,000 Year Authorized: 2002
Duration: 2-year grant
-
Foundation Name:
Wyss Foundation
Foundation State: PA Geographic Focus: N (National)
Amount: $200,000 Year Authorized: 2001
-
Foundation Name:
The Scherman Foundation, Inc.
Foundation State: NY Geographic Focus: NY
Abstract: For Global Warming Public Education Campaign
Amount: $100,000 Year Authorized: 2001
Duration: 2-year grant
-
Foundation Name:
Beldon Fund
Abstract: For general support for public education campaign
expertise and communications services on national environmental
issues
Amount: $100,000 Year Authorized: 2001
-
Foundation Name:
Bauman Family Foundation, Inc.
Abstract: For general support
Amount: $150,000 Year Authorized: 2001
-
Foundation Name:
Bauman Family Foundation, Inc.
Abstract: For children's environment health
Amount: $100,000 Year Authorized: 2001
-
Foundation Name:
Energy Foundation
Abstract: To continue with Media and Education Campaign Tour and
launch Local Media Energy Tour, which work to educate public,
policymakers, and members of media about Bush energy plan
Amount: $300,000 Year Authorized: 2001
-
Foundation Name:
Rockefeller Brothers Fund, Inc.
Abstract: For Global Warming Public Education Campaign
Amount: $400,000 Year Authorized: 2001
Duration: 2-year grant
-
Foundation Name:
The New York Community Trust
Abstract: To mobilize public support for international greenhouse
gas emissions agreements
Amount: $100,000 Year Authorized: 2001
-
Foundation Name:
The
David and Lucile Packard Foundation
Abstract: For Wise Choice Seafood Initiative
Amount: $500,000 Year Authorized: 2001
Duration: 2-year grant
-
Foundation Name:
The John Merck Fund
Abstract: To develop effective communications strategies for
countering and defeating serious attacks on federal environmental
protections
Amount: $150,000 Year Authorized: 2000
-
Foundation Name:
The John Merck Fund
Abstract: To conduct media, public education, and advocacy
campaigns that heighten understanding of climate change as serious
environmental problem and impress on policymakers and citizens
importance of taking action to abate it
Amount: $150,000 Year Authorized: 2000
-
Foundation Name:
The Pew Charitable Trusts
Abstract: For general operating support
Amount: $2,500,000 Year Authorized: 2001
-
Foundation Name:
Turner Foundation, Inc.
Abstract: For media outreach and public education on issues
relating to climate change
Amount: $150,000 Year Authorized: 2000
-
Foundation Name:
V. Kann Rasmussen Foundation
Amount: $100,000 Year Authorized: 2000
-
Foundation Name:
Turner Foundation, Inc.
Abstract: For national education campaign on global climate
change, with focus on educating policymakers, media and general
public about opportunities stemming from Kyoto agreement
Amount: $10,940,000 Year Authorized: 1999
-
Foundation Name:
Energy Foundation
Abstract: For second year of Business-Climate Change Media
Awareness Project
Amount: $300,000 Year Authorized: 2000
-
Foundation Name:
Energy Foundation
Abstract: To continue education and media work focused on benefits
of power sector emissions reductions, energy efficiency, and
renewable energy within federal utility restructuring policy
Amount: $200,000 Year Authorized: 2000
-
Foundation Name:
W. Alton Jones Foundation, Inc.
Abstract: To encourage public awareness of risks of climate
disruption through media outreach, local grassroots organizing,
national constituency development, and international coordination
with foreign NGOs
Amount: $300,000 Year Authorized: 1999
-
Foundation Name:
The New York Community Trust
Abstract: To mobilize public support for international greenhouse
gas emissions agreements
Amount: $100,000 Year Authorized: 2000
-
Foundation Name:
Bauman Family Foundation, Inc.
Abstract: For general support of citizen right-to-know programs
Amount: $100,000 Year Authorized: 2000
-
Foundation Name:
The Pew Charitable Trusts
Abstract: For continued general operating support
Amount: $3,000,000 Year Authorized: 2000
Duration: 1.50-year grant
-
Foundation Name:
The Pew Charitable Trusts
Abstract: For general operating support
Amount: $3,000,000 Year Authorized: 2000
-
Foundation Name:
The John Merck Fund
Abstract: For continued support for Climate Change Campaign, to
educate policymakers, business leaders, media and public about
Kyoto climate change protocol and benefits of implementation in
the U.S
Amount: $150,000 Year Authorized: 1999
-
Foundation Name:
The Scherman Foundation, Inc.
Abstract: For Climate Change Public Education Campaign
Amount: $100,000 Year Authorized: 1999
-
Foundation Name:
The John Merck Fund
Abstract: To conduct Climate Change Campaign, designed to educate
policymakers, business leaders, media and public about Kyoto
climate change protocol, benefits and ways in which it can be
successfully and readily implemented in U.S.
Amount: $150,000 Year Authorized: 1998
-
Foundation Name:
Wallace Global Fund
Abstract: For republic education campaign on climate change
Amount: $400,000 Year Authorized: 1998
-
Foundation Name:
Energy Foundation
Abstract: To support Business-Climate Change Awareness Project to
build awareness of climate solutions in business community
Amount: $234,600 Year Authorized: 1999
-
Foundation Name:
Howard Heinz Endowment
Abstract: For Clean and Affordable Energy Campaign
Amount: $100,000 Year Authorized: 1998
-
Foundation Name:
Howard Heinz Endowment
Abstract: For Clean and Affordable Energy Campaign
Amount: $100,000 Year Authorized: 1998
-
Foundation Name:
The Pew Charitable Trusts
Abstract: For matching grant for general operating support
Amount: $3,000,000 Year Authorized: 1999
-
Foundation Name:
V. Kann Rasmussen Foundation
Abstract: For Climate Change campaign
Amount: $100,000 Year Authorized: 1998
-
Foundation Name:
Turner Foundation, Inc.
Abstract: For national education campaign on global climate
change, with focus on educating policymakers, media and general
public about opportunities presented as result of international
climate change negotiations stemming from Kyoto agreement
Amount: $1,200,000 Year Authorized: 1998
-
Foundation Name:
W. Alton Jones Foundation, Inc.
Abstract: To build public awareness of special vulnerability of
children to environmental contamination
Amount: $500,000 Year Authorized: 1998
-
Foundation Name:
W. Alton Jones Foundation, Inc.
Abstract: To educate policymakers, media, businesses and general
public about causes and impacts of climate disruption and
economically sound options to avert it
Amount: $300,000 Year Authorized: 1998
-
Foundation Name:
Rockefeller Brothers Fund, Inc.
Abstract: For efforts to build U.S. constituency for mitigating
climate change
Amount: $400,000 Year Authorized: 1999
Duration: 2-year grant
-
Foundation Name:
Joyce Mertz-Gilmore Foundation
Abstract: For Clean and Affordable Energy Campaign
Amount: $125,000 Year Authorized: 1998
-
Foundation Name:
The Scherman Foundation, Inc.
Abstract: For general support
Amount: $50,000 Year Authorized: 1998
-
Foundation Name:
Wallace Global Fund
Abstract: For public education campaign on climate change
Amount: $300,000 Year Authorized: 1997
-
Foundation Name:
Charles E. Culpeper Foundation, Inc.
Abstract: Toward environmental education programs
Amount: $20,000 Year Authorized: 1998
-
Foundation Name:
Energy Foundation
Abstract: To continue support for Clean and Affordable Energy
Public Education Campaign
Amount: $250,000 Year Authorized: 1998
-
Foundation Name:
W. Alton Jones Foundation, Inc.
Abstract: To educate media, public and policymakers on impacts of
climate change and climate-change mitigation strategies
Amount: $250,000 Year Authorized: 1997
-
Foundation Name:
The Pew Charitable Trusts
Abstract: For matching grant for core program support
Amount: $3,000,000 Year Authorized: 1998
-
Foundation Name:
The Ford Foundation
Abstract: Toward educational campaign on climate change and public
policy on greenhouse gas emissions in relation to international
economic development
Amount: $200,000 Year Authorized: 1998
-
Foundation Name:
The John Merck Fund
Abstract: For continued support to advocate for national policy
reducing climate change
Amount: $75,000 Year Authorized: 1997
-
Foundation Name:
Rockefeller Brothers Fund
Abstract: To continue public and media education efforts to build
U.S. public support for climate protection
Amount: $200,000 Year Authorized: 1997
-
Foundation Name:
V. Kann Rasmussen Foundation
Abstract: For Climate Change Campaign
Amount: $250,000 Year Authorized: 1997
-
Foundation Name:
The John Merck Fund
Abstract: To educate public about hormone disrupting chemicals as
part of Right-to-Know Project
Amount: $20,000 Year Authorized: 1996
-
Foundation Name:
The John Merck Fund
Abstract: To build public support for serious U.S. policy to abate
climate change by increasing awareness about its onset and how
human activities cause it
Amount: $35,000 Year Authorized: 1996
-
Foundation Name:
Charles E. Culpeper Foundation, Inc.
Abstract: Toward environmental education programs
Amount: $20,000 Year Authorized: 1997
-
Foundation Name:
Energy Foundation
Abstract: For public outreach regarding benefits of public
investments in energy efficiency and renewable energy policies as
means to cut U.S. carbon emissions and to help mitigate global
warming
Amount: $125,000 Year Authorized: 1997
-
Foundation Name:
Energy Foundation
Abstract: For Clean and Affordable Energy Public Education
Campaign
Amount: $250,000 Year Authorized: 1997
-
Foundation Name:
The New York Community Trust
Abstract: For national public education campaign on global climate
change
Amount: $250,000 Year Authorized: 1998
-
Foundation Name:
The Pew Charitable Trusts
Abstract: For matching grant to educate public on national
environmental issues
Amount: $3,500,000 Year Authorized: 1997
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