[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 123 (Thursday, July 27, 1995)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1531-E1533]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


 QUESTIONABLE NATIONAL FISH AND WILDLIFE FOUNDATION GRANTS AWARDED IN 
                                 OREGON

                                 ______


                            HON. WES COOLEY

                               of oregon

                    in the house of representatives

                         Thursday, July 27, 1995
  Mr. COOLEY. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize the exhaustive and 
very professional research done by my constituents Bob and Sharon Beck 
and the Oregon Cattlemen's Association regarding how environmental 
groups receiving Federal funding engage in political advocacy which 
threatens the survival of ranchers and other public land users.
  Oregon ranchers are painfully aware that certain environmental groups 
have an agenda which includes putting them out of business. 
Unfortunately, Pacific Rivers Council and Waterwatch of Oregon, Inc.--
two of the more radical and litigious of these groups--have received 
substantial Federal grants from the National Fish and Wildlife 
Foundation [NFWF].
  Although NFWF maintains it places restrictions against grantees using 
Federal funds for lobbying and litigation, at the very least these 
Federal funds free up other resources for these environmental groups to 
use for political advocacy.
  As my colleagues are well aware, this problem has extended far beyond 
the NFWF to many other nonprofit groups that receive Federal funds. 
Representatives McIntosh, Istook, and Ehrlich have documented many 
horror stories in this regard and intend to offer an amendment to the 
Labor-HHS appropriations bill to limit this abuse of taxpayers dollars. 
I strongly support their efforts and hope similar amendments are 
adopted to all appropriations bills.
  Although I believe the NFWF should have its Federal funding 
terminated, the Interior appropriations bill--H.R. 1977--contained $4 
million for the NFWF for fiscal year 1996. However, I am encouraged 
that the committee report--House Report 104-173--accompanying this bill 
clearly states that fiscal year 1996 is the last year for Federal 
funding of NFWF. It is imperative to ranchers like Bob and Sharon Beck 
that this Federal funding be terminated as the committee report 
promises.
  I would urge my colleagues to read the following articles from Beef 
Today, the Chicago Tribune, and the Washington Times on how Federal 
funds from the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation are used for 
lobbying and litigation by environmental groups.
                   [From Beef Today, June-July 1995]

                            West Side Story

                      (By Patricia Peak Klintberg)
       In the high country above Oregon's Grande Ronde Valley, an 
     occasional spray of daffodils or crocuses is all that remains 
     of homesteads now long gone. It is in the valley below that 
     one finds ranchers like Bob and Sharon Beck, offspring of the 
     hardiest pioneers.
       Though they thrive in this emerald valley, criss-crossed 
     with creeks brim-full in spring, the battle they fight today 
     is just as dangerous, and infinitely more complex, than their 
     ancestors' struggles against the elements.
       ``The agenda of some environmental groups in this state is 
     to put us out of business,'' says a no-nonsense Sharon Beck.
       The groups deny this charge. But the cumulative effects of 
     the litigation they 

[[Page E 1532]]
     bring--and even of their well-meaning projects--is to raise the cost of 
     doing business for public-lands ranchers. This is a story 
     about how environmental groups prosper by tapping into 
     endless sources of funding--some of it straight from 
     taxpayers.
       Consider the Eugene-based Pacific Rivers Council (PRC). 
     This is the group behind last July's injunction halting all 
     ongoing activities that could affect salmon in Oregon's 
     Umatilla and Wallowa-Whitman national forests, where the 
     Becks are permittees.
       ``We were out of town and read about it in the newspaper,'' 
     recalls Sharon Beck. ``We were stunned. Our cattle were in 
     the forest.'' Ultimately, the Forest Service ordered cattle 
     removed from some allotments. The experience burned the Becks 
     and others as permanently as a brand. ``We realized just how 
     precarious our position is,'' says Beck.
       Bob Doppelt, PRC's general counsel, defends the suit: ``We 
     were only trying to get the Forest Service to do a good job. 
     They were allowing timber sales without consulting with the 
     National Marine Fisheries Service [NMFS].'' PRC's suit 
     charged that the Forest Service violated the Endangered 
     Species Act by failing to consult with NMFS on its overall 
     1990 forest plan. Instead, the Forest Service checked with 
     NMFS before approving individual projects--logging, road 
     repairs or whatever. Last month, the Supreme Court agreed 
     with PRC that the Endangered Species Act requires more than a 
     project-by-project consultation.
       The Forest Service, meantime, has completed the 
     consultation in question--but under the Endangered Species 
     Act, which requires the loser to pay the costs of lawsuits, 
     it must reimburse the Sierra Club Legal Defense Fund for the 
     costs of its legal fight on behalf of PRC. To say the Forest 
     Service must foot the bill, of course, is another way of 
     saying that the taxpayer must. Though the amount for this 
     case is not established, the group has received ``about $2 
     million'' in attorneys' fees from the federal government in 
     the past two years, says Buck Parker, a defense fund vice 
     president.
       The fight cost Oregon public-lands ranchers $39,000 in 
     legal fees. Since the Forest Service completed the 
     consultation sought by PRC before the lawsuit was even 
     decided, ``All it did was cost the government and us a lot of 
     money,'' says Beck.
       Sharon and Bob Beck have a stake in what happens here. 
     Their cow-calf operation lies in this nearly flat 150,000-
     acre valley,
      which is planted to grass and crops as diverse as coriander 
     and sugar beets. The whole is surrounded by mountains. 
     While water is abundant in spring, this is high country 
     some 2,500' above sea level. Pastures can become parched 
     in summer, so cattle are moved to the forest in May.
       ``To us the land is everything. It is our connection with 
     our history and our connection with our future,'' Sharon Beck 
     says.
       Bob's great-grandfather led a wagon train to western 
     Oregon. Sharon was born here, surrounded by reminders of her 
     ancestors. The front door is Carolina poplar, the tree 
     Sharon's grandmother nurtured with left-over wash water. With 
     their two daughters grown and gone and son Rob farming 14 
     crops on hundreds of acres of arable land, Bob handles the 
     cattle while Sharon delves ever deeper into the tangled web 
     of local environmental group financing.
       Teamed with Oregon Cattlemen's Association attorney Lindsay 
     Slater, she discovered that PRC was receiving grant money 
     from the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation (NFWF). 
     Indeed, 75% of PRC's funding in 1994 came not from 
     individuals but foundations. What's unique about NFWF among 
     foundations, though, is that a third of its funding--millions 
     of dollars--comes from taxpayers (see sidebar).
       Slater lays out the irony neatly: ``Here was a foundation 
     giving taxpayer dollars to a group that then turned around 
     and sued the federal government.''
       Slater obtained a list of all NFWF grants made to groups in 
     Oregon since 1988--$9.3 million worth. While NFWF staff 
     prepared to come to Oregon to meet with the cattlemen, Sharon 
     Beck spotted two troublesome grants.
       The first was a $180,000 grant to PRC for a project dubbed 
     ``Salmon Safe.'' Though this grant had nothing to do with the 
     earlier lawsuit, it was not lost on Beck and Slater that such 
     funding keeps PRC flush, enabling it to pursue litigation.
       Just as bad, the Salmon Safe project seemed unnecessary. 
     The idea was to create a green label for ranches that 
     participate in PRC projects to improve riparian habitat. But 
     the Oregon Cattlemen's Association routinely conducts 
     watershed workshops with university scientists who bring 
     cattlemen the latest in riparian and range management. ``NFWF 
     just throws the money out there and never looks back,'' says 
     Beck. At the meeting with NFWF staff in January, the 
     cattlemen convinced them the project couldn't fly.
       ``The Pacific Rivers lawsuit took us by surprise,'' admits 
     NFWF's Krishna Roy. ``It is not something where we would 
     necessarily have turned down the grant if we'd known they 
     were suing someone else, but we have to keep it in mind in 
     determining whether a project can be successful.'' The 
     federal portion of the grant, $60,000, has been frozen.
       ``We contacted PRC,'' Roy says, ``and said, Look, we are 
     not going to dispense any federal funds until we are 
     satisfied that private landowners are willing to participate 
     in this program and that it can work.''
       PRC isn't worried. Doppelt says, ``Whether NFWF gives us 
     money or not, it won't stop us.'' Cattlemen need ``to get 
     real. It's a sad thing to see them spin their wheels and look 
     for scapegoats. The world has fundamentally changed and they 
     don't like it.''
       The second grant that caught Sharon Beck's eye was to 
     another local group suing ranchers: Water Watch of Oregon, 
     Inc. In 1992, NFWF gave the group $201,674, $62,903 of it 
     federal funds. The money ``supported'' an effort to remove 
     the Savage Rapids Dam on the Rogue River. The turn-of-the-
     century dam supplies irrigation water and recreation and 
     recharges wells.
      Sharon Beck initially thought the grant might be a positive 
     example of NFWF's work--but then she talked to local 
     people like Jack Waldon, who runs a small newspaper, The 
     Little Company.
       ``This isn't about saving the salmon, it's about who 
     controls the water,'' says Waldon. ``Taking the dam out will 
     affect people's water rights. If they were worried about the 
     salmon, the town would stop using the Rogue River for sewage 
     treated with chlorine.''
       Attorney later checked out Water Watch and confirmed that 
     it has objected to every proposed water right in Oregon. 
     Fighting these objections costs farmers and ranchers time and 
     money.
       NFWF's Whit Fosburgh argues the grant is justified: ``The 
     dam's a big fish killer and it's going to be a tremendous 
     expense to bring it up to specifications,'' he says. But 
     spring chinook salmon runs on the Rogue are 25% larger than 
     they were a year ago, according to the Oregon Fish and 
     Wildlife Department.
       ``I went back 30 years, and I couldn't find a higher count 
     at this time,'' says district biologist Mike Evenson.
       As for the argument that fixing the dam would be hugely 
     expensive--the federal government says it would cost 
     millions--Emerson Roller, a contractor for 45 years who lives 
     in the area, says the fish ladders on the dam could be 
     repaired for $100,000. ``It needs maintenance. If they use 
     common sense they can probably fix it for less.
       ``Why not use NFWF's money to fix the ladders?'' asked 
     Waldon, who by now believes the effort to take down the dam 
     is tinged with conspiracy.
       ``NFWF never came to Oregon before making the grant,'' says 
     Sharon Beck. ``They never talked to anyone in the community. 
     They just gave them the money to take out the dam. There is 
     no accountability.''
       Well, there wasn't--but now there is. As a result of 
     Slater's deft work and some pressure from the district's Rep. 
     Wes Cooley (R-Ore.) and Idaho's Rep. Helen Chenoweth (R), 
     NFWF has been responsive indeed. It will now ask grant 
     applicants if they are parties to litigation, and allow the 
     Oregon Cattlemen's Association to review grant applications 
     for projects in the state. Other states can make the same 
     request.
       Nevertheless, Chenoweth wants all federal funding for NFWF 
     ended. Other members of Congress are reluctant to go that 
     far, but with pressure to cut the deficit building, the 
     President's request for NFWF federal funding of $7.5 million 
     may be in jeopardy. It certainly wouldn't break the 
     environmental movement: In 1992, 379 foundations gave $356 
     million to environmental and animal causes. Because of the 
     federal funding it receives, NFWF is not included in this 
     count. It is considered a ``public'' charity.
                [From the Chicago Tribune, July 1, 1995]

                  Non-profit Groups' Funds Under Fire

                      (By Patricia Peak Klintberg)

       Cove, Ore.--What really galled Sharon Beck was when she 
     learned that her tax dollars were hard at work. Against her.
       She and her husband, Bob, raised cattle in the Grande Ronde 
     Valley. While their cattle graze at the ranch in spring, they 
     are moved to public forest land during the summer's dry 
     months.
       A year ago, a local environmental group went to court to 
     protect endangered salmon, and that action almost forced the 
     Becks' cattle off the forest land.
       What the Becks didn't find out until later was that their 
     own tax dollars partly funded the group.
       Their experience is not unique. Thousands of non-profit 
     groups that receive taxpayer funds lobby and participate in 
     litigation. So common is the practice that freshman Rep. 
     David McIntosh (R-Ind.) held a congressional hearing this 
     week to investigate.
       Some 600,000 non-profits or charities, ranging from 
     hospitals to cultural centers, received $159 billion in 
     federal funds in 1992, according to Independent Sector, a 
     coalition of 800 non-profits.
       McIntosh says he is interested in all non-profits that use 
     taxpayer dollars to lobby and litigate on the local or 
     national level.
       ``Whether it's the Nature Conservancy on the left or local 
     Chambers of Commerce on the right, if special interest are 
     using taxpayer money to lobby for more money, it's just plain 
     wrong,'' said McIntosh, chairman of the House regulatory 
     affairs subcommittee.
       Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) accused McIntosh of engaging 
     in a ``systematic effort to silence voices that disagree with 
     the new Republican majority.''
       McIntosh replied: ``We are not trying to silence them. We 
     are just not going to give them taxpayer money to exercise 
     their free-speech rights.''
       Among his targets is the National Fish and Wildlife 
     Foundation, the group the Becks discovered was helping fund 
     local environmental groups in Oregon.
       Congress created the foundation in 1984 to finance public 
     and private partnerships for 

[[Page E 1533]]
     conservation projects. It is authorized to receive $25 million a year 
     in federal funds, although appropriations have never exceeded 
     $10 million in a year.
       The federal money is given as a ``challenge'' grant, which 
     means private contributions must match the federal portion of 
     the grant.
       The foundation is barred by law from lobbying. Yet in a 
     letter last March, its deputy director, Barbara Cairns, asked 
     board members to contact certain members of Congress to save 
     the National Biological Service from budget cuts.
       It also is barred from litigating. But according to Lindsay 
     Slater, an attorney for the Oregon Cattlemen's Association, 
     it has given grants to groups that do.
       While environmental groups are a particular target of 
     congressional budget cutters, they are not the only non-
     profits that lobby and litigate while receiving taxpayer 
     dollars. The American Bar Association received $9.5 million 
     in federal funds in 1992. Local Chambers of Commerce received 
     $2 million over the past two years.
       The lawsuit that threatened to disrupt the Becks' cattle 
     operation was brought by the Eugene-based Pacific Rivers 
     Council, which received a $160,000 grant from the National 
     Fish and Wildlife Foundation, $60,000 of that from taxpayer 
     money.
       The suit charged that the Forest Service violated the law 
     because it failed to consult with the National Marine 
     Fisheries Service on its overall forest management plan. 
     Instead, the Forest Service had been checking with the agency 
     before approving individual projects, such as logging or road 
     repair.
       In May, the Supreme Court upheld the decision of a lower 
     court, agreeing that the Endangered Species Act requires more 
     of the Forest Service than a project-by-project consultation.
       In the end, the Becks' cattle were able to remain in the 
     forest. But the Becks and other Oregon ranchers whose cattle 
     graze on public land had to lay out $39,000 in legal fees to 
     fight the injunction.
       The Becks are further angered that, as taxpayers they must 
     also help foot the legal bills of the Pacific River Council: 
     The council's legal team will be reimbursed by taxpayers 
     because the Endangered Species Act requires losers--in this 
     case, the Forest Service--to pay.
       Said Slater: ``Here was a foundation giving taxpayer 
     dollars to a group that then turned around and sued the 
     federal government.''
       The foundation grant to the Pacific Rivers Council was for 
     a project that was unrelated to the lawsuit. But it helped 
     keep the council ``flush'' so it could pursue litigation, 
     Slater said.
       ``The PRC lawsuit took us by surprise,'' admitted Krishna 
     Roy of the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation. It is not 
     something where we would necessarily have turned down the 
     grant if we'd known they were suing someone, but we have to 
     keep it in mind in determining whether a project can be 
     successful.''
       The foundation has since agreed to ask grant applicants if 
     they are parties to litigation, and it will allow the Oregon 
     Cattlemen's Association to review grant applications for 
     projects in the state.
       But the Interior Department appropriations bill approved by 
     a House panel Tuesday cuts the foundation's funds to $4 
     million in fiscal 1996 and recommends eliminating it 
     altogether in 1997.
       House Resources Committee Chairman Don Young (R-Alaska) 
     said he has supported the Fish and Wildlife Foundation in the 
     past, ``but they ought to be spending their money on wildlife 
     projects, not funding our adversaries.''

               [From the Washington Times, Feb. 18, 1995]

                  Why Environmental Funding Is Forever

                           (By Alston Chase)
       If you've wondered why it's so hard to reduce government 
     spending, consider this: The whole country is on the dole. 
     The poor have welfare. The middle class has college loans and 
     National Public Radio. And the truly affluent enjoys handouts 
     too. These are called ``environmental,'' but you can think of 
     them as pork.
       This is worth keeping in mind as we watch Republicans try 
     to reform preservation policy. GOP bean-counters promise to 
     make welfare mothers and Sesame Streeters work for a living. 
     Federal monies to both should be scrapped, they insist, 
     because welfare doesn't work and public broadcasting does. 
     One wastes public money, and the other can do without it.
       But while many preservation programs are both wasteful and 
     redundant, congressional cheese-parers have left them alone. 
     And the reason isn't hard to find: The bureaucrats who run 
     preservation agencies are smarter than their Hill 
     adversaries. They know that merely speaking the magic words 
     ``private enterprise'' reduces the most frugal GOP lawmaking 
     to an oozing puddle of acquiescence.
       Ever since the November Republican landslide, Beltway 
     empire builders have been heavily playing this card. Quicker 
     than you can say ``Enola Gay,'' they have switched political 
     sides, magically remaking their images from collectivist 
     ecosystem groupies into staunch free-market libertarians. And 
     conservatives are falling for it.
       Such, for example, is the tactic of an upper-class 
     entitlement called the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation. 
     This organization is authorized to spend up to $25 million in 
     federal funds a year, which it funnels to environmental 
     advocacy groups and upscale hunting and fishing 
     organizations. But its executive director, Amos Eno, a former 
     National Audubon Society staffer, has convinced conservatives 
     that this effort is a bastion of the free market. Last month, 
     Forbes magazine praised the Foundation, urging that ``other 
     environmental groups would do well to adopt a down-to-earth, 
     Eno-like approach.''
       To be sure, other conservation organizations, such as the 
     Sierra Club, that are experiencing financial problems, would 
     do better on the public dole, too. The Foundation reveals why 
     public subsidies are forever. Established by Congress during 
     the heyday of trickle-down economics in 1984, its purpose was 
     to raise private monies for federal and private preservation 
     causes. Orgininally, it was expected to become self-
     supporting. Government, Congress then supposed, would only 
     provide the seed money to get it started. To this end, it 
     promised to match, one for one, each dollar the Foundation 
     raised from private sources, up to $1 million.
       This federal commitment of course, was entirely 
     unnecessary. America has plenty of philanthropies and doesn't 
     need another. By 1993, according to the Environmental Data 
     Institute, there were more than 1,800 environmental 
     grantmakers, which since 1988 made more than 22,000 grants. 
     Just the top 417 of these givers have combined assets 
     totaling more than $110 billion and collectively award more 
     than $340 million to recipients each year.
       Nevertheless, the foundation's ``private fund-raising'' 
     idea jerked the right chains of congresspeople infatuated 
     with free enterprise. In 1987, the cap on
      federal matching funds was raised to $5 million and, in 
     1994, lifted again to $25 million annually for the next 
     five years. In 1993, 31 percent of the Foundation's $17.9 
     million in revenues came from taxpayers.
       Meanwhile, the foundation befriended the power elite. It 
     put, on its Board of Directors and Advisory Committee, people 
     like Caroline Getty, James A. Baker IV, Marshall Field and 
     Nancy N. Weyerhaeuser. It made grants to the favorite 
     environmental and sporting causes of the rich, such as the 
     National Audubon Society, Nature Conservancy, Natural 
     Resources Defense Council, National Wildlife Federation, 
     Ducks Unlimited and Trout Unlimited. It bestowed stipends on 
     individuals, too. In 1992, according to the Environmental 
     Data Institute, it awarded one Rick Weyerhaeuser $80,000 to 
     write a book on the environment.
       And according to insiders, such disbursements escape 
     adequate oversight. Taking place in the noman's land between 
     public and private sectors, they are not subject to the same 
     accountability other federal programs are. Complaining of a 
     lack of sufficient ``scrutiny'' of grants awarded, in 1992, 
     one board member noted, ``staff review . . . seems to tend 
     toward advocacy rather than critical review.''
       Despite these concerns, the Foundation, with friends in 
     high places, remains insulated from budget cutters. A former 
     Foundation staffer now works for the House Interior 
     Subcommittee on Appropriations. And when the subcommittee 
     staff recently discusses possible cuts to the Foundation 
     budget, word reportedly got back to Mr. Eno, who, according 
     to sources, then visited the Hill to convince lawmakers of 
     the Foundation's conservative bona fides.
       Thus, while Republicans pick on ``Masterpiece Theatre,'' 
     they leave rarefied precincts of preservation alone. This is 
     too bad. If public broadcasting should be weaned from the 
     federal teat because it can survive without aid, so should 
     silver-spooned enclaves like the Foundation. But this 
     probably won't happen. Like all bad environmentalism, its 
     support is bipartisan.