[Congressional Record Volume 157, Number 36 (Thursday, March 10, 2011)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E448]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                 NATIONAL FISH AND WILDLIFE FOUNDATION

                                 ______
                                 

                            HON. DEVIN NUNES

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                        Thursday, March 10, 2011

  Mr. NUNES. Mr. Speaker, as Congress closely scrutinizes federal 
programs to reduce our massive federal debt and deficit, we must take a 
hard look at troubled, taxpayer-financed programs that play a role in 
destroying American jobs. The February 25, 2011 edition of The 
Washington Examiner contained a column by Mr. Ron Arnold that discusses 
the legislative history and current activities of the National Fish and 
Wildlife Foundation--a non-profit organization authorized by Congress 
in 1984 pursuant to Public Law 98-244.
  Mr. Arnold's column illustrates how Congress originally authorized an 
average of $100,000 per year in federal taxpayer money to the National 
Fish and Wildlife Foundation. Yet, more than a quarter century later, 
the organization receives $53 million annually in federal government 
funds according to its own records. Some of this money funds zealous 
and litigious environmental groups whose actions threaten the 
livelihoods of America's hard-working farmers and ranchers. At a time 
when American agriculture is threatened by onerous regulation, 
bureaucratic intimidation, unfair taxation, and high energy costs, our 
farmers cannot afford to defend themselves from advocacy groups funded 
by their hard-earned tax dollars.
  I urge my colleagues to read Mr. Arnold's column on the National Fish 
and Wildlife Foundation and to question whether the federal government 
should continue supporting it and other non-profit groups that use 
taxpayer money to put people out of work.

             [From the Washington Examiner, Feb. 25, 2011]

 Congress Should Stop Funding Big Green Lawsuits Against the Government

                            (By Ron Arnold)

       America's taxpayers need to know about a thorny federal 
     program lurking in the Obama budget: the National Fish and 
     Wildlife Foundation. It began decades ago as a millionaire's 
     hobby horse and grew into a Frankenstein monster that today 
     feeds millions of taxpayer dollars to green groups that sue 
     the federal government--and thus sue the taxpayer.
       I began researching NFWF in a 1995 report on Big Green's 
     federally funded trial lawyers, ``Feeding at the Trough'' 
     (www.undueinfluence.com/feeding-at-the-trough.pdf).
       NFWF's origins are bizarre: Congress created it as a 
     nonprofit corporation in 1984, specifying that it ``is not an 
     agency or establishment of the United States Government.'' 
     President Reagan denounced that double talk when he 
     reluctantly signed the bill, writing, ``Entities which are 
     neither clearly governmental nor clearly private should not 
     be created.''
       The intent for NFWF was to develop private sector support 
     for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, a government agency. 
     This perverse purpose allows a well-connected private elite--
     originally including timber heiress Nancy Weyerhaeuser, oil 
     billionaire Caroline Getty, and now hedge fund billionaire 
     Paul Tudor Jones--to carve out government funds, solicit 
     limitless private funds, and funnel the cash to whom they 
     please, including $25,000 to Nancy Weyerhaeuser's son Rick 
     for an anti-logging project he ran in Montana--and $23,500 to 
     a Planned Parenthood-type group in Rajasthan, India, for 
     population control near Ranthambhore National Park.
       As it grew, NFWF created one horror story after another. It 
     gave $89,748 to the Grand Canyon Trust, which filed suit and 
     shut down the coal-fired Mojave Power Plant in Laughlin, 
     Nev., and cost 200 Navajo miners their high-paying jobs at 
     the Black Mesa coal mine that supplied the plant.
       NFWF gave nearly $442,000 to the National Wildlife 
     Federation and in return got a lawsuit to divert water from 
     generating electricity in Pacific-Northwest power dams--and 
     spill it for migrating salmon. The suit now threatens to 
     remove four vital hydroelectric dams on the Snake River. 
     Another NFWF recipient, American Rivers ($296,700), is also a 
     party to the suit, which is still in court.
       The list goes on and on, lawsuits against fisheries, 
     agriculture, energy, construction, manufacturing, the whole 
     economy. NFWF claims that grantee lawsuits do not use federal 
     money. After examining the Internal Revenue Service Form 990 
     reports of major litigious NFWF recipients, I found no 
     separate segregated accounts for lawsuits--you can't tell 
     federal money from private--making NFWF's claims appear 
     disingenuous at best.
       NFWF's original $100,000 ``one-time seed money'' 
     appropriation has bloated to $53 million in 2009, exactly 
     what Reagan feared when he famously muttered, ``The 
     definition of immortality is a government program.''
       Even though NFWF's wealthy directors should be ideal 
     fundraisers, two-thirds of its income is routinely taxpayer 
     money, and now the Obama administration wants to give it more 
     millions of federal dollars that we don't have.
       House appropriators tried to cut NFWF's taxpayer umbilical 
     in 1996. Immediately, a Byzantine cabal of Big Green leaders 
     and hired lobbyists materialized, somehow convincing the 
     appropriators to lay off. Reagan should have added, 
     ``Environmental funding is forever.''
       Last week, a gutsy congressman tried again. Rep. Tom 
     McClintock, R-Calif., chairman of the House Natural Resource 
     Committee's Power and Water Subcommittee, introduced an 
     amendment to the House's $1.2 trillion continuing resolution 
     bill to permanently defund NFWF.
       Once again, Big Green sent out its minions, and 
     McClintock's amendment failed on a voice vote.
       That shouldn't be the end of it. We need congressional 
     hearings to stop feeding taxpayer money into NFWF's funnel. 
     And we need elected officials with the fortitude to instruct 
     the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation's insatiable 
     billionaires to stop feeding at the trough.

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