nat'l Endangered Species Act Reform Coalition
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https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/National_Endangered_Species_Act_Reform_Coalition
According to the National Endangered Species Act Reform Coalition (NESARC) they are "a broad based coalition of roughly 150 member organizations, representing millions of individuals across the United States, that is dedicated to bringing balance back to the Endangered Species Act. [Their] membership includes rural irrigators, municipalities, farmers, electric utilities and many other individuals and organizations that are directly affected by the ESA." [1]
| Documents Contained at the Anti-Environmental Archives |
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| Documents written by or referencing this person or organization are contained in the Anti-Environmental Archive, launched by Greenpeace on Earth Day, 2015. The archive contains 3,500 documents, some 27,000 pages, covering 350 organizations and individuals. The current archive includes mainly documents collected in the late 1980s through the early 2000s by The Clearinghouse on Environmental Advocacy and Research (CLEAR), an organization that tracked the rise of the so called "Wise Use" movement in the 1990s during the Clinton presidency. Access the index to the Anti-Environmental Archives here. |
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Personnel
The Chairman of NESARC is James McClure who was described in a Salt Lake Tribune article as "A former Senator (R-ID), McClure is now part of the Washington lobbying and consulting firm McClure, Gerard and Neuenschwander. This firm helped write the federal law on storing radioactive waste and has been paid more than $1 million to lobby Congress to support dumping spent nuclear reactor fuel in Utah." [2]
History
Founded in 1991, the National Endangered Species Act Reform Coalition (NESARC) is an industry front group whose goal is to "reform" protections under the Endangered Species Act, making them more industry friendly.
NESARC's methods of "balancing" the Endangered Species Act include lobbying, "supporting" Congressional members who favor weakening the Endangered Species Act (ESA), and running a media and public relations campaign for ESA rollbacks.
NESARC has strong ties to Van Ness Feldman, a lobbying group they paid $80,000 in 2000 and $80,000 in 1999, and to McClure, Gerard & Neuenschwander Inc (NESARC Chairman James McClure's firm), whom they paid $80,000 in 2000. These groups represent gas, mining, utility and oil interests. [3]
According to the Environmental Working Group (EWG), "NESARC's offices are located just one floor down from the Washington, DC lobbying offices of Van Ness Feldman. Though separated by a floor, the two organizations share a fax number - Van Ness Feldman's other clients include a wide array of petroleum and utility companies, National Wetlands Coalition- a similar "astroturf" anti-wetland protection group, and other resource and development corporations. Former Idaho Republican Senator James McClure's firm represents mining, agriculture, irrigation, and power companies, including the National Mining Association (represented by McClure himself) and controversial mining companies such as Placer Dome and Battle Mountain Gold (Washington Representatives, 1999)."
In addition, the EWG states, "the National Endangered Species Act Reform Coalition:
- Supports Rep. Don Young's H.R. 3160, introduced in October 1999, which is billed as "Common Sense Protections for ESA". The bill requires an economic analysis before listing a species, including calculations of "costs to the private sector", would allow damaging activity to proceed under certain circumstances, would limit citizen suits against ESA violators, and would generally weaken ESA enforcement and provisions.
- Believes the ESA does not "properly balance the nation's goal of protecting endangered species with the national goals of continued economic growth, the provision of water, electricity, and other basic services and the recognition of private, state and local property rights" and believe the ESA is having "an increasingly adverse impact on power development and transmission projects and on the development of private property." (NESARC memo, February 10, 1992, signed by David Mazour).
- NESARC apparently drafted ESA-damaging legislation at the behest of Sen. Slade Gorton (R-WA). NESARC made the news in 1995 when Public Citizen filed a complaint with the Senate Ethics Committee against Gorton, alleging that the Senator asked industry lobbyists to draft a major gutting of the ESA. Robert Szabo, the attorney who represents NESARC, confirmed that NESARC acted at Sen. Gorton's direction: "Senator Gorton laid out his thoughts to us, he asked our help and we gave it to him." Gorton in turn told The New York Times, "I'm perfectly willing to get the free services of good lawyers in drafting my views." In the previous election cycle, Gorton had received campaign contributions from NESARC member PACs and from NESARC's Washington law firm, Van Ness Feldman. Van Ness Feldman, NESARC's host firm, was the lobbying outfit actually credited with writing the controversial Gorton bill (The New York Times, April 12, 1995 and Public Citizen News Release, April 27, 1995). Soliciting draft legislation from non-staff members is against Senate ethics rules." [4]
Funding
The list of over 100 members includes utilities, mining, hydropower, and development groups with a financial interest in seeing the Endangered Species Act weakened. As of January 2004 members include the:
- American Farm Bureau Federation
- American Petroleum Institute
- American Public Power Association
- Colorado River Energy Distributors Association
- Edison Electric Institute
- Mid-West Electric Consumers Association
- National Association of Counties
- National Association of Home Builders
- The National Grange
- National Rural Electric Cooperative Association
- National Water Resources Association
- Northwest Horticultural Council
- Tri-State Generation and Transmission Association
The full NESARC Membership List is available at http://www.nesarc.org/memlst.htm.
Contact information
NESARC
1050 Thomas Jefferson Street
7th Floor
Washington, DC 20007
Phone: (202) 333-7481
Fax: (202) 338-2416
E-mail: nesarc AT vnf.com
External links
- Christopher Smith, "Private Fuel Storage Pays Senator Turned Lobbyist Handsomely", The Salt Lake Tribune, April 23, 2003.
public cit
philip r Sharp is a former Dem. Rep. from Indiana who served from 1975-95 on the Energy & Commerce Cmte. Sharp now serves as a "Senior Advisor" to the DC lobbying firm Lexecon (described above) and as a "Senior Policy Advisor" to the DC lobbying firm Van Ness Feldman. The Van Ness web site claims that Sharp "wrote and developed" the Energy Policy Act of 1992, which ushered in state deregulation in California and other states. Sharp serves on the board of directors of the Energy Foundation, which is one of the 5 supporters of the Commission. Van Ness Feldman took in more than $3.1 million since 2001 from energy companies and anti-environmental groups, including the following clients: Carl E. Berg, head of the Mission West Properties real estate empire, paid Van Ness $80,000 to lobby on energy and tax policies. Transcanada Pipelines and Duke, through their Foothills Pipelines subsidiary, paid $420,000 to lobby for an Alaskan natural gas pipeline. Business Coalition for Clean Air paid Van Ness $40,000 to lobby against clean air regulations.
Members include: ChevronTexaco, ConocoPhillips, ExxonMobil, Dow, Dynegy, Entergy, Lyondell-Citgo Refining, Reliant and Shell. Arctic Slope Regional Corp and its subsidiary Petro Star paid to lobby for Alaskan oil development and securing DoD fuel contracts. AEP, the country's largest utility and biggest polluter, paid Van Ness $20,000 to lobby against clean air rules. Hawaiian Electric paid $70,000 to Van Ness to lobby on energy policy. The Coal Utilization Research Council paid $300,000 to lobby for coal subsidies. Members include AEP, Cinergy, Southern Co, Peabody Energy. Vancouver-based Methanex paid Van Ness $110,000 on subsidies for methanol, MTBE and other alternative fuels. The American Chemistry Council paid $520,000 to lobby Congress. The Council's membership is a who's who of corporate chemical companies. Toyota paid Van Ness $30,000 since 2002 to lobby on the energy bill. The Nat'l Endangered Species Act Reform Coalition & the National Wetlands Coalition, two anti-environmental groups, paid $220,000 since 2002
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National Endangered Species Action Reform Coalition • NESARC
The National Endangered Species Act Reform Coalition (NESARC) is a broad based coalition of organizations, representing millions of individuals across the United States dedicated to improving and updating the Endangered Species Act (ESA).. For over 45 years, the Endangered Species Act has been one of our nation's strongest environmental laws. While the original intent of the ESA was to ...
About NESARC‧FAQ on the ESA‧Members and Staff‧News‧For Members‧Nesarc Applauds Western Caucus Rollout of ESA Modernization Legislation
About NESARC - National Endangered Species Action Reform ...
About NESARC Background. The National Endangered Species Act Reform Coalition (NESARC) is the country's oldest broad-based, national coalition dedicated solely to achieving improvements to the Endangered Species Act (ESA).The Coalition includes farmers, cities and counties, rural irrigators, electric utilities, forest product companies, homebuilders, agricultural interests, mining companies ...
National Endangered Species Act Reform Coalition
According to the National Endangered Species Act Reform Coalition (NESARC) they are "a broad based coalition of roughly 150 member organizations, representing millions of individuals across the United States, that is dedicated to bringing balance back to the Endangered Species Act. [Their] membership includes rural irrigators, municipalities, farmers, electric utilities and many other ...
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Jordan Smith , National Endangered Species Act Reform Coalition, Executive Director Rick Manning , Americans for Limited Government, President Dr. Don Parker , National Cotton Council, Manager of Integrated Pest Management 2
Endangered Species Act Focus Of "Reform" By Republicans In ...
A run at "reforming" the Endangered Species Act, which helped the grizzly bear population rebound in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, is being made in the U.S. House of Representatives/NPS file Some GOP members of the U.S. House Of Representatives are taking a run against the Endangered Species Act, saying its reform is long overdue.
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National Endangered Species Act Reform Coalition Comments on Regulatory Reform November 1, 2017 . 2 . I. Recommendations for Regulatory Improvements to the ESA . The ESA was originally enacted in 1973, and the statute has remained largely unchanged and unauthorized for nearly a quarter of a century. The operative statutory provisions are
Endangered Species Act
According to the National Endangered Species Act Reform Coalition, there are, these days, approximately 1,300 species on the list, with another 250 considered as "candidates" for listing and another nearly 4,000 species designated as "Species of Concern."
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The Nat'l Endangered Species Act Reform Coalition & the National Wetlands Coalition, two anti-environmental groups, paid $220,000 since 2002. Archie W. Dunham Chairman, ConocoPhillips Dunham is chairman of the board of ConocoPhillips. Prior to the merger, Dunham was chairman, president and CEO of Conoco from 1999 to 2002.
Forest Service chief outlines new priorities - NACo
He is the executive director of the National Endangered Species Act Reform Coalition. Twenty-five years have passed since the ESA was reauthorized or amended. "For many, many years, we were looking at the Endangered Species Act as a holistic, kitchen sink approach to revamp or modernize the law.
ESA blawg
The internet contains many proposals to reform the Endangered Species Act. Many proposals are, as expected, from the affected interest groups: the National Endangered Species Act Reform Coalition (NESARC); the American Enterprise Institute; land and livestock producers.
Searches related to "nat'l Endangered Species Act Reform Coalition"