Cause of Action

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MERRI OK

why does koch need 2 fake legal fronts new civil liberties alliance covid moratorium eviction

just hardcore libtards?

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fedsoc bs

Reed D. Rubinstein is Senior Counselor and Director of Oversight and Investigations for the America First Legal Foundation. He has extensive constitutional, administrative, and complex commercial trial and appellate experience, including Executive Branch and Congressional oversight, investigations, and enforcement.

Reed joined the Trump Campaign legal team in February 2016, supported Treasury, DHS, and DOD operations during the Presidential Transition, and entered Federal service in January 2017. As Deputy Associate Attorney General, U.S. Department of Education General Counsel (acting and delegated), and Senior Advisor to the Secretary of the Treasury, Reed fought to protect free speech, religious liberty, and civil rights; combat anti-Semitism; expose Obama/Biden support for the Iranian regime; and defend the Trump Administration against Congressional overreach and leftist lawfare.

He played a material role in many Trump Administration actions and Executive Orders and between June 2019 and January 2021, initiated and led twenty-seven civil investigations of U.S. universities for colluding with the Chinese Communist Party, violating foreign money disclosure laws, misrepresenting free speech policies, failing to provide balance in Middle Eastern studies, making false non-discrimination assurances (the Princeton investigation), and consumer fraud.

Reed is a graduate of the University of Michigan Law School and has practiced law since 1985. A former AmLaw 10 shareholder, he spent thirty years in the private practice of law representing manufacturing and retail corporations, financial institutions, trade associations, and individuals in a wide range of matters. Notably, he represented the victims of the Fort Hood terrorist attack, overcoming the Obama Administration, the Pentagon, and House Speaker John Boehner to win them Purple Hearts and medical benefits.

2015 ~ dept of labor

/s/ Reed D. Rubinstein Reed D. Rubinstein D.C. Bar No. 400153 Cause of Action, Inc. 1919 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW, Suite 650 Washington, D.C. 20006 Telephone: (202) 499-4232 reed.rubinstein@causeofaction.org Attorney for Plaintiffs

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new 10 23 email

no lnx

‘Get the Right Cases to the Supreme Court’: Inside Charles Koch’s Network

Billionaire’s web of rightwing groups works to bring cases to court that could undermine core functionings of the US government

ED PILKINGTON AND NICK SURGEY

OCT 26

This article was produced in partnership with The Guardian

The Koch network, a web of rightwing groups cultivated by billionaire businessman Charles Koch and his late brother David Koch, is spearheading the attack on federal agencies and government regulations that dominates the US supreme court agenda this term.

The network has been working behind the scenes to bring cases before the court that, if successful, could undermine many of the core functionings of the US government. At least two of the biggest cases to be considered by the justices this term have been spurred by groups bankrolled and coordinated within the Koch universe.

Footage of an internal panel discussion between senior operatives from Koch entities held in the summer of 2022 reveals that the network has been quietly planning the current assault on the “administrative state”. The groups are seeking to exploit the supreme court’s new six-to-three rightwing majority secured by Donald Trump to dismantle vital executive powers.

Regulatory controls in their sights include environmental standards to combat pollution and the climate crisis, consumer protections against predatory lenders, and safeguards for workers’ rights. At stake is what the Strict Scrutiny podcast has called “the future of government as we know it”.

The footage, which is made public here for the first time, was obtained by the investigative watchdog Documented and shared with the Guardian. During the 37-minute panel discussion, legal strategists with several Koch-related groups expressed excitement that the new hard-right supreme court supermajority has created the potential for a concerted attack on the functions of federal agencies.

Jorge Lima, an economic policy strategist at the Koch network’s central coordinating group, Stand Together, said that the new composition of the court amounted to a huge “landscape opportunity, particularly on the administrative state. We’re doubling down on this strategy.”

Lima added: “Every dog has its day, and it’s a big day for the administrative state.”

Casey Mattox, a legal strategist at the main Koch advocacy group, Americans for Prosperity, argued that the supreme court was now “primed for a real change in the law” on federal regulations which he said amounted to a “paradigm shift”. Mattox said: “That’s why we are partnering with organizations that can get the right cases to the supreme court.”

The effort appears to have born fruit. Two of the most significant cases before the court in the 2023-24 term, brought with the backing of Koch-linked organizations, attempt to rein back the government’s power to impose regulations on corporations.

The prominence of the cases underlines how the libertarian empire created by the Kochs is still a force to be reckoned with within US politics. Since David Koch’s death in 2019, and the Koch network’s decision to come out in opposition to Trump ahead of next year’s presidential election, the network has receded from public attention.

But the scope of Charles Koch’s reach remains formidable, as was demonstrated earlier this month when the 87-year-old told Forbes that he had given $4.3bn of his Koch Industries stock to Believe in People, a newly-created group named after his book of the same title. He has transferred a further $975m to another new entity, CCKc4, which carries the initials of his son Chase Koch.

The massive combined $5.3bn in donations, one of the largest acts of giving to non-profits in US history, will ensure that the Koch influence will continue to push the US to the right for years to come. Undermining government regulations is central to those ambitions.

Lisa Graves, the executive director of the progressive watchdog True North Research who is a long-time Koch watcher, said that Charles Koch has shown a “fundamental hostility to government regulation” since his early political writings in the 1960s. “This is the through-line of his career. His business operations have a substantial self-interest in assailing regulations that impede his profits.”

Koch Industries is a conglomerate of energy and chemicals companies that stand to benefit if controls on pollution, workers’ rights and other aspects of public governance are rolled back. The firm is the second largest privately-owned company in the US.

Among the big administrative state cases that the justices will be considering this term is Loper Bright Enterprises v Raimondo, which seeks to overturn a 40-year precedent set by the supreme court itself. Known as Chevron, the ruling allows federal agencies the flexibility to reasonably interpret laws without interference from the courts as they regulate critical parts of public life, such as the environment and public safety.

Experts have warned that if Chevron is struck down, it could be a recipe for legal and administrative chaos. “We are talking about rules that protect us in so many ways – truckers who are too tired to drive on the highway, unsafe workplaces, and pollution of our water and the air we breathe,” Graves said.

The case was nominally brought by a New Jersey herring fishing company that objected to being charged by a federal agency that monitors its catch to prevent over-fishing. Behind the challenge is a conservative group called Cause of Action, which is intricately tied to the Koch network.

The chair of Cause of Action’s board, Brian Menckes, is general counsel of the Charles Koch Foundation. Cause of Action’s executive director, James Valvo, who is acting as one of the fishing company’s lawyers in the case, is the former head of policy of Americans for Prosperity.

A second lawyer representing the company, Eric Bolinder, holds dual roles as a counsel for Cause of Action and Americans for Prosperity.

In 2021 Cause of Action’s entire income of $375,000 came from Stand Together, the Koch network’s coordinating group, Bloomberg reported. The groups are also physically close: Cause of Action and Americans for Prosperity not only share the same address in Arlington, Virginia, they occupy the same office – suite 700.

Bolinder was one of the panel speakers at the 2022 Koch discussion on the administrative state. He framed the plan to use the supreme court to launch a legal attack on regulatory government as a states’ rights issue.

“As the federal government grabs more and more power, particularly to the regulatory state, the states become less and less important,” he said.

The Guardian contacted Stand Together and Cause of Action for comment. Cause of Action did not immediately reply.

Gretchen Reiter, Stand Together spokesman, said that the Loper Bright case was seeking “to restore one of the core tenets of our democracy: that Congress, not the administrative agency, makes the laws. Cause of Action Institute – which filed the lawsuit in 2020 – is representing family-run fishing companies that the federal government is forcing to pay a tax that Congress never authorized, and that violates our constitution’s separation of powers.”

Last week, the supreme court accepted a second case also challenging the Chevron precedent, which has now been consolidated with the fishermen’s petition. Relentless v Department of Commerce was also filed by a group with intimate connections to the Koch network, the New Civil Liberties Alliance (NCLA).

The organization, which claims to “protect constitutional freedoms from violations by the administrative state”, was founded in 2017 with seed money from the Charles Koch Foundation. Over five years, it has received more than $5m from the Koch network.

NCLA’s president, Mark Chenoweth, previously served as in-house counsel for Koch Industries.

NCLA submitted an amicus brief last week supporting another major challenge to regulatory agencies that will be heard by the supreme court this term. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) v Jarkesy threatens to gut the enforcement power of the SEC by curtailing its ability to fast-track cases of securities fraud through its own in-house administrative law judges.

A ruling against the SEC could drastically reduce the ability of numerous government agencies to enforce environmental and other standards.

The footage of the Koch panel discussion obtained by Documented reveals that the NCLA has been secretly lobbying for the Jarkesy case to reach the supreme court. Mattox said that “NCLA brought a lot of value to that case”.

He went on: “You won’t see them actually directly litigating on that case, but they’ve done a lot of work behind the scenes, and that speaks to the way that our community adds value here, because when we partner with people we look for results, not necessarily for headlines and attention-grabbing.”

There is a further twist to the issue of Koch influence on the supreme court’s docket this term. Last month, ProPublica revealed as part of its expose of ethical breaches by some justices, that the right-leaning Clarence Thomas had attended at least two Koch donor events where funds were raised to forward the Koch network’s mission – which includes bringing cases before the court.

The attack on the administrative state is central to the work of Americans for Prosperity, which boasts of its years-long campaign to challenge what it calls the “out-of-control regulatory environment imposed by Washington”. It organizes bus tours around the country, directly relating “red tape” on energy infrastructure projects to the high cost of fuel at the pump.

This has taken place while oil and gas giants such as Exxon, BP and Shell have posted record profits, and the world has increasingly felt the impact of climate change. Americans for Prosperity calls itself “the nation’s premier grassroots organization”, but according to an independent audit report from 2021, 94% of the $112m in cash it received that year came from just two donors.

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wiki

GreenTech Automotive (GTA) is a U.S.- based automotive manufacturer dedicated to developing and producing 100% electric vehicles. It is a subsidiary of WM Industries Corp.

History

GTA was founded in 2009 by Charles Wang.[citation ^needed] In May 2010, GTA acquired Hong Kong based EuAuto Technology and its Mycar vehicle, and relocated the company's operations and manufacturing to the United States. GTA's first manufacturing facility was temporarily in Horn Lake, Mississippi.

The company merged with VL Automotive in 2014,^[1] developing a traditionally powered version of the Fisker Karma^[2] called the WM Destino.

In September 2014, GTA completed construction on a new production facility in Tunica County, Mississippi. This was shut down in January 2017.^[3]

The company declared bankruptcy in February 2018.^[4]

Products

GTA Mycar, a 2-door, 2-seater Neighborhood Electric Vehicle designed in 2003 by Giorgetto Giugiaro, and developed by EuAuto Technology

References

"Destino's VL Automotive merges with GreenTech Automotive". Autoblog. 6 May 2014. Retrieved 6 June 2015.
"GreenTech Scatters New Seeds". New York Times. 16 May 2014. Retrieved 28 May 2015.
Edelstein, Stephen (January 19, 2017). "GreenTech shutters its doors..." Green Car Reports.
Oliver, Ned (February 27, 2018). "GreenTech files for bankruptcy". Richmond Times-Dispatch.

External links

GreenTech Automotive Homepage

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hit

nb granklin funds/ pass thru to C of A?

https://causeofaction.org/our-work/greentech-automotive/

https://causeofaction.org/greentech-automotive-a-venture-capitalized-by-cronyism-2/

investigation

Executive Summary

“It seemed like a win for everyone involved when a startup car company, backed by political heavyweights, wooed investors with plans to build a massive auto plant in the Mississippi Delta, hire thousands of people and pump out a brand new line of fuel-efficient vehicles…But today, the company is under a federal investigation and about the only thing on its land in Tunica County is a temporary construction office.”

– Associated Press, August 12, 2013

Less than half of all businesses started between 1977 and 2000 survived to five years. Market competition is cruel but it’s not unfair. Unfair is when political heavyweights use their influence to skew the market and force taxpayers to underwrite the risk of speculative new business ventures; taxpayers suffer while crony companies reap the profits. Such is the case with GreenTech Automotive, Inc. (GreenTech), a startup automobile manufacturer that promised jobs and economic growth in Virginia and Mississippi but has failed to deliver. The following report is the latest from Cause of Action’s (CoA) investigations into companies that rely upon the politically powerful, not the competitive marketplace, to determine economic winners and losers.

The story of GreenTech and its principals, Terry McAuliffe and Charles Wang, weaves a tale of promises to invest billions of dollars and create thousands of jobs as a result of alleged technological breakthroughs. What is becoming increasingly likely, however, is that taxpayers will instead bear the costs of broken promises by subsidizing a failed business that used political connections and pressure to profit from taxpayer dollars.

Terry McAuliffe has made a career of using politics to profit.

As far back as 1997, Business Week declared that “[m]any of Terry McAuliffe’s business deals are intertwined with his political interests.” According to Leaders Magazinein 2007, McAuliffe “started over two dozen companies in the fields of banking, insurance, marketing, and real estate. McAuliffe served as Chairman of Federal City National Bank and, most recently, was an owner and Chairman of American Heritage Homes.” These companies and his political fundraising career earned him millions in personal profit, but also brought Department of Justice investigations, accusations of conspiracy and illegal donation schemes, and Department of Labor penalties. What is clear is that political fundraiser and businessman McAuliffe has made a habit of using his connections and favors to rake in profits, and he has continued that pattern with GreenTech.

After receiving campaign contributions from Charles Wang in 2008 for his first gubernatorial bid, Terry McAuliffe made his deep political Rolodex available for GreenTech’s benefit. As Amy Gardner from The Washington Post has observed, many of McAuliffe’s biggest business deals “came in partnership with prominent donors and politicians, creating a portrait over the years of a Washington insider who got rich as he rose to power in the Democratic Party.” He continued that pattern with GreenTech, benefitting the company through his own political connections.

In 2008, Charles Wang made a $50,000 donation to Terry McAuliffe’s gubernatorial campaign. Shortly thereafter, Wang’s company merged with what is now GreenTech and McAuliffe was named Chairman.
As GreenTech Chairman, in an email to then-Governor Haley Barbour, McAuliffe cited efforts by U.S. Senators Thad Cochran (R-MS) and Roger Wicker (R-MS) to pressure the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) Director Alejandro Mayorkas into fast-tracking EB-5 visa applications that would provide Chinese investments for GreenTech.
McAuliffe sent numerous emails to Director Mayorkas and Douglas Smith, Department of Homeland Security’s assistant secretary for the Office of the Private Sector, expressing frustration with USCIS’ slow visa approval process. Smith attended GreenTech’s groundbreaking at its temporary Horn Lake facility, where McAuliffe also privately met with President Bill Clinton and Chinese investors.
Anthony Rodham, brother of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, is President and CEO of Gulf Coast Funds Management (Gulf Coast) the country’s largest Regional Center for processing EB-5 investments, and the manager of EB-5 investments for GreenTech.

GreenTech utilized the EB-5 visa program as a catalyst for favors and a prop for business deals.

In 2008, Gulf Coast, a sister company of GreenTech, used political pressure to position itself as a powerful Regional Center for managing two states’ EB-5 investments, yielding large profits. GreenTech was financed by Chinese investors with a strong interest in securing visas in exchange for millions of dollars in capital through EB-5.

Then-Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour, one of Terry McAuliffe’s current business partners, contacted Barbara Velarde, the head of the USCIS office that oversees the Regional Center program, urging the agency to designate Gulf Coast as the Regional Center for the entire state of Mississippi.
Kathleen Blanco, who was Governor of Louisiana at the time that USCIS approved Gulf Coast’s application, is currently a member of Gulf Coast’s board.
Between 2009 and 2012, GreenTech raised $67 million from more than one hundred EB-5 investors. Gulf Coast has collected a total of approximately $7.4 million in profits from GreenTech investors.

GreenTech is abusing taxpayer funds.

Under the leadership of Charles Wang and Terry McAuliffe, GreenTech submitted exaggerated projections about its manufacturing output and job creation prospects, convincing Mississippi state officials to award millions of taxpayer dollars in loans and tax incentives to develop a GreenTech plant within the state.

In exchange for a promise to build a manufacturing facility in Tunica County, theMississippi Development Authority (MDA) agreed to provide a $3 million loanto GreenTech from the Mississippi Industry Incentive Financing Revolving Fund to construct an access road to the facility.
A $2 million loan was given to the Tunica County Economic Development Foundation to purchase the site on which the facility would be built. GreenTech received a host of tax breaks and incentives including reduced state income, franchise, property, sales and use taxes and income tax rebates for company employees.
GreenTech has claimed that it will create 25,000 direct jobs that will each create 11.86 indirect and induced jobs, or 296,500 jobs in total. This is problematic both in expectation and legality given that current law provides for no more than 10,000 EB-5 visas per year.

While it is unknown whether GreenTech will meet its own estimate of 25,000 full-time jobs in Mississippi by 2014, according to NBC12 News in Richmond, Va., a former GreenTech employee claims that GreenTech’s “lofty goals were nowhere near reality.”

What follows in this report are these and additional findings from a six-month investigation of the relationships and political deals that allowed GreenTech to entice Mississippi into a misbegotten experiment in green automotive technology. As this report reveals, the real engine driving GreenTech’s business plan appears to be its management’s extraordinary talent for exploiting taxpayers to advance their own interests.

PDF: GreenTech Automotive: A Venture Capitalized by Cronyism

Exhibits:Exhibits 1-32

Wang Emails: 1 & 2

GTA Exhibit 6 (here) was the Document used in a Washington Post story

Tags: Cronyism, EB5

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Bankrupt: Terry McAuliffe’s Crony Green Energy Venture Folds

There has been yet another development in the saga of GreenTech Automotive—the “green energy” car company that sought to profit from its ties to former Virginia Governor Terry McAullife, Chinese businessman Charles Wang, and Secretary Hillary Clinton’s brother, Anthony Rodham. According to papers filed in federal court last month, GreenTech […]

Media, Blog03/12/2018LEARN MORE

EB-5 “Cash-for-Visa” Investors Sue Casino Project Linked to Former Senator Harry Reid

According to the Los Angeles Times, “[s]ixty Chinese investors,” who participated in the EB-5 Immigrant Investor Program, have sued the developers and managers behind the SLS Las Vegas Hotel & Casino for failure to deliver on “promised green cards.” According to the investors’ lawsuit, the hotel redevelopment project has “not […]

Media, Blog12/11/2017LEARN MORE

GreenTech Automotive, Terry McAuliffe, and crony capitalism

SMOKE AND MIRROS GreenTech Automotive, Terry McAuliffe, and crony capitalism By John J. Vecchione and Ryan Mulvey | Jul 22, 2017 A politically connected “green energy” vehicle company that never delivered on its promises is finally being taken to task. A state auditor in Mississippi is demanding GreenTech Automotive repay […]

Media, News07/24/2017LEARN MORE

It’s Time to End the Federal Government’s Cash-for-Visas Program

The Washington Post rightly called on the Trump Administration yesterday to end the government’s controversial EB-5 visa regime and, in particular, its Regional Center Program, which was recently extended until the end of September 2017. In most cases, the “Immigrant Investor Program,” or Employment-Based Preference Five (“EB-5”) cash-for-visa program, permits […]

Media, Blog05/9/2017LEARN MORE

Dan Epstein on The Schilling Show 11/12/2013

Executive Director Dan Epstein discussing GreenTech Automotive

News Audio11/25/2013LEARN MORE

Dan Epstein on WINA The Schilling Show 9/30/13

Executive Director Dan Epstein discussing our report on GreenTech Automotive.

News Audio11/5/2013

Free-Market Group Fights to Save California Oyster Farm

By Gavin Aronsen | Fri Dec. 7, 2012

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Last week, the Interior Department announced its decision [1] to let a historic Northern California oyster farm's permit expire to make way for the West Coast's first marine wilderness. In response, the Drakes Bay Oyster Company's owner, Kevin Lunny, filed suit this week in hopes of saving his company. That's not a big surprise: Lunny told the San Francisco Chronicle [2] that the news had left him in "disbelief and excruciating sorrow." Here's the twist: As the East Bay Express reported [3], Lunny is being represented by a low-key, free-market advocacy group—a somewhat strange bedfellow for a company that bills itself as a environmentally sustainable operation and has enjoyed strong support from Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.).

The group representing Drakes Bay Oyster Company, Cause of Action [4], is run by Dan Epstein, a former GOP counsel on the House's Committee on Oversight and Government Reform under California Republican Darrell Issa. Epstein is also a veteran employee of billionaires Charles and David Koch; he used to work at [5] the Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation and for a Koch Industries lawyer. Epstein supports Lunny's lawsuit against the National Park Service and the Interior Department, he said in a statement [6], because "we refuse to let the NPS and Secretary Salazar get away with exerting power that destroys a business and a community under the guise of authorized discretion."

Cause of Action alleges that the government failed to fulfill its obligation to conduct a proper environmental review and relied on flawed science [7] showing that the oyster farm harmed the environment in its decision not to renew its permit. But in reality, according to interior secretary Ken Salazar [8], the decision was made to avoid setting a precedent that would threaten longstanding National Park Service policy to let permits expire on public land chosen by Congress to become wilderness. (Congress flagged Drakes Estero [9], where the oyster farm has operated since the 1930s, as a "potential wilderness" site in 1976.)

Epstein's advocacy work, in any case, hasn't always been so noble as coming to the rescue of a family business. After congressional conservatives slipped a measure into a recent spending bill [10] that banned federal grants from going to 501(c)(4) non-profits engaged in lobbying, Cause of Action sent letters to at least 20 groups using federal money to fight obesity and tobacco use, warning them they might be sued. The group said it sent the letters "only as a convenience," but critics contended it was an attempt to intimidate the non-profits.

This time, no one can claim that Esptein is hiding his free-market, Koch-esque motive for helping Drakes Bay Oyster Company: "Cause of Action is committed to ensuring that federal agency decision-making that can affect economic prosperity in the United States is held to the scrutiny of public accountability," his statement also read.

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Source URL: http://www.motherjones.com/blue-marble/2012/12/drakes-bay-oyster-salazar-cause-of-action

Links:

[1] http://www.motherjones.com/blue-marble/2012/11/interior-dept-shutters-point-reyes-oyster-farm

[2] http://www.sfgate.com/science/article/U-S-evicting-Point-Reyes-oyster-farmer-4077624.php#page-1

[3] http://www.eastbayexpress.com/92510/archives/2012/12/05/drakes-bay-oyster-company-turns-to-koch-brothers-linked-group

[4] http://causeofaction.org/

[5] http://www.publicintegrity.org/2011/02/28/2109/issa-oversight-committee-staffs-industry-insiders

[6] http://causeofaction.org/2012/12/05/2595/

[7] http://www.sfgate.com/science/article/Point-Reyes-oyster-farm-decision-near-4058328.php

[8] http://www.eastbayexpress.com/ebx/the-real-reasons-for-ken-salazars-decision/Content?oid=3405939

[9] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drakes_Estero

[10] http://philanthropy.com/article/article-content/131680/

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April 26, 2012

It’s Time to Stop Letting Congress Stomp on Nonprofit Advocacy Rights

Richard White/Chronicle of Philanthropy

Enlarge Image

By Gary Bass and Mark Rosenman

Nonprofit organizations have fewer rights to speak out about important public-policy matters today than they did last year.

The latest assault on advocacy came in a spending bill Congress approved to provide money to education, health, and human-service groups.

These new restrictions on advocacy were passed as part of a coordinated campaign by conservatives to quash popular democracy. Unfortunately, as contrasted with past “defund the left” efforts, charity leaders didn’t find out about them in time to take action to prevent their passage.

The challenges to nonprofit advocacy began more than three decades ago when the Heritage Foundation started making new restrictions a priority. This attack was pushed by the Reagan White House in the early 1980s, took the form of major Republican congressional legislative efforts in the mid-1990s, and has arisen in various forms since then.

Some conservative lawmakers and Republican White House officials have tried to go so far as to limit what charities can do with private contributions; others have tried to restrict the types of activities that nonprofits can conduct with federal funds.

Most of their efforts were stopped by groups whose missions were to serve as watchdogs to protect charities’ rights and the coalitions they organized.

It’s Time to Stop Letting Congress Stomp on Nonprofit Advocacy Rights

Richard White/Chronicle of Philanthropy

By Gary Bass and Mark Rosenman

Nonprofit organizations have fewer rights to speak out about important public-policy matters today than they did last year.

The latest assault on advocacy came in a spending bill Congress approved to provide money to education, health, and human-service groups.

The challenges to nonprofit advocacy began more than three decades ago when the Heritage Foundation started making new restrictions a priority. This attack was pushed by the Reagan White House in the early 1980s, took the form of major Republican congressional legislative efforts in the mid-1990s, and has arisen in various forms since then.

Most of their efforts were stopped by groups whose missions were to serve as watchdogs to protect charities’ rights and the coalitions they organized.

Related Content

What Counts as Lobbying? A New Challenge for the IRS

Nevertheless, conservatives succeeded in several attempts to chip away at nonprofit advocacy rights.

For example, Congress voted to prohibit social-welfare organizations classified under Section 501(c)(4) from receiving federal grants if they lobby. Additionally, grantees of the Legal Services Corporation face greater restrictions on advocacy than do other federal grantees.

Many grant-making foundations were alarmed by these attacks.

Strikingly, in the past few years, even limited foundation grants for protecting and promoting nonprofit advocacy rights have dropped to minimal levels.

With the new law, groups that receive money under the appropriations measure cannot use federal grants for “any activity to advocate or promote” any “proposed, pending, or future” tax increase (at any level of government) or any “future requirement or restriction” on a “legal consumer product” (e.g., tobacco and alcohol products, junk foods and beverages, and guns).

The new law was drafted by Rep. Denny Rehberg, a Montana Republican, and supported by industry representatives, including the American Beverage Association.

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Last week, Secretary of the Interior issued a long-awaited decision on the fate of Drakes Bay Oyster Company, located within Point Reyes National Seashore. He ordered the oyster farm removed. The farm was, by all accounts, a model of sustainable agriculture. Meanwhile, National Park Service employees allegedly engaged in wrongdoing in their zeal to kick out the oyster farm. Dianne Feinstein favored the oyster farm. Sympathies lay with the sustainable oyster farmer. After Salazar ruled against the farm, op-eds were written calling for President Obama to reverse Salazar's decision.

It's a trap. You're being used by Darrell Issa and the Koch brothers.

As background, John F. Kennedy declared Point Reyes a National Seashore in 1962, permitting businesses onsite 50 years to leave. Congress passed a law in 1976 designating the coast as a marine wilderness once the oyster farm left. Kevin Lunny bought the oyster farm in 2004 and gambled on an extension. And he did everything right in winning the favor of powerful Bay Area folk, including Senator Feinstein. Feinstein placed a clause in a 2009 appropriations bill giving Salazar the option to choose to renew the lease, expiring November 30, 2012.

On November 29, Salazar decided against the oyster farm. The area will now become the United States' first marine wilderness.

Sure enough, Kevin Lunny sued. His counsel is Dan Epstein of Cause of Action. Who is Dan Epstein? Mother Jones explains:

a former GOP counsel on the House's Committee on Oversight and Government Reform under California Republican Darrell Issa. Epstein is also a veteran employee of billionaires Charles and David Koch; he used to work at the Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation and for a Koch Industries lawyer.

Yes, the model of environmental sustainability is being represented by a scion of Darrell Issa and the Koch brothers. Not because Epstein likes oysters or environmental sustainability, but rather because fossil fueled Republicans really, really likes the idea of commercial businesses on wilderness land. Or, as he puts it: "'Cause of Action is committed to ensuring that federal agency decision-making that can affect economic prosperity in the United States is held to the scrutiny of public accountability,' his statement also read."

The East Bay Express explains the real reasons for Ken Salazar's decision: "It wasn't about the environmental impacts of Drakes Bay Oyster Company at Point Reyes National Seashore; it was about precedent." Once one commercial operation is allowed on what is supposed to be wilderness, untrammeled by humanity, then you allow others. And that's exactly what Epstein and his powerful friends want.

Salazar has made the correct decision here in weighing not only the environmental footprint of the Drakes Bay Oyster Company but also the precedent that would be set by allowing commercial operations in wilderness and wilderness study areas.

Point Reyes' oysters are only the appetizers on the menu of the Koch brothers and Darrell Issa. The main course is the shale gas of Theodore Roosevelt National Park and other wilderness atop fossil fuels.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/12/07/1168079/-Dear-Progressive-Bay-Area-Please-STFU-about-Drakes-Bay-Oyster-Farm

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Drakes Bay Oyster Company Turns to Koch Brothers-Linked Group

Politics / Environment Robert Gammon — Wed, Dec 5, 2012 at 12:43 PM

Drakes Bay Oyster Company, which has portrayed itself as a progressive and environmentally sustainable business and has been supported heavily by Democratic US Senator Dianne Feinstein, has joined forces with a secretive group that has ties to the ultra-conservative Koch Brothers and the Republican Party. The secretive group, which calls itself Cause of Action, is leading the legal fight for the oyster company against the Obama administration’s decision late last week to close the oyster farm at Point Reyes National Seashore and create the first marine wilderness on the West Coast.

Dan Epstein

Cause of Action is run by Dan Epstein, a former staffer for the Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation. Epstein also was the lead Republican attorney for the US House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform — which is headed by California GOP Congressman Darrell Issa.

Charles Koch and his brother, David, made billions in the oil and natural gas industries and spent hundreds of millions of dollars this year attempting to defeat President Obama. The Koch Brothers also are the primary financiers of the Tea Party, and have heavily backed ultra-right-wing Republican candidates in recent years.

As for Issa, as head of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, he has led a series of investigations into the Obama administration since Republicans regained control of the House in 2010. Issa’s probes, viewed by Democrats as being overly partisan, have included the Fast and Furious scandal, have dominated Republican talking points, and have provided regular fodder for Fox News.

Despite the ties to the Koch brothers and the Republican Party, Mary Beth Hutchins, a spokeswoman for Epstein’s group Cause of Action, maintained in an interview with the Express that the group is a “nonpartisan” charity. Hutchins, however, declined to reveal the identity of the group’s donors. Cause of Action has yet to file a federal tax return with the IRS, so it’s finances are not yet public; Hutchins said the group formed in 2011 and received its 501 (c)(3) status earlier this year.

In a conference call with reporters on Tuesday, Hutchins said Cause of Action was helping Drakes Bay Oyster Company, owned by rancher Kevin Lunny, free of charge.

This is also not the first time that Lunny has received help from Issa. Last year, Issa strongly criticized the National Park Service for its contention that the oyster company’s lease at Point Reyes should not be renewed. Issa also instructed his Oversight Committee to launch an investigation. Issa and his committee’s actions were viewed by many Democrats, including North Bay Congresswoman Lynn Woolsey, as just another attempt by Republicans to embarrass the Obama administration. The oyster company’s fight against the park service also has been taken up by Fox News.

Cause of Action, meanwhile, has been criticized by progressives for sending threatening letters to nonprofits that fight against obesity and tobacco-use. According to a report in the Chronicle of Philanthropy, the letters were viewed as attempts to intimidate and quash liberal causes.

Cause of Action’s fight on behalf of Drakes Bay Oyster Company also is viewed in the environmental community as part of a right-wing effort to privatize public land. In a federal lawsuit filed against Obama’s Interior Secretary Ken Salazar earlier this week on behalf of the oyster company, Cause of Action argued that Salazar’s decision to not renew oyster farm’s lease amounted to “an illegal taking” of private property — even though the oyster farm was operating on public land and its owner Lunny knew when he bought the farm in 2005 that the park service had no intention of re-upping his lease after its November 30, 2012 expiration date.

Cause of Action also argues in its suit that Salazar was required by law to conduct a comprehensive environmental review of the oyster farm’s impacts on Point Reyes before deciding to not extend Lunny’s lease. Although the park service did conduct such a review, Cause of Action contends that it was inadequate. Salazar, however, said that his decision to not renew the oyster farm’s lease was not based on the environmental impacts of the oyster farm and instead was based on existing law and policy concerning commercial enterprises on land that had been designated by Congress to become federally protected wilderness — as was the case with Drakes Estero in Point Reyes. Salazar also contends that a full environmental review is not required when making a decision on whether to renew such a lease.

However, if Cause of Action wins its fight, it could force the federal government to complete full environmental reviews every time a private company wants to renew its lease on national parkland designated to become wilderness. Ironically, for Republicans, such an outcome could prove to be quite expensive for taxpayers. The environmental review conducted for Drakes Bay Oyster Company has already cost the federal government more than $3 million, according to Amy Trainer, executive director of The Environmental Action Committee of West Marin, a group that has strongly opposed renewing the oyster farm’s lease.

In fact, the prohibitively high costs associated with completing such environmental reviews could prompt cash-strapped public agencies to renew leases for private companies on public land rather than spend the money. “What we’re talking about is defacto privatization,” Trainer said.

Indeed, Cause of Action’s co-counsel, the Southern California law firm Stoel Rives, argued in a letter last month to Salazar that it believed it would be legally okay for him to renew Lunny’s lease at Drakes Estero without a full environmental review — but not okay for him to let the lease expire without such a review.

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