Environmental groups take tax deductible donations from you, industry and foundations to lobby intensely for costly government regulatory controls of the environment. As taxpayer-subsidized nonprofits, green group assets for eco-propaganda, litigation and lobbying have grown to some $1.5 billion annually.
The grand daddy of all eco-groups is the Sierra Club -- founded by naturalist John Muir in San Francisco in 1892. Operating with annual U.S. assets of about $60 million, the Sierra Club has hundreds of thousands of members. Recently, the Club has lost its Better Business Bureau compliance rating for Standards for Charity Accountability. And along with other eco-conglomerates, the Sierra Club is a prominent litigant against American energy and industry expansions while collaborating with polluters such as BP. This two-faced advocacy has caused internal strife and resignations among Club executives and their green constituents.
Time Magazine has reported that between 2007 and 2010 the Sierra Club received over $25 million in donations from the natural gas industry where the process of “fracking” (fracturing subterranean pockets of gas for extraction) has become a big environmental issue. When these gas industry donations to the Sierra Club were reported, the Club disclosed that they later declined an additional $30 million of gas cash. Together, these two gas donations would equal over 90% of the Sierra Club’s annual assets. Cynically, Sierra Club defenders explain their position as a strategic preference for natural gas to replace the use of coal-fired energy.
Militant, litigious and corrupt eco-groups should lose their Federal Government subsidy of non-profit tax breaks in order to pay their fair share as taxable corporate entities in reducing our $15 trillion national debt.
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