Mountain States Legal Foundation

Denver, CO

"We will mine more, drill more, cut more timber"

---Former Interior Sec'ty James Watt

Alhough you'd never know it from their website, the Mountain States Legal Foundation was started by former Interior Secretary James Watt in 1976. It has taken on and won all kinds of conservative legal cases.

Among those cases is Adarand Constructors, Inc., v. Pena, et al., where:

...the Foundation assisted the plaintiff, a construction contractor who was denied a federal contract, despite offering the lowest bid, in favor of a minority contractor...[eventually]...the case made its way to the U.S. Supreme Court, which told the circuit court to retry the case using a standard more favorable to the Foundation and Adarand. (Right Guide).

In another case (Bear Lodge Multiple Use Association, et al. v. Liggett, et al.), MSLF helped a group of climbing guides who work commerically on Devil's Tower, a national monument in Wyoming (think Close Encounters), win the right to work in June, a practice the National Park Service sought to prohibit in deference to Native Americans, many of whom view the Tower as a sacred site (Right Guide).

MSLF & Gale Norton

The Mountain States Legal Foundation was the home for four years of Gale Norton, the former Colorado Attorney General whom Bush II has nominated for Interior Secretary (The Nation, Jan 29, 2001):

As Colorado's Attorney General from 1991 to 1998 Norton pushed programs of voluntary compliance for industrial polluters and opposed government (and voter) initiatives to counter sprawl. She has been an active advocate for "property rights," the idea that government should compensate developers when environmental laws and regulations limit their profits, while also fighting hard to protect agribusiness access to cheap federal water. Since 1999 she's worked for Brownstein, Hyatt, Farber & Strickland, a law firm that has lobbied for a range of sprawl-promoting clients, including Denver International Airport and the city's new taxpayer-financed stadium for its pro football team, the Broncos.

Norton makes the rounds at sponsored conservative organiztions

National Center For Policy Analysis

"Beyond Earthday: Five Principles for a Better Environment"

Norton speaks to:

April 22, 1998
PRINCIPLE ONE:
Promote Community-Based Environmentalism
Gale Norton
Coalition of Republican Environmental Advocates

(FOX)News Hounds
February 14, 2005

Fox News: Behind the Scenes of its Propaganda

http://www.newshounds.us/2005/02/15/fox_news_behind_the_scenes_of_its_propaganda.php

MSLF urges Defense Sec. Rumsfeld to withold funds from college where anti-war protesters harangued military recruiters.

Washington Post
November 28, 2001

High Court Dismisses Affirmative Action Case

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A25293-2001Nov27.html

Justices Say Colo. Firm Shifted Arguments

[Editor's note: This Supreme Court decision represents a clear reversal and loss for MSLF and its client, Adarand Constructors]

The court first heard the Adarand case in 1995 and ruled, by a vote of 5 to 4, that racial distinctions in government programs must survive "strict scrutiny" by the federal courts. Such programs must be "narrowly tailored" to serve a "compelling government interest," the court said, and remanded the case to lower courts to decide whether the highway program at issue met that standard.

The case dismissed today, Adarand v. Mineta, No. 00-860, evolved out of Adarand's appeal of a lower federal appeals court's subsequent ruling that the program, as amended by the Clinton administration after the 1995 case, could indeed pass "strict scrutiny."

Also see:

TomPaine.com
January 16, 2001

GALE NORTON'S RADICAL LEGAL PHILOSOPHY

http://www.tompaine.com/feature.cfm/ID/3977

To Her, Private Property Rights Means Gutting Environmental and Community Protections

1998 Report
Clearinghouse on Environmental Advocacy and Research
January 31, 1998

MSLF is active in the "wise use" and extremist property rights movement

http://www.clearproject.org/reports_mslf.html

Known [MSLF] contributors have included Amoco, Chevron, Cities Service, Combined Communications Corp., Coors, El Pomar Foundation, Exxon, Ford Motor Co., Marathon Oil Co., Phillips 66 Petroleum, Texaco, the Ruth and Vernon Taylor Foundation, the True Foundation, Anschultz Family Foundation and the Castle Rock Foundation (re-formed Coors Foundation).