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Cursor.orgMediaTransparency.org sponsor More stories by Bill Berkowitz PERC receives Templeton Freedom Award for promoting 'enviropreneurs' Media Transparency writersAndrew J. Weaver FundometerEvaluate any page on the World Wide Web against our databases of people, recipients, and funders of the conservative movement. |
ORIGINAL RESEARCHBill Berkowitz 'Villains Honoring Villains'The Bush Administration is winning the battle to institute public/private partnerships on America's cash-strapped public lands. Is total privatization coming down the pike?"National parks are the best idea we ever had. Absolutely American, absolutely democratic, they reflect us at our best rather than our worst." --Wallace Stegner, 1983 In mid-October, The Yosemite Fund, a private-sector partner of Yosemite National Park, announced that it bestowed its "Corporate Protector of the Year" award on Delaware North Companies Parks & Resorts at Yosemite, Inc. (DNC), at a ceremony held October 1 at Yosemite's Wawona Hotel. Bob Hansen, the President of The Yosemite Fund gave the award to Kevin Kelly, the President of DNC Parks & Resorts, and thanked him for the contributions the company has made "to the Campaign for Yosemite Falls, a monumental restoration project spearheaded by The Yosemite Fund in 1997 which came to fruition in April 2005." In a press release dated October 14, Hansen said that the award was given to acknowledge the company's "12 years of exceptional support, including their generous annual donations and exemplary teamwork with the National Park Service to assist with the Yosemite Falls project," and for its "environmentally-friendly practices during their tenure as concessionaire in Yosemite." "Through its GreenPath initiative, Delaware North has eliminated toxic chemicals, and instituted a phenomenal recycling program that reduces waste and preserves the environment and its resources," Hansen said. On the same day, a US Forest Service news release announced the issuing of a 158-page concessionaire prospectus entitled "A Prospectus for the Delivery of Visitor Services, Mount St. Helens National Volcanic Monument." The document noted that "Offered opportunities include food service, retail sales, educational book sales, and optional museum and theater operation at Coldwater Ridge Visitor Center; retail sales, educational book sales, and optional mobile food and sundries vending at Johnston Ridge Observatory; and options to provide mobile food and sundries vending at other locations along SR504, and to develop rustic lodging and/or RV camping facilities ... Applicants whose proposals provide the Required Services specified for a complex will also be offered the opportunity to provide outfitter and guide services within the MSHNVM, including motorized and non-motorized winter activities, hiking tours, climbing tours, mountain biking tours and helicopter tours." In a series of e-mails -- one titled "Villains Honoring Villains," and the other "Hey you, 'ya wanna buy a National Volcanic Monument?" -- Scott Silver, the executive director of Wild Wilderness, a grassroots environmental organization that has been involved with public land management issues for more than a decade, commented on the Yosemite award ceremony, and the Mount St. Helens prospective sell-off. "Bluntly stated," Silver's first e-mail read, "the Delaware North Companies -- with $1.6 Billion in annual revenues -- is quickly taking control of America's National Parks, and The Yosemite Fund is perhaps the best example where private philanthropy is used as a substitute for Federal funding so as to help advance a larger privatization agenda." When you combine these things, "you get the Yosemite Fund conferring upon Delaware North its "Corporate Protector of the Year" Award." In a subsequent message regarding Mount St. Helens, Silver mused: "Would any of you like to partner with me and buy ourselves control of a few hundred thousand acres of prime recreation lands - not to mention access to a couple of million paying customers?" Delaware North Companies Parks & Resorts (website) is "a leading hospitality provider with significant experience in hotel, retail, food service, recreation and transportation operations. The company's portfolio includes historic properties in North America, such as Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex; Yosemite, Sequoia, Yellowstone and Grand Canyon National Parks; Asilomar State Beach and Conference Grounds; Tenaya Lodge at Yosemite; Harrison Hot Springs Resort & Spa; Niagara Falls State Park; Jones Beach; Deer Creek Resort & Conference Center; Old Town San Diego; the U.S. Mint in Philadelphia and Denver; and The Lodge & Conference Center at Geneva State Park, Ohio." Giving Delaware North the award, Silver wrote, is no different "than the villainous" American Recreation Coalition -- a champion of motorized recreation and public/private partnerships on public lands -- "giving Secretary of the Interior, Gale Norton -- leading the way toward commercialization and privatization of America's public lands -- or Senator Frank Murkowski (R-AK) - who has been spearheading the drilling of the Arctic National Reserve -- its much-coveted 'Great Outdoors Award.'" In an e-mail exchange, Silver pointed out that, "Today when you visit Yosemite Valley, for example, virtually every product, good or service you consume is provided by Delaware North Companies (DNC). If you purchase a sandwich and chips, those chips are private-labeled DNC-brand chips. The National Park Service collects a small cut from DNC's take and because Congress and the President are literally starving park service budgets, the NPS has a direct incentive to encourage visitors to spend and consume." Over the past 15-plus years, Silver added, "the Yosemite Fund, a tax-exempt corporation, has funneled more than $20,000,000 into that park, much of it coming from corporate donor and much of that money being spent on projects of interest to the Yosemite Fund." The Yosemite Fund's website lists a group of corporate partners that pony up at least $5,000, and in exchange get the prestige of being associated with Yosemite as well as more tangible rewards including having their names placed on the "Honor Wall at the Yosemite Valley Visitor Center," receiving recognition in publications such as the Fund's annual report, getting listed on the webpage and receiving special "invitations to an annual event in Yosemite and Fund holiday party." It is not much of a price to pay for companies like Chevron, Coca-Cola of California, Pacific Gas & Electric, and Bank of America that then can call themselves friends of Yosemite. Even prior to billions spent on the war on terrorism, tax cuts for the wealthy, and the recent series of natural disasters that laid waste to the Gulf Coast and New Orleans -- which will cost additional billions -- the National Parks Service was on shaky grounds, going through a major funding crunch. According to a recent report in The Salt Lake Tribune, that funding crunch has turned into a crisis "and it's getting worse, not better. The backlog of park maintenance projects continues to grow, staffing has been sliced to the marrow and vital science and restoration work is being delayed, if not shelved." Crisis in America's National ParksFor more than a decade, Scott Silver has been the Paul Revere of the environmental movement. Instead of riding a horse around the countryside shouting "the privatizers are coming, the privatizers are coming," from his Bend, Oregon office, Silver has been sounding the alarm about the privatization of America's public lands for more than a decade via his valuable web site WildWilderness.org, and through a steady stream of e-mail alerts. In 1994, the Cato Institute, a Washington, DC-based free-market think tank, published "Privatizing the Planet," which maintained that "privately owned resources have been better protected than their politically managed counterparts" and concluded that "the air, the water, most species of mammals and fish and public lands have no private owners, [therefore] they have few effective protectors and defenders." Recently, The George Wright Forum (Volume 22, #2) devoted a special issue to the privatization of the national parks. According to Silver, The George Wright Society is "well respected and mainstream and Forum is read by park managers all around the world." Silver pointed out that "the fact that it did a special edition on privatization is significant in its timing. Two of the pieces were written by pro-privatization libertarians, and the idea was to present all sides of the debate." To Silver, "the pro-privatization articles confirmed the threats to which the anti-privatization people pointed, and on the whole, the special issue was 'fair and balanced.'" Silver's essay, which concludes the special issue, looks at the Recreation Fee Demonstration Program -- authorized by Congress in 1996 as a rider to the Department of the Interior appropriations bill -- and its impact on the privatization of America's public lands. In short, Fee-Demo allowed "land managers to collect fees for a wider range of products, goods, and services ... [and] retain the fees they collect." Through this "alternative funding mechanism Congress was free to slash allocated funding and to force land managers to become reliant upon user fees, concessionaire fees, public-private partnerships, volunteerism, and other funding." According to Silver numerous pro-privatization think tanks support Fee-Demo: "Extremists seek to halt all funding of the national parks and public lands in order to create incentives to ensure that these lands become self-funding at a minimum, and preferably profitable." Land managers would ascertain the value of the resources on land it oversees and then "would sell or lease rights to those commodity values and keep the monies received." In light of a recent extreme proposal by House Resources Committee Chairman Richard Pombo and the Bush Interior Department "to scale back and commercialize the park system to help meet its budget needs," Subcommittee Chairman Mark Souder, R-Ind., and his fellow members stopped off in Flagstaff, Arizona in the fifth of a six-stop fact-finding mission. However, Rep. Pombo's proposal was not the only piece of bad news coming down the pike. The Salt Lake Tribune reported that a "leaked memo draft" written by Paul Hoffman, the Assistant Interior Secretary for Fish, Wildlife and Parks, "proposed revisions of park management policies that would allow cell phone towers, low-flying tour flights and all-terrain vehicles in parks, expand snowmobile access and would limit park managers' authority to prevent development." "We don't like what we see," Richard Smith of the Coalition of National Park Service Retirees, told the Subcommittee. "We are saddened to watch the ongoing efforts by the political leadership of the [Interior] Department and the Park Service to privatize our national park system, a system that author Wallace Stegner called 'the best idea America ever had.'" Acknowledging that there needed to be some serious thinking about how to deal with the Park Service's diminishing budgets, Rep. Souder said, "Parks won't be sold. I can guarantee you that," Souder said. "But commercialization in the parks is a very tough challenge. How far and where are we going to go in allowing it? It's a valid question." "Representative Souder asked exactly the right question," Silver explained in an email. "As of yet, no one is ready to completely sell off the National Parks, though some have made such threats. Selling parks would be the ultimate privatization step. And that is not how privatization is occurring. It is happening, instead, through a series of incremental steps." Silver said that the privatization process has been accelerating over the past decade, and unfortunately, "very little significant resistance is being put up. These days there seems to be a sudden uproar about efforts to sell the Parks, but selling parks is not the threat we're facing today and we would be misled if we believed otherwise." A July 1997, government-issued report titled "Terms Related to Privatization Activities and Processes" spelled out the numerous issues facing America's public lands including Asset Sale, Commercial Activities, Contracting Out, Divestiture, Franchising Of External Services, Franchising Of Internal Services, Government Corporations, Government-Sponsored Enterprises, Joint Ventures, Outsourcing, Privatization, Public-Private Partnership, Service Shedding, User Fees, Volunteer Activities, and Vouchers. "Today, every one who cares about America's public lands should be fighting the privatization steps laid out in that 1997 document," said Scott Silver. "If we do not do so today, we will soon enough be fighting to prevent the sale of our nation's crown jewels." Five years ago, "I gave a presentation to the Society for Environmental Journalists and warned them about how fee-demo would lead to the privatization of places such as Mount St. Helens." Ironically, Silver pointed out, the SEJ annual meeting that year "was held inside of one of Mount Helens' visitor centers, which are now up for bids." sign in, or register to email stories or comment on them.
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MORE ORIGINAL RESEARCHBill Berkowitz PERC receives Templeton Freedom Award for promoting 'enviropreneurs'Right Wing foundation-funded anti-environmental think tank grabbing a wider audience for 'free market environmentalism' On the 15th anniversary of Terry Anderson and Donald Leal's book "Free Market Environmentalism" -- the seminal book on the subject -- Anderson, the Executive Director of the Bozeman, Montana-based Property and Environment Research Center (PERC - formerly known as the Political Economy Research Center) spoke in late-January at an event sponsored by Squaw Valley Institute at the Resort at Squaw Creek in California. While it may have been just another opportunity to speak on "free market environmentalism" and not the kickoff of a "victory tour," nevertheless it comes at a time when PERC's ideas are taking root.
Bill Berkowitz Neil Bush of Saudi ArabiaDuring recent visit, President’s brother describes the country as a 'kind of tribal democracy' In late February, only a few days after Saudi Arabia beheaded four Sri Lankan robbers and then left their headless bodies on public display in the capital of Riyadh, Neil Bush, for the fourth time in the past six years, showed up for the country's Jeddah Economic Forum. The Guardian reported that Human Rights Watch "said the four men had no lawyers during their trial and sentencing, and were denied other basic legal rights." In an interview with Arab News, the Saudi English language paper, Bush described the country as "a kind of tribal democracy."
Bill Berkowitz Newt Gingrich's back door to the White HouseAmerican Enterprise Institute "Scholar" and former House Speaker blames media for poll showing 64 percent of the American people wouldn't vote for him under any circumstances Whatever it is that former House Speaker Newt Gingrich has come to represent in American politics, the guy is nothing less than fascinating. One day he's espousing populist rhetoric about the need to cut the costs of college tuition and the next day he's talking World War III. One day he's claiming that the "war on terror" may force the abridgement of fundamental first amendment rights and the next he's advancing a twenty-first century version of his Contract with America. At the same time he's publicly proclaiming how "stupid" it is that the race for the presidency has already started you know that he's trying to figure out how to out finesse Rudy, McCain and Romney for the nomination. And last week, when Fox News' Chris Wallace cited a poll showing that 64 percent of the public would never vote for him, he was quick to blame those results on how unfairly he was treated by the mainstream media back in the day.
Bill Berkowitz American Enterprise Institute takes lead in agitating against IranDespite wrongheaded predictions about the war on Iraq, neocons are on the frontlines advocating military conflict with Iran After doing such a bang up job with their advice and predictions about the outcome of the war on Iraq, would it surprise you to learn that America's neoconservatives are still in business? While at this time we are not yet seeing the same intense neocon invasion of our living rooms -- via cable television's news networks -- that we saw during the run-up to the invasion of Iraq, nevertheless, a host of policy analysts at conservative think tanks -- most notably the American Enterprise Institute -- are being heeded on Iran by those who count - folks inside the Bush Administration.
Bill Berkowitz After six years, opposition gaining on George W. Bush's Faith Based InitiativeUnmentioned in the president's State of the Union speech, the program nevertheless continues to recruit religious participants and hand out taxpayer money to religious groups With several domestic policy proposals unceremoniously folded into President Bush's recent State of the Union address, two pretty significant items failed to make the cut. Despite the president's egregiously tardy response to the event itself, it was nevertheless surprising that he didn't even mention Hurricane Katrina: He didn't offer up a progress report, words of hope to the victims, or come up with a proposal for moving the sluggish rebuilding effort forward. There were no "armies of compassion" ready to be unleashed, although it should be said that many in the religious community responded to the disaster much quicker than the Bush Administration. In the State of the Union address, however, there was no "compassionate conservatism" for the victims of Hurricane Katrina.
Bill Berkowitz Frank Luntz calls Republican leadership in Washington 'One giant whining windbag'On the outs with the GOP, legendary degrader of discourse is moving to California He doesn't make great art; nothing he does elevates the human spirit; he doesn't illuminate, he bamboozles. He has become expert in subterfuge, hidden meanings, word play and manipulation. Frank Luntz has been so good at what he does that those paying close attention gave it its own name: "Luntzspeak."
Bill Berkowitz Spooked by MoveOn.org, conservative movement seeks to emulate liberal powerhouseFueled with Silicon Valley money, TheVanguard.org will have Richard Poe, former editor of David Horowitz's FrontPage magazine as its editorial and creative director As Paul Weyrich, a founding father of the modern conservative movement and still a prominent actor in it, likes to say, he learned a great deal about movement building by closely observing what liberals were up to in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
Bill Berkowitz Ward Connerly's anti-affirmative action jihadFounder and Chair of the American Civil Rights Institute scouting five to nine states for new anti-affirmative action initiatives Fresh from his most recent victory -- in Michigan this past November -- Ward Connerly, the Black California-based maven of anti-affirmative action initiatives, appears to be preparing to take his jihad on the road. According to a mid-December report in the San Francisco Chronicle, Connerly said that he was "exploring moves into nine other states."
Bill Berkowitz Tom Tancredo's missionThe Republican congressman from Colorado will try to woo GOP voters with anti-immigration rhetoric and a boatload of Christian right politics These days, probably the most recognizable name in anti-immigration politics is Colorado Republican Congressman Tom Tancredo. Over the past year, Tancredo has gone from a little known congressman to a highly visible anti-immigration spokesperson. "Tancredo has thoroughly enmeshed himself in the anti-immigration movement and with the help of CNN talk show host Lou Dobbs, he has been given a national megaphone," Devin Burghart, the program director of the Building Democracy Initiative at the Center for New Community, a Chicago-based civil rights group, told Media Transparency.
Bill Berkowitz Institute on Religion and Democracy slams 'Leftist' National Council of ChurchesNew report from conservative foundation-funded IRD charges the NCC with being a political surrogate for MoveOn.org, People for the American Way and other liberal organizations If you prefer your religious battles sprinkled with demagoguery, sanctimoniousness, and simplistic attacks, the Institute on Religion and Democracy's (IRD) latest broadside against the National Council of Churches (NCC) certainly fits the bill.
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