Industry-funded zealots are angling to prevent nonprofits from protecting veterans, children, workers and the environment. With the absurd argument that nonprofits are getting rich by making the government follow its own laws, they want to ensure that only the truly rich are able to take the government to court.
Even those who should know better are drinking the Kool-Aid, including outdoor writer Ted Williams, whose essay in the June 23 Tucson Weekly accused the Center for Biological Diversity of “shaking down taxpayers.” Cribbing from the Internet like a Fox News intern, Williams serves up industry propaganda with a side of his own trademark use of “anonymous” sources and dubious quotations.
Laws to make working conditions safe, ensure our water is clean and protect the rights of veterans and children only work when they are enforced. Often, they are not because of industry pressure. Witness the complete dominance of the U.S. Minerals Management Service by the oil industry.
American democracy guards against corruption by allowing citizens to sue the government. Now, taking on the government isn’t cheap. You have to go up against the entire Department of Justice. That’s easy for the oil industry, Walmart and developers who have money to burn. It’s not so easy for the rest of us.
To level the playing field, the federal government pays the legal fees of individuals, small businesses and nonprofit groups—if they win. If they lose, they pay their own way.
In its campaign to revoke this essential equalizer, industry has launched a public-relations war hinged on the big lie that nonprofits—especially environmental groups—are getting rich by ensuring that environmental laws are followed.
The current darling of the propaganda machine is Williams, who accuses the Center for Biological Diversity of filing petitions to protect hundreds of endangered species and then suing the government when it inevitably fails to rule on the petitions within 90 days. In Williams’ tightly scripted anti-environmental message, it’s a racket producing “a major source of revenue” for the center.
Nonsense. Between 2008 and 2011, the center received legal-fee reimbursements for an average of one case per year while challenging the government’s failure to process endangered-species protection petitions within 90 days. The average yearly total was $3,867—much less than the center spent bringing the cases. Not exactly a get-rich-quick scheme.
Rush to court? Every one of these suits was filed after the government missed its 90-day protection deadline by months, and in some cases by more than a year. I would submit that spending $3,867 of the federal government’s money to save the Mexican gray wolf, walrus and right whale from extinction is a bargain and a half.
Williams dives completely into the propaganda sewer when he quotes an “anonymous” government official complaining about a center petition to protect 404 rare Southeastern plants and animals. The “anonymous” source is allegedly outraged that the center will file a slam-dunk nuisance lawsuit because the government can’t possibly study all 404 species in 90 days.
In fact, the center didn’t sue, even after the government missed its deadline by 420 days. Instead, we developed a plan with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to ensure all these rare species get reviewed for protection in a reasonable amount of time.
Without providing any supporting data, Williams goes on to charge that the center is raking in the cash by suing “for missed deadlines when the agency can’t keep up with the broadside of Freedom of Information Act requests.”
Hmm. In the past four years, the center received legal reimbursements for exactly one Freedom of Information Act deadline suit, and the amount we received ($3,031) was far less than we spent forcing the Department of the Interior to come clean with the public over its offshore oil leasing program in the wake of the Gulf of Mexico disaster.
The Center for Biological Diversity will keep expending vastly more resources ensuring the government follows its own wildlife protection laws than we’ll ever recoup. That’s fine with us, because making sure bald eagles, wolves, and even Tucson shovel-nose snakes and Arizona tree frogs have a place to live and grow is more important than money.
It’s why we do what we do.
This article appears in Jul 21-27, 2011.
Outstanding response to the lies! I will always support the Center for Bioligical Diversity, because it is an organization that accomplishes a great deal and helps preserve wild places and species. Everyone should contribute any amount of money possible to the Center: http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/support…. Everyone should become an activist in every possible way: http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/action/…. Thanks Kiéran Suckling. You are doing a wonderful job.
California congressman Tom McClintock (R-4th) is one of the biggest perpetrators of this bogus propaganda. He continually lies about “taxpayer-funded extremist environmental groups.” He delivered a similar false statement about the Grand Canyon Trust at a recent hearing at the Grand Canyon regarding uranium mining. Give his office a call at 202-225-2511 and let them know you aren’t buying his load of BS.
Former Fish and Wildlife Director Jamie Clark is “an anonymous source”? Former National Fish and Wildlife Foundation director Amos Eno is an “anonymous source”? Former Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt is “an anonymous source?” I wish Mr. Suckling would read my article before he complains so bitterly about it. Neither the Center for Biological Diversity nor the Interior Department releases records of what is paid out in attorney’s fees, so Suckling cannot blame the public for raising questions about what Jamie Clark calls the ESA litigation “industry.” But far more hurtful than any money the public loses is the loss in time and effort of federal biologists who have to cease working for wildlife in order to spend days and weeks consulting with Justice about the meritless petitions filed by the Center. The dwarf seahorse is a good example. There is absolutely no data to indicate that it should be listed, yet it occurs in the Gulf and provided the center with some publicity during the oil spill. Just because right-wing, anti-environmentalists complain about the center doesn’t they’re wrong. Even a broken clock is right twice a day. Re. Suckling’s claim that the center doesn’t collect much money for Freedom of Information suits, consider this on-record comment from John Hunt, the Fish and Wildlife Services Freedom of Information Act offcer at at Region 9 (headquarters): “Once we’ve provided a response or haven’t The Center for Biological Diversity can appeal for inappropriate applications of exemptions, not meeting the statutory time frame (20-30 days, 30 days of extenuating circumstances like multiple locations), no-records-found response, a variety of scenarios. CBD is one of our more frequent requesters…. They appeal first, then litigate. If they have not received a response on appeal from the department; and the department FOIA field office is frequently backed up, they can jump directly into litigation.”
Ted Williams’ hit piece on the Center for Biological Diversity was remarkable for its lack of supporting data. It was nothing more than a string of quotes affirming Williams’ dislike of the Center. But quotes–especially anonymous quotes–prove nothing. And as the Center showed by presenting precise data on the number of lawsuits it filed and legal reimbursements it received over the past four years, Williams was dead wrong.
So what does Williams’ do to defend himself against the data? He serves up a few more incendiary quotes while running from anything that remotely resembles facts. It is garbage journalism. The more Williams defends it, the higher the garbage pile grows.
In response to my complaint that Williams used an anonymous source who we proved to be completely wrong, Williams changes the subject by listing named sources in other parts of his hit piece. That changes nothing. The fact stands that Williams, with shocking unprofessionalism, cited an anonymous source who lied when charging that the Center would file a lawsuit in 90 days when the USFWS failed to issue a decision on its petition to protect 404 imperiled southeastern aquatic species.
I complained that Williams (of course, with no data) asserted we file a “broadside” of Freedom of Information Act timeline litigation to make money, when in fact we received legal reimbursements for just one case in the past four years, and that that totaled just $3,031. Williams now defends his lie—yes it was a lie, a flat out lie—by quoting a FOIA officer saying that the Center is able to file timeline litigation. Totally irrelevant. The fact stands that receiving legal reimbursements on one FOIA timeline suit in four years is not a “broadside” under any possible interpretation.
Realizing that defending his vacuous hit piece is a losing proposition, Williams changes the subject again, claiming that the Center’s petition to list the dwarf pygmy seahorse as an endangered species is frivolous. It is worth looking at his “argument” in some detail here, because it demonstrates how Williams picks and chooses information to purposefully mislead his readers.
Though the Center filed a 68 page scientific petition in 2011 explaining why the seahorse qualifies for Endangered Species Act protection, Williams declares it “frivolous” without rebutting or even referencing a single sentence in the petition. That is because Williams couldn’t care less what is in the petition or how many scientific studies indicate the species is declining. His only agenda is to find a single quote that appears to say the species doesn’t warrant protection.
That is the logic of Williams’ hit-piece journalistic style: find a quote that affirms your pre-determined hatred and ignore everything else. After all, the point is not to promote understanding, it is to spew bile onto the page with the slimmest pretense to supporting information.
So Williams cites the IUCN saying it lacks sufficient data to classify the species as stable or imperiled, then smugly declares his point proven. What Williams’ hides from the reader, however, is that the IUCN made this determination 2003, while the Center filed its petition in 2011. Williams also fails to reveal that the IUCN simultaneously declared that “this species may be particularly susceptible to decline”, that it may be threatened in the United States, and that it is listed as threatened by the American Fisheries Society.
William’s did not accidently exclude this information. He hid it. Like his previous essay, his response is an agenda-drive rant which dishonestly ignores all contrary information.
The Center’s scientists worked for months gathering the best available information on the plight of the pygmy seahorse. They cited numerous studies indicating its decline in various parts of the Gulf of Mexico in response to seagrass habitat destruction. They fairly discussed competing scientific opinions.
There is nothing frivolous in the work to save imperiled species. I wish I could say the same for Williams’ vicious, error-laden, dishonest editorials.
Of the four sources I quoted only one asked for anonymity because, as he said, the CBD would “go after him.” He’s a high-ranking official in the Obama administration whom I’ve known for years. He doesn’t “lie,” and I have never known him to be in error regarding wildlife issues. Nor did I quote him as saying, as Suckling wrong claims, “that the Center would file a lawsuit in 90 days when the USFWS failed to issue a decision on its petition to protect 404 imperiled southeastern aquatic species.” Again, Mr. Suckling and I could have a more productive and interesting exchange if he would read my piece. I do not “hate” the Center. I have known and worked with many fine, young, idealistic people there who are ill-served by their leadership. And I recognize that, even with that leadership, the Center has done many good things for wildlife. As for the money the Center takes from the public and wildlife no one can say how much because the agencies refuse to report what the figures are. But the real cost both in money and wildlife of the Center’s endless and often meritless petitions and lawsuits is time. I’m talking about the weeks and months professional biologists hired by the public must spend reviewing species the scientifically untrained attorneys of the center imagine should be listed. And the weeks and months the same professional biologists must spend conferring with the Justice Department about CBD lawsuits. This is precious management time and precious, limited payroll funds that species facing the gravest threats of extinction can’t spare. And this is what the Obama administration means when it says, as I quoted: “CBD has divested [Interior] of any control over Endangered Species Act priorities and caused a huge drain on resources.”
I give thanks for the CBD. Seems like the government often won’t act until forced to by a court. Might be a waste of resources, but it might not have to be if the gov’t had the resources and did its job right to begin with.
This week the National Marine Fisheries Service issued a positive 90-day finding on the Center’s petition to list the dwarf seahorse as an endangered species. So much for Mr. Williams’ assertions that there “absolutely no data to indicate that it should be listed.”