News Coverage
NYT: Answering for Taking a Driller’s Cash
Published February 14, 2012
The recent disclosure of the Sierra Club’s secret acceptance of $26 million in donations from people associated with a natural gas company has revived an uncomfortable debate among environmental groups about corporate donations and transparency.
The gifts from the company, Chesapeake Energy, have drawn criticism from some environmentalists. “Sleeping with the enemy” was a comment much forwarded on Twitter posts about the undisclosed arrangement.
Ken Cook, the president of the Environmental Working Group, a research and advocacy organization, said in an interview that while he admired Mr. Pope, “one of the most important environmental leaders of my generation,” it seemed that “everyone was so focused on ending coal that judgments about things got muddied” at the Sierra Club.
He said he found the secrecy of the Chesapeake donations particularly troubling. Mr. Cook noted that the Environmental Working Group, which, among other things, reports on how toxic substances from industry and agriculture can affect people and the environment, accepted funds from trial lawyers for research on asbestos litigation, which has been a drain on the insurance industry.
“We disclosed,” he said. “We took a hit from people for doing it — it made our research less newsworthy. But it would have been unthinkable to us not to.”
Read the entire article here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/14/science/earth/after-disclosure-of-sier...