Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow
The Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow (CFACT) is a Washington, D.C.-based non-profit organization whose stated mission is to promote free market solutions to environmental problems. According to its website, CFACT provides "a positive alternative to major environmental groups like Greenpeace, the Sierra Club, and Friends of the Earth" [1].
CFACT produces online articles and radio segments on environmental and consumer subjects. In addition, CFACT coordinates the work of affiliate chapters on college campuses across the United States.
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Funding
A large proportion of CFACTs funding comes from corporations in the energy and automobile industries, as well as conservative foundations. Its financial backers include:
- The Exxon Mobil Corporation, which has given $257,000 to the organization since 1998 [2]. In 2003, Exxon gave $25,000 specifically to support research on "Climate Change Issues" [3].
- The Chevron Corporation: $60,500 between 1994 and 1998 [4].
- The DaimlerChrysler Corporation Fund: $25,000 in 1997 [5].
- The U.S. Council on Energy Awareness, which is funded by nuclear power and uranium companies [6].
- The conservative Carthage Foundation ($200,000 in 2002) and Sarah Scaife Foundation ($75,000 in 2001), which are both controlled by Richard Mellon Scaife. The Sarah Scaife Foundation is financed by the Mellon industrial, oil and banking fortune [7].
Personnel
- David Rothbard, President. Rothbard received his Bachelor of Arts degree from Fairfield University [8]. He was a contributor to an American Petroleum Institute memo, made public by the New York Times in 1998, that outlined a strategy to invest millions of dollars to "maximize the impact of scientific views consistent with ours with Congress, the media and other key audiences." The memo stated: "Victory will be achieved when...recognition of uncertainty [about global warming] becomes part of the 'conventional wisdom'" [9].
- Craig Rucker, Executive Director. Rucker graduated from the State University of New York at Albany [10]. He coordinates the work of CFACT's college affiliates, the Collegians for a Constructive Tomorrow [11].
Activities on College Campuses
CFACT college chapters are frequently involved in efforts to criticize or to defund existing student environmental organizations [12]. For instance, the Public Interest Research Groups (PIRGs), which are left-leaning environmental and consumer organizations, raise much of their money from student activity fees. CFACT college chapters work to eliminate this funding or to give conservative organizations an equal share [13].
The activities of campus CFACT chapters appear to have close ties to the goals of CFACTs industry funders:
- In Texas, student CFACT members put on a pro-Exxon Mobil protest [14].
- At the University of Wisconsin-Madison, CFACT members ran a campaign to protect SUVs from the perceived threat of eco-terrorists [15].
- CFACT's Executive Director, Craig Rucker, organized students in an anti-Kyoto Protocol protest in Germany [16].
- In North Carolina, CFACT students criticized a student-run initiative to fund renewable energy projects [17].
Articles
Past articles appearing on CFACT's national and collegiate websites have included:
- "Some surprisingly clean facts about SUV's," which alleges that Sports Utility Vehicles are cleaner and safer than most people believe [18].
- "Fishy Mercury Warning," which states that there is no evidence the FDA's mercury rules will protect Americans [19].
- "Mad Cow is a Bovine Disease," which argues that "the notion that people can contract a human form of the disease by eating beef from infected cows is more bun than burger" [20].
- "Preaching the gospel of power conservation," warns that energy-efficient compact fluorescent light bulbs are "big and cumbersome" and that they create "a harsh white glare" [21].
- "Drilling past the hypocrisy on Alaskan oil," which supports drilling for oil in the Alaskan National Wildlife Refuge [22].
See also
External links
- Collegians for a Constructive Tomorrow, the website of CFACT's collegiate affiliates.
- Committee for A Constructive Tomorrow
- Exxonsecrets.org maps the network of Exxon-funded organizations.
- "Some like it hot," a Mother Jones article, begins: "Forty public policy groups have this in common: They seek to undermine the scientific consensus that humans are causing the earth to overheat. And they all get money from ExxonMobil."
- Sourcewatch.org, article on the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow.
- A student at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, presents a critical perspective of the activities of the CFACT chapter on that campus.