EDF: Environmental Defense Fund

George HW Bush's favorite environmental group

George H. W. Bush (the first) called EDF his favorite environmental group. They were one of the seven big green groups to endorse the NAFTA treaty (nearly all environmental groups were opposed to it). They have been on the wrong side of countless environmental issues and have sought to undermine many environmental issues - McDonald's waste campaign, ozone layer protection, incinerator ash, tollroads (their transportation expert praises them), the American Dream mega-shopping maul in Silver Spring, Maryland (they praised it because a few patrons might use a nearby subway station - it took neighborhood groups less than a year to stop the project).

EDF created (or co-created?) the concept of pollution trading credits in the 1990 Clean Air Act, which have now been extended to the equally ridiculous carbon credits scams. (Perhaps cities with high crime rates could offer mugging or robbery credits to towns that have less crime.) Pollution credits are environmental injustice since they result in relocation of pollution from wealthier communities to poorer places.


www.mapcruzin.com/review_losing_ground.htm
a review of “Losing Ground” by Mark Dowie

Thus, confronted by powerful corporate opposition, the environmental movement has split in two. The older national environmental organizations, in their Washington offices, have taken the soft path of negotiation, compromising with the corporations about how much pollution is acceptable ... The people living in the polluted communities have taken the hard path of confrontation ... The national organizations deal with the environmental disease by negotiating about the kind of 'Band-Aid' to apply to it; the community groups deal with the disease by trying to prevent it.
-- Barry Commoner, Making Peace With the Planet


www.politico.com/playbook/
May 1, 2008

DEAL OF THE DAY - Fortune.com: "Private equity goes green" — The N.Y Times' Felicity Barringer: "Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Company, the giant buyout firm, is planning to announce on Thursday a new partnership with the Environmental Defense Fund, an advocacy group, to help it improve the environmental performance of the dozens of businesses it owns. … [KKR's] decision to embrace environmental issues could have far-reaching implications for business operations and might put pressure on its top rivals to follow suit. ….

"[The partnership] is aimed at creating measurement tools of environmental performance across several areas, from energy efficiency and greenhouse-gas emissions to water consumption and containment of toxic substances across all of its businesses. … [KKR has] sought to become more transparent and take a more active role in public policy issues and Washington. Last week, Kohlberg Kravis hired Ken Mehlman, the former chairman of the Republican National Committee, as its head of global public affairs, a new position."