Environmental Working Group Connections

Environmental Working Group
1718 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 600, Washington, DC 20009
Phone 202-667-6982 | Fax 202-232-2592 | Email info@ewg.org

Center for Food Safety
The Center for Food Safety and its parent organization (the International Center for Technology Assessment) have been on and off the client list at Washington’s Fenton Communications. The Environmental Working Group is a Fenton Client; David Fenton, who runs the firm, sits on EWG’s board.

Center for Media & Democracy
At the height of the U.S. mad-cow scare, the Center for Media and Democracy’s John Stauber shared a press-conference dais with EWG’s Ken Cook, warning journalists that a “crisis” threatened America’s meat supply. Environmental Media Services, the spin-heavy media arm of Fenton Communications, organized the event.

Center for Science in the Public Interest
In a July 2001 report issued by Environmental Defense (entitled “Food for Thought”), a coalition of anti-consumer activist groups argued that the federal government should abandon crop subsidies, diverting billions of dollars instead into “conservation” programs. The short list of groups co-authoring (and heavily promoting) this report included both the Environmental Working Group and the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI). Media spin and interview placement of “experts” was handled by Environmental Media Services. The Environmental Working Group is also a member of CSPI’s Foodspeak coalition, which seeks to avoid liability for any false accusations they might make against food companies and eliminate (or evade) food disparagement laws.

Environmental Media Services
Environmental Media Services, a whole-cloth creation of leftist PR guru David Fenton, often provides the media spin for the Environmental Working Group, a Fenton client. So it’s no surprise that EWG president Kenneth Cook was given a seat on the EMS board in February 2002 (EMS creator David Fenton already sits on the EWG board). Environmental Media Services has held over a half-dozen news conferences on EWG’s behalf over the years. One notable example had EWG’s Ken Cook and mad-cow scaremonger John Stabuer (of the Center for Media and Democracy) sharing a podium as meat-safety “experts” in 1998, shortly after the Oprah Winfrey mad-cow-libel suit was dismissed. In 1995 EMS engineered an endorsement by Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-MA) of a ridiculous EWG report that claimed commercial baby food caused “grave cancer risks.”

Greenpeace
The Environmental Working Group and Greenpeace have teamed up on several regional campaigns. These included a 1994 effort to force the EPA to write especially tough regulations just for Monsanto’s agrichemicals, and a 1998 crusade to ban motorized watercraft on California lakes. The groups again collaborated in 2004 on a public letter urging consumers to boycott the Ford Motor Company.

Humane Society of the United States
The Environmental Working Group and the Humane Society of the United States were both members of the Center for Science in the Public Interest’s Foodspeak coalition, whose members attempted to abolish food disparagement laws in the hopes of avoiding lawsuits for false claims against food companies.

Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement
Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement feeds at many of the same troughs as EWG. Both groups receive funding from the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation (which derives nearly $2.4 billion in assets from its namesake’s investment in General Motors), the McKnight Foundation (which derives its own billions from William McKnight’s earnings as a leader of 3M), and the Rockefeller Family Fund.

Natural Resources Defense Council
The Natural Resources Defense Council and Environmental Working Group are both clients of leftist PR firm Fenton Communications, based in Washington, DC. David Fenton, who runs this firm, also sits on EWG’s board.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency includes a remarkable number of anti-consumer activists on various advisory committees. When invitations to join the current EPA Pesticide Program Dialogue Committee were issued in August 2001, the Environmental Working Group’s Sean Gray made the list, as did Erik Olson of NRDC, John Vickery of the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, and Troy Seidle of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.

NRDC and EWG have been tag-teaming both EPA panels and the public for several years. In one celebrated episode, both groups’ representatives pulled out of Vice President Gore’s “Tolerance Reassessment Advisory Committee” in 1999, claiming that even Al “Earth in the Balance” Gore wasn’t banning pesticides fast enough for their liking. The two organizations co-released a (later debunked) report in 1996 claiming that 45 million Americans were drinking “contaminated” water. Not surprisingly, EWG pointed the finger of blame at “pesticide runoff.”

Ruckus Society
The Environmental Working Group employs a special program director just to organize activists and coordinate their activities in the state of California. His name is Bill Walker. When Walker isn’t busy whipping the anti-pesticide troops into a frenzy, he teaches the Ruckus Society’s hard-core radicals the finer points of media spin. Walker has appeared as a “media trainer” during at least three past Ruckus Society “action camps.” Both Ruckus and EWG were also involved in a 2004 advertising campaign urging consumers not to buy Ford automobiles.

Sea Shepherd Conservation Society
The Environmental Working Group and the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society co-signed an open letter in 2004 that urged American consumers to boycott Ford automobiles.

Sierra Club
Sierra Club president and As You Sow executive director Larry Fahn collaborated with the Environmental Working Group (EWG) to pressure and sue manufacturers of portable classrooms under California's Proposition 65 law. The mobile classroom walls contained benzene -- a chemical commonly found in most plastics. The Club's magazine Sierra has also promoted EWG scare campaigns, including the baseless 1995 "pesticide contamination of baby food" hoax.

Tides Foundation & Tides Center
The Environmental Working Group (EWG) is one of many organizations that was “incubated” while under the blanket protection of the Tides Foundation & Tides Center. For many years, all of EWG’s incoming donations flowed through Tides’ coffers, including at least three years before EWG was even incorporated (it was originally a “project” of the Center for Resource Economics, now known as Island Press). It’s no coincidence that Island Press’ founding director is now a Tides board member.