National Center for Public Policy Research

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Group.png National Center for Public Policy Research   WebsiteRdf-entity.pngRdf-icon.png
Formation1982
HeadquartersWashington, USA
Type think tank
Sponsored byScaife Foundations

The National Center for Public Policy Research (NCPPR) is a Washington DC based, right-wing free-market think-tank.

Like many of the right wing think tanks it works closely many others and the Wise Use groups. According to CLEAR: NCPPR “is considered to be the DC-based think tank most closely associated with the grassroots environmental backlash movement … In effect, the NCPPR appears to act as a bridge between the DC-based think tank element of the backlash movement, including such groups as the Cato Institute, the Competitive Enterprise Institute and Citizens for a Sound Economy, and the activist element, including Chuck Cushman's League of Property Rights Voters and American Land Rights Association, and Myron Ebell's Frontiers of Freedom Institute. NCPPR convenes regular ‘strategy lunches’ that feature a who's who of conservative activists and members of Congress.[2]”

Funding

According to the NCPPR “In 2002 The National Center had income of $6,674,575 and expenses of $6,899,509 …Our audited figures show that most — 81.5% in 2002, 93% in 2001, 93% in 2000, 88% in 1999 and 80% in 1998 — of The National Center's funding comes from small gifts from individuals”[3]

From 1985 to 2002 the NCPPR received some $1,689,100 from 36 grants from just 7 foundations[4]:

Philip Morris has also funded the Center. In 1998 Amy Ridenour wrote to Philip Morris: “Last year Philip Morris was kind enough to support the National Center for Public Policy Research’s website operations with a grant of $25,000. We are writing today to thank you for that support and request that Philip Morris make a grant to the National Center in the amount of $25,000 to permit us to continue our website and Internet operations through 1998”[5]. Other Center projects have been funded by RJ Reynolds[6]. It has also received some $80,500 from Exxon since 1998[7].

Links to Republicans

Co- sponsor of the Conservative Political Action Conference, in January / Feb 2003 in Virginia where David Almasi, the ED from the Center spoke.[8]

In September 2000, the National Center For Public Policy Research and the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow (CFACT) presented their first “Friend of American Freedom Award” to Idaho Congressman Helen Chenoweth-Hage[9], a long-term Wise Use and anti-environmental activist, whose anti-green and anti-government speeches are distributed by the Militia of Montana[10].

Staff

  • Amy Moritz Ridenour – President – ex-Deputy Director of the College Republican National Committee; as Regional Co-ordinator for the Reagan/Bush 1980 campaign; as Chairman of the Maryland Federation of College Republicans and on Maryland Republican State Central Committee. She is a member of the Board of Directors of Black America’s PAC[11], whose mission is to elect black republican candidates.[12]
According to internal tobacco industry documents Ridenour is described in a 1995 memo by the Philip Morris tobacco company as “a willing ally”. A Philip Morris states that she had just called his office ‘offering to use any information we can provide [regarding] the current anti-tobacco onslaught . . .. Tom Borelli and I have both been in touch with Amy on various issues and are awaiting proposals for use of an internet website as an accessible repository of PM-related information’”[13]. Philip Morris later provided funding for the website.
  • Bonner Cohen - who used to edit EPA Watch, which “was part of a campaign by the tobacco industry to destroy the EPA's credibility, after an EPA study concluded in 1992 that second-hand cigarette smoke causes lung cancer”[14]. A Philip Morris document says that EPA Watch was an “asset” established to assist Philip Morris achieve a broader impact than just on the issue of second-hand smoke[15]. Another Philip Morris document argues the need to “develop a plan for EPA Watch / Bonner Cohen as expert on EPA matters, i.e. regular syndicated radio features on EPA activities.”[16]
Cohen also set up the No More Scare website with Cato Institute “junkman” Steven Milloy. He is also a co-editor of "The Fear Profiteers" along with “The Junkman” Steve Milloy, John Carlisle (now Capital Research Center and ex-National Center for Public Policy Research; Michael Gough, Michael Fumento from the Hudson Institute and Henry Miller from the Hoover Institute and Elizabeth Whelan from ACSH[17]

Issues

The NCPPR is also a member of the Cooler Heads Coalition and works with the CEI on climate issues. The NCPPR also runs the following “information” centers:

They perpetuate the same old “myths “ and “facts” about environmental issues:

“There is no serious evidence that man-made global warming is taking place”. The footnotes for the section on climate change include references to the same self-perpetuating number of climate sceptics: James K. Glassman (AEI ) and Sallie Baliunas (George C. Marshall); Richard Lindzen (known climate sceptic from MIT; and the Heritage Foundation[19]. The site also has a testimony by Dr. Fred Singer from The Science & Environmental Policy Project, affiliated to Frontiers of Freedom which states “Contrary to the conventional wisdom and the predictions of computer models, the Earth's climate has not warmed appreciably in the past two decades”[20]

The Earth Day site attacks the environmental movement and uses references from the usual suspects: Ron Arnold from the Center for the Defence of Free Enterprise; www.consumerfreedom.com, the front organisation of tobacco and food lobbyist Rick Berman and international contrarian Björn Lomborg. One of the facts put out is: “There are many indications that carbon dioxide does not play a significant role in global warming”. One of the many myths is that “Drilling for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) is dangerous to the environment and would only provide the United States with six months of oil.[21]”

“Envirotruth.org”

The NCCPR also sponsors the website “Envirotruth.org” which was created by Amy Ridenour on 6 December 2002. It has sections on Biotech food, Chlorine, Climate Change, PVC and Perchlorate. It urges people to contact President Putin to “Say no to Kyoto”[22].

The site also has a “Eco-terrorist” section which includes articles such as “Is Greenpeace a tool of state-sponsored eco-terrorism”? [23] The site is an extension of NCPPR’s strategy to use the rhetoric of anti-terrorism to attack environmentalists[24]. To that end it links to ActivistCash.com, a front website run by food and tobacco lobbyist Rick Berman[25].

 

EventDescription
Scaife FoundationsGrant-making foundation overseen by the late right-wing billionaire Richard Mellon Scaife.
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References

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