WWF Emerges as Leading Lobbyist on Senate Climate Bill

WWF Emerges as Leading Lobbyist on Senate Climate Bill; The New York Times

This article provides a number of interesting, yet alarming, facts for liberty oriented folks to be aware.

An environmental group that made its name battling on behalf of pandas, polar bears and pelicans now is fighting for what it fears is a politically imperiled species: U.S. climate legislation that has a global perspective.

The World Wildlife Fund spent the past year lobbying zealously for a bill that would provide assistance preserving forests, funds to spark demand for clean technologies in developing countries and money to help the most vulnerable countries adapt to climate-induced changes. It won almost none of what it wanted in the legislation (pdf) from Sens. John Kerry (D-Mass.) and Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.).

The group now is forming strategies to persuade lawmakers that those international provisions are necessary and that climate legislation needs to become law.

"We need to do a better job of explaining why it's in America's best interest" to include international provisions, said Lou Leonard, WWF's director of international climate policy. "We need to explain all of it, and hopefully each of those reasons will resonate with different groups of people, and we'll be able to build enough support to get it in."

The effort comes as part of WWF's stepped-up lobbying campaign. The organization, which operates in 100 countries, is a relatively new entrant in climate lobbying but shifted its approach more than a year ago. Climate change increasingly is seen as one of the biggest threats to biodiversity, Leonard said.

Read the entire article here.

Comment: The WWF is one of a number of special interest groups that wields tremendous power within our government because of its association with the oligarchs in the US Senate, which comes at great expense to our nation, the states and the citizenry. Without the construct of senate in its present form special interest groups like the WWF's influence would diminish tremendously if the 17th Amendment was repealed and the place of the states was restored within the original structure of the Federal Government.