Group: 'Extreme environmentalists' are harming the poor and minorities

By Patty Henetz
The Salt Lake Tribune

Article Last Updated: 03/08/2008 01:51:12 AM MST

The Congress of Racial Equality is rolling out a new environmental justice campaign that focuses on "extreme environmentalists" such as wilderness advocates, charging them with harming poor people and minority groups.
Niger Innis, CORE's national spokesman, attended a news conference this week at the Utah Capitol to announce the consumers' campaign, which he is taking across the nation.
Innis, son of civil rights leader Roy Innis, said environmental organizations intimidate governments and have a trickle-down effect on minorities.

We're a few paragraphs into this article now, and there's been no mention of that fact that this nothing but an industry-funded front group or that's it's been denounced as "shakedown" gang and fraud by the real founder of CORE.

"You can't have economic development in my community when my community is worrying about paying their gas bill," Innis said.
Innis has a growing reputation as a conservative who questions environmentalists' "pseudoscience" and condemns what he calls the global green movement's oppression of poor people in the Third World.
Earlier in the week, Innis spoke to members of the Colorado Legislature during a news conference held to oppose efforts to restrict energy development there. Colorado news organizations reported the media event was organized with the help of Colorado-based Americans for American Energy.

Americans for American Energy is an oil and gas industry front group that pretends to be "grassroots." It's led by Greg Schnacke, the former head of the Colorado Oil and Gas Association. In Colorado its disinformation campaign has been denounced by West Slope mayors and others.

AAE associate Jim Sims accompanied Innis at the news conference in Utah, held on the last day of the legislative session. There, Innis was surrounded by state lawmakers who congratulated the CORE effort.
"I remember his father, Roy Innis, who marched with Martin Luther King [Jr.]," said Rep. Mike Noel, R-Kanab.
AAE in January circulated a missive linking wilderness supporters with terrorists.
CORE will sue the Bush administration if the polar bear is designated an endangered species, Innis said later.
Innis said CORE receives donations from a wide variety of sources, including energy companies. "Quite frankly, we should be getting more, given our position," he said.

Innis has a point. Given the groups shameless shilling for oil and chemical companies, and its ability to get press, it probably deserves higher pay from the corporations it serves.

Tougher drilling regulations will hurt poor, group says

March 6, 2008

By Joe Hanel | Herald Denver Bureau

DENVER - Gas industry proponents have enlisted a civil-rights group in their fight over Colorado's proposed oil and gas rules, claiming the rules will hurt the poor and minorities.

"We feel that the economic environment that's created by regulations in fact creates a de facto regressive tax on poor consumers," said Niger Innis, spokes-man for the New York-based Congress on Racial Equality. CORE was founded in 1942 and played a part in the struggle against racism and Jim Crow laws in the South. Since then, it has embraced conservative causes.

Innis visited Denver on Tuesday to join Sen. Bill Cadman, R-Colorado Springs, and Rep. Wes McKinley, D-Walsh, in announcing a resolution questioning the cost of proposed rules by the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission.

Innis' group has received steady funding from ExxonMobil, according to Exxon's annual Worldwide Giving Reports. Greenpeace has archived the reports, which show the country's largest oil company has given CORE $275,000 since 1998.

Great reporting! It's refreshing to read a reporter who digs a little to find out what's really going on.

Innis said the true sum is "a fraction" of that amount.

"ExxonMobil has not given us a quarter of a million dollars. That is absolutely not the case," he said. Innis said he'd open his books "when you guys in the press demand that Greenpeace open up their books."

You can read Exxon's giving reports for 2003, 2004, 2005 and 2006.

Innis also announced the formation of a new local group called Colorado Consumers for Affordable Energy.

"When the energy industry gets a cold from extreme regulation or taxes, my people get the flu," he said.

More pay for RTD board?

Despite FasTracks complaints, bill quadrupling salaries progresses

By Tim Hoover
The Denver Post

Article Last Updated: 03/01/2008 11:05:56 PM MST

Some lawmakers complained about cost overruns, and others fumed about the taking of land for private development, but a bill giving raises to Regional Transportation District board members still won initial House approval Friday.

Senate Bill 46 would increase the salaries for RTD's 15 board members from $3,000 a year to $12,000 a year. But the pay hikes would apply only to those elected in November 2008 and afterward.

Supporters of the pay raises, like Rep. Buffie McFadyen, D-Pueblo West, noted that the salaries of board members hadn't been increased in 26 years.

But some lawmakers said they were peeved about project cost overruns and the agency's use of eminent domain. RTD is considering building commercial space above one planned parking garage, and the agency used the eminent domain process to acquire land for the site, angering some residents whose homes were in the way.

"I am very concerned that by approving these raises, we are rewarding bad behavior," said Rep. Gwyn Green, D-Golden.

Rep. Jack Pommer, D-Boulder, said increasing the salaries for board members might attract better candidates to the elected positions.

Well, to be completely accurate, I said if someone is concerned about the quality of the board, it's worth considering that higher pay could attract better candidates.

It's odd how a quote that's not even much out of context can seem so different in print.

During the floor debate reps were saying that higher pay would just lead to more of what they consider to be bad behavior. I just wanted to mention that being on boards, like the RTD, takes a lot of time and effort and low pay could be a factor when people decide whether to run or not. By any measure, 26 years is a long time to go without a raise. And The RTD is a lot bigger and more complicated that it was a quarter-century ago.

Even though the quote is accurate, by itself, it could suggest that I think the board isn't good. Actually, I think it's a pretty good board. I finished the comment by asking my colleagues to look at what low pay had done to the quality of the legislature. (It was a joke).

The House gave preliminary approval to the measure on a voice vote, and it must approve it once more before it can go to Gov. Bill Ritter.