Citizens for a Sound Economy

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Citizens for a Sound Economy (CSE) is often described as a "consumer group," but according to internal documents leaked to the Washington Post, 85 percent of its 1998 funding came from major corporations. A powerful industry-funded think tank, CSE promotes deregulation of industry.

CSE produces more than 100 policy papers each year, delivering them to every single congressional office, sending out thousands of pieces of mail, and getting coverage of its viewpoints in thousands of news articles around the nation. CSE’s representatives have appeared on hundreds of radio and television shows and published hundreds op-ed articles arguing that "environmental conservation requires a commonsense approach that limits the scope of government," acid rain is a "so-called threat [that] is largely nonexistent," and global warming is "a verdict in search of evidence."

History

CSE was launched in 1986, with David H. Koch and Charles G. Koch of Koch Industries, a notorious polluter, as its founders.

In 1993, CSE led a major press and public relations campaign to defeat the Clinton administration's 1993 proposal for an energy tax.

In 1998, CSE issued a series of broadsides against a federal plan to restore the Florida Everglades, funded with $700,000 in contributions from Florida's three biggest sugar enterprises, which stood to lose thousands of acres of cane-growing land to reclamation if the restoration plan went into effect. The sugar contributions were never disclosed publicly but were outlined in internal CSE documents obtained by the Washington Post, which also showed that CSE received more than $1 million from Philip Morris Cos. at a time when CSE was opposing cigarette taxes, as well as $1 million from phone company US West Inc. as CSE pushed deregulation that would let US West offer long-distance service.[1]

In 1999, CSEF paid for "friend of the court" briefs that sought to declare the Clean Air Act unconstitutional.

Personnel

Funding

The CSE has a related funding arm, the Citizens for a Sound Economy Foundation (CSEF). According to internal documents leaked to the Washington Post, 85 percent of CSE’s 1998 revenues of CSE's $16.2 million came not from its 250,000 members, but from contributions of $250,000 and up from large corporations.

Between 1985 and 2001, CSE received $15,993,712 in 104 separate grants from only twelve foundations:

Other CSE funders (not included in above funding total) have included:

(source: The Washington Post, 1/29/00) [2]

Affiliations

CSE has coordinated some of its activities with the Foundation for Research on Economics and the Environment and the Competitive Enterprise Institute, which are funded by many of the same sources.

External links

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