Senators Question Nature Conservancy's Practices (may restrict nonprofits)

[DeepModem Mom]

Washington Post:
Senators Question Conservancy's Practices
End to 'Insider' and 'Side' Deals by Nonprofit Organizations Is Urged
By Joe Stephens and David B. Ottaway
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, June 8, 2005; A03


The Senate Finance Committee issued a report yesterday raising questions about a range of financial practices at the Arlington-based Nature Conservancy and recommending regulatory changes that would affect many of the nation's nonprofit organizations.

The report, the result of a two-year investigation into the world's largest environmental organization, questions whether the charity's actions at times may have been "inconsistent" with the policy underlying federal tax laws. The committee raises concerns about the size of tax breaks claimed by the Conservancy's supporters, about the group's shortcomings in monitoring development restrictions on some land under its supervision, and about private "side deals" with Conservancy "insiders."

The report refrains from making factual and legal conclusions, stressing a desire to avoid influencing an audit of the Conservancy begun by the Internal Revenue Service in December 2003. But the report spotlights the Conservancy's financial dealings and highlights the organization's failure to fully disclose transactions with Conservancy officials and corporations whose officers sat on the charity's board.

Changes sought by the committee include creation of an accreditation system for conservation groups, limits on tax deductions associated with conservation easements and increased public disclosure for charities....


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/06/07/AR2005060701640_pf.html

[MadHound]

1. Geez, it's not enough that corporations have the power of the purse,

And are rich enough to buy dozens of Congressmen and force their pet legislation through. It isn't enough that they have a president and EPA that are openly working against the enviroment. Nooo, they've got to limit what relatively miniscule monies the envirmental movement brings in, the better to pave, drill, and pollute America. Damnit, the corporations are pissed, a bird was recently discovered to still be around, after they thought it had been dead for decades. And now the bird's habitat is bought up by the Conservancy, and out of bounds for exploitation purposes by those fine folks at WalMart and Tyson Foods.

These people who hate nature so much better be damn well hoping that their vengeful, bigotted, Neo-Con god that they worship is the actual reality. For if it isn't, their afterlife is going to be hell, in one form or another.

[dArKeR]

2. This is the group Nature Conservancy which hired the D.C.

lobbyists to help have the charges "disappear".

[InvisibleTouch]

3. Nature Conservancy is effective.

That makes them a target for any old excuse for persecution by the right-wing wackos. There are a lot of environmental groups that are worthy of our support, but the Nature Conservancy has always been at the top of my list - because they get results.

[dArKeR]

5. Where's the WP story of them hiring D.C. lobbyists to "smooth" this out?

I remember it now. I don't see archives in the WP post.

[dArKeR]

4. corporations that have paid millions in environmental fines

Other articles described how the Conservancy's board and leadership council today include executives and directors from corporations that have paid millions in environmental fines. The series also showed how the 52-year-old charity's alliances with Fortune 500 companies had helped it amass assets totaling more than $3 billion.

http://www.cdfe.org/tnc_scandal.htm

[depakid]

6. Christopher Cox at the SEC- and the IRS is going after

the Nature Conservency-

America truly has become the theater of the absurd.

9 months & counting 'til I get my degree and can begin applying for positions abroad....

[DURHAM D]

7. The Nature Conservancy is first and foremost a tax dodge

for nasty corporations - Kerr-McGee comes to mind. The one thing they do well is dress up their public image and make people think they really care about nature, etc. Everyone I know who works or has worked for them is a repuglican.

[cap]

8. I've heard the same as well...

but what bothers me is "accreditation for conservation groups"... ie you can set the standards to rule out people who are anti-business.

[dArKeR]

9. I think your post needs serious investigation. If NC took the hit honestly

from whatever they did; having directors buy land... la la la... okay. But it's obvious there should be a serious "liberal" ,(thus meaning, honest and moral), investigation of NC. The big clue to me is that when they were exposed they immediately hired D.C. Beltway top gun GOP type lobbiest/lawyers to thwart/minimize the investigation and penalties.

I can't believe a DUer didn't save the WP arcticle that detailed what the NC was doing and the firms/contacts/lobbiest they hired. I don't make this stuff up. I'm 100% I read it and 99% sure it was the WP. I've probably got it on my PC somewhere in the Tera byte.