an interview with Dan Barry
The Clearinghouse on Environmental Advocacy and Research (CLEAR) is a project of the Environmental Working Group. CLEAR tracks the funders and organizers of the industry-supported backlash against the environmental movement, which seeks to roll back or weaken laws that protect wildlife, habitat and public lands, as well as health and safety standards for our water, food and air.
PR Watch associate editor Sheldon Rampton interviewed CLEAR's director, Dan Barry, shortly before Barry's departure from CLEAR to head up Americans for the Environment.
Can you tell me a little bit about CLEAR's history and background?
CLEAR started five years ago and was founded to serve as the national clearinghouse for information on the "wise use" movement. At that time, we were aware of just over 250 groups that were active "wise use" organizations.
Our beginnings really trace back to the research that went into a publication of the Wilderness Society called The Wise Use Movement: Strategic Analysis and 50 State Review. A great deal of research went into this book. At the conclusion of the research and publication of the report, it was decided that the files created in the process should be maintained and built upon and be turned into a service organization to help inform environmentalists, members of the media and the general public of the structure, tactics and roots of the environmental backlash. CLEAR was the result of that decision.
Today, that report is well out of date, but CLEAR continues our work by publishing A CLEAR View 24 times a year, and by maintaining the vast databases we have put into our web site. The focus of our work has changed, as well. We now have some information on more than 2,500 organizations that are in some way affiliated with the anti-environmental lobby, ten times the number that we were aware of in the beginning. This is due to the realization that "wise use," as I mentioned earlier, is but one narrow element of the broad backlash against progressive environmentalism and progressive politics generally.
I visited your website and found it a great resource. It's certainly the best place I know of to get information about the Wise Use movement. How did you compile all that information, and how do you keep it up to date?
The CLEAR on-line databases represent over two years of effort, and are certainly the most complete resource of its kind available. The information was gathered from a variety of sources, including press clippings, conference materials, the web, and original materials produced by groups associated with the environmental backlash.
CLEAR has two full-time researchers on staff, as well as a half time writer/editor who, in addition to producing the newsletter, A CLEAR View, conducts a great deal of original research. In this type of work, it pays to become an informational packrat. One never knows when small bits of seemingly innocuous information may turn out to be a missing piece to a puzzle.
Our in-house databases, from which the material on the web is derived, are designed as relational databases, meaning they all contain related information that is filed in different databases that are linked together with relational codes. We have databases that contain over 2,600 backlash groups, 6,000 staff and board members of those groups, 5,000 funders of those groups, and 2,500 press stories on the backlash.
How much does it cost to compile this information and make it available in searchable form on the internet? What is your advice to other groups who want to do something similar?
It's not cheap. Our budget is modest, less than $150,000 per year, considering the amount of data and other material we have made publicly available. Besides the costs associated with maintaining a complicated set of computers, the main cost for keeping this information available and current is personnel related. It takes hours and hours to ferret the information out of sources that are quite scattered.
The short answer regarding any advice I would have for others is "Don't try this at home." Seriously, though, I would recommend that anyone working in the public interest either construct and manage their own opposition research files, or take advantage of other resources that do.
Knowing thine enemy is indispensible, and one really doesn't need a complicated computer system to begin to monitor and track one's main adversaries. It's amazing the information that is contained in a year's worth of newspaper clippings. Just read sources closely, and become an informational packrat.
How do you see the Wise Use movement fitting into the overall corporate agenda?
Ron Arnold, the "founder" of the movement, said it best in an article in 1980 that he published in a logging industry magazine. This was eight years before he held the original founding conference of the "wise use" movement. In his article, he described the need for a citizen-based movement to battle environmentalism, stating that it takes an activist movement to fight an activist movement. He described his vision of the "wise use" element of the environmental backlash as the "human face" of the movement that would add to the "expensive legal talent" represented by the conservative legal foundations, trade associations and other corporate-based elements of the anti-environmental movement.
"The corporate-funded free-market
think tanks, trade associations
and legal foundations
are where the real work
is being done now."
It's important to remember that "wise use," such as it is, is only one element of a broad anti-regulatory, pro-business backlash against environmental protections and regulations. At the heart of the motivation of this backlash is a hatred of regulations that restrict business.
"Wise use," in its heyday, played an important role as a media hit against the big bad environmental movement. Playing the "jobs versus owls" angle to the hilt, it generated a lot of media attention over a short period of time. Since then the bloom has come off the rose, and "wise use" has all but disappeared from the headlines. It remains to be seen what usefulness it will have to the corporate agenda.
It is certainly true that "wise use" has a very narrow political base that is not growing. It appears from our observations that the corporate-funded free-market think tanks, trade associations and legal foundations are where the real work is being done now, developing message and policy content that trickles down to the "wise use" groups that still have some relevance.
Do you know of other websites that carry similar information in a searchable form that we might recommend to our readers?
Other than CLEAR's web site, there are a couple of other places where raw data and polished information for opposition research are available. The Data Center (http://www.igc.apc.org/datacenter/) has great files on the broader right wing political movement, which are available to researchers. The Council on Economic Priorities in New York (http://www.cepnyc.org) keeps track of corporations.
Perhaps the best sources of information on groups like the Hudson Institute and others are their own web sites. These sites are showing up in increasing numbers on the web, and are starting to include more and more information. Of course, anyone with on-line Nexis access has the most impressive research tool in the world available at their fingertips, but that is a luxury for most people.
What else would you advise people who want to research the hidden backers of PR front groups?
Other than keeping up with the work you are doing at PR Watch, the best thing to do is read the PR trade journals like O'Dwyers PR Services Report, and any media stories on the subject. It's tough, as you know. PR professionals are trained to obfuscate. They do not like to be in the media, especially when the stories are expository in nature. Good PR pros are paid to create a positive media spin. It seems that exposing their campaigns takes about equal measures of dogged research and blind good luck.
What drew you personally to this kind of work? What keeps you in it?
The work that we do here at CLEAR is unique. I was drawn to this because I recognized the unique nature of the work, and that the need for a solid base of information on the anti-environmental movement was vitally necessary. I started here in 1993, in the height of the media reporting on the backlash. At that time, the environmental movement was in disarray, and in some cases denial, over how to come to grips with and respond to the "wise use" movement. I saw directing CLEAR as a great opportunity to provide needed strategic information to help environmentalists at all levels understand the nature of the backlash.
Politically and intellectually, I find the backlash fascinating. I think that's what keeps me interested--discovering new organizations, coalitions and campaigns in the backlash, and exposing them for the benefit of progressive environmental advocacy. The most rewarding aspect of this work has been to see the broadening of the understanding of the backlash, and to see how environmentalists have used the information provided by CLEAR to do a better job as advocates.
Like the PR industry, the anti-environmental lobby, in all its forms--from "wise use" to corporate-backed trade associations and think tanks--is not going to go away soon. We need to remain vigilant, and do what it takes to keep our allies informed and prepared.
To access CLEAR's database of information about the environmental backlash, visit their website at <http://www.ewg.org/pub/home/clear/clear.html>.
