Science and Law Based Grassroots Public Interest Accountability Activism Is Dead
Corporate Neoliberal Policy & Partnerships, Co-Optation, And Identity Politics Prevail
The empty handed painter from your streets
Is drawing crazy patterns on your sheets
The sky too is fallin’ in over you
And it’s all over now, baby blue. ~~~ It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue (Bob Dylan, 1965)
I want to expand upon key points I very briefly touched upon in yesterday’s tribute to Ed Lloyd:
That was when NJPIRG, the Ralph Nader outfit, still had balls and ran hard hitting corporate and government accountability campaigns, like the one that produced the NJ Clean Water Enforcement Act, the strongest clean water law in the country.
That criticism is made explicit in today’s NJ Spotlight’s story – and explicit, right there in the headline:
Aspects of this “end of an era” argument also are implicit in the under-reported fact that Ed Lloyd received a Bachelor’s degree in chemistry from Princeton – he epitomized the integration of science and law and the role of expertise.
Although I rarely agree with veteran reporter Tom Johnson and NJ Spotlight, yes that era is over. And Tom Johnson and his Spotlight editors know that very well, but lack the stones to tell readers why.
So let’s drill down of the reasons why that era is over: It’s all over now, baby blue.
1. Grassroots and unified Statewide campaigns
Environmental groups used to unite, prioritize, and focus on joint statewide campaigns, all oars rowing in the same direction.
Local activists groups were integrated into Statewide campaigns, using local controversies to generate media and political support for Statewide reforms.
None of that happens today, as environmental and conservation groups are fragmented, disorganized, focused on narrow single issues, work at cross purposes, and undermine aggressive local activists.
Some groups, like NJ Future and Sustainable NJ, are astro-turf operations masking corporate control. Others have little if any real grassroots or membership activism backing them up.
2. Aggressive and hard hitting tactics
One of my favorite NJ PIRG campaigns was Curtis Fisher’s attack on Gov. Whitman’s energy deregulation legislative initiative (late 1990’s).
He toured the state with a flatbed truck that had a giant 20 foot high screw, with banners “You’re being screwed”.
Today, so called activists are totally lame – and think a joint press conference with the Gov. is how to communicate a message to the public.
3. Campaigns target government and corporate accountability
Instead of unconditionally praising Governors and DEP Commissioners and forming partnerships with and taking corporate money, environmental groups used to focus on accountability, harshly criticize, and extract concessions from the Gov. and DEP.
Not any more.
4. Activism is science based
Ralph Nader crafted the model (see his book “Unsafe At Any Speed”).
It’s totally broken.
5. Activists seek enforcement of laws (via permits and regulations and lawsuits)
Back in the day, environmental groups used to staff campaigns that used DEP permits and regulations as platforms to promote accountability.
This involved real work: monitoring the DEP Bulletin and the NJ Register. Analyzing and commenting on draft permits, enforcement documents, Annual Reports and DEP Program plans, and proposed regulations. Filing rulemaking petitions. Strategically using the required public hearings to generate local activism and media coverage.
Very little of that is done anymore and what little is done is done very poorly.
6. Activists seek to expand laws – they set a high bar
Environmental groups used to conduct policy research that led to campaigns seeking aggressive new laws with stringent and enforceable standards, with mandatory deadlines and adequate funding to implement them.
That’s gone, as activist now are oblivious to policy innovation and settle for very little in the legislative arena.
7. There was no cooptation: No dirty deals or “partnerships” or “stakeholder” inside games
DEP has been able to co-opt environmental groups via grant funding and/or invitations to Stakeholder meetings. Foundations have promoted a similar non-adversarial and cooperative model of engagement.
That began under Whitman and it has gone steeply downhill since.
I’ll accept some responsibility for this in drafting the Corporate Business Tax DEP dedication and the Watershed Management Act, which provided hundreds of millions of dollars in funding for DEP to issue grants to various groups.
In hindsight, this was a very bad idea. I was totally naive and never even suspected how corrupt both DEP and environmental, watershed, and conservation groups could the.
8. Activists respect and apply expertise
I can recall science based Reports and advocacy (e.g. Dr. Peter Montague) – that’s gone too.
Today, identity politics has largely displaced the substance of environmental activism. Feelings and opinions, often fact free, regardless of their content, have displaced expertise.
9. A very limited strategic role for Foundation money
Foundations used to fund campaigns and programs that were crafted independently by environmental groups – they didn’t use financial leverage to shape and select campaigns, political targets, message, strategy and tactics like they now do
10. No corporate partnerships
Environmental groups used to understand that corporate interests were adverse to environmental interests and that there was an inherently adversarial relationship between corporations and environmental groups.
Today, there is not only a lot of corporate money in environmental groups, they openly brag about it and form corporate partnership.
Today, environmental groups openly support “market based tools”, and privatization, and deregulation, and forms of voluntary compliance and self certification and individual behavior, and consumer models. It’s Neoliberalism 24/7.
Now go and plant milkweed in your private backyard garden and buy recycled products! Drive an EV!
11. The Public Interest Is Dead
NJ PIRG had “public” in its organizational name.
Today, the public interest is invisible.
Environmental and conservation groups openly promote their own selfish narrow organizational interests with either no regard for or even at odds with the public interest.
Look no further than the Keep It Green Coalition for an example of this.
The lack of an effective Statewide Climate Coalition is another example of this kind of failure.
Senator Smith’s Forestry Task Force is another good example of incoherent co-optation.
12. A Vibrant Press Corps
In the 1980’s, when I began at DEP, every major NJ newspaper had a least one environmental reporter and there were several environmental stories printed every day.
There also was a well staffed State House press corps that wrote environmental stories on legislation and regulation and budgets and the environmental policies of the Governor.
That’s all long gone. So is the democratic accountability that the media coverage provided.
So, yes, Ed Lloyd’s death does symbolize the end of an era.