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Gulf oil spill: NY Times quotes 'conservation' group with ties to oil industry
With crude oil pouring into the Gulf of Mexico every day, the conventional wisdom about last month's explosion and spill has been that this is an environmental disaster of unpredictable scale. The New York Times, in a story published today on Page One [2], challenged this conventional wisdom by citing several experts. One of those was from a nonprofit group called the Gulf of Mexico Foundation . . .
. . . The Times doesn't offer any more information about the foundation. So we decided to poke around. The Gulf of Mexico Foundation [4]'s website says it was "founded in 1990 by citizens concerned with the health and productivity of the Gulf of Mexico." Its site shows it has sponsored conservation and educational programs and partnered with the likes of the Environmental Protection Agency and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The site also says the group represents a "wide range of interests," including "agriculture, business, fisheries, industry, tourism, and the environment."
But as it turns out, industry appears to be the most represented of those interests.
At least half of the 19 members of the group's board of directors have direct ties to the offshore drilling industry.