Wampum

A few readers have asked for a more background on an organization I continuously harp on as central in the Abramoff scandal, the Council of Republicans for Environmental Advocacy, or CREA. I discussed CREA president Italia Federici's November 2005 testimony before the Senate Indian Affairs Committee a few months back, but since that time, have learned a great deal more, as well as having many more questions left unanswered.

CREA was originally set up in Colorado in 1998 by Gale Norton, Grover Norquist and Republcian uber-fundraiser and Washington A-lister, Julie Finley. CREA's "coming out" party was hosted by the creme de la creme of the Republican political establishment, with Trent Lott and Newt Gingrich as headliners. The event was funded by oil & gas and mining interests, as well as Karl Rove's PR firm.

When Norton moved into the Interior Department as Secretary, CREA, now headed by a fundraiser from Norton's failed 1996 Senate bid, Italia Federici, packed up and moved to a Mailboxes Etc. post office box a few blocks from the White House. In late December, 2000, before Norton was even confirmed, Tom Delay's chief of staff, Tony Rudy, suggested to his soon-to-be new employer, Jack Abramoff, that Federici could help him gain access to DoI personnel critical to the interests of his tribal and Pacific territories clients.

Abramoff wasted no time. By late January, 2001, even before Norton's senior staff were confirmed, Abramoff was in tight with Federici, and, as Rudy had suggested, she offered access all the way to the top. On March 6th, Abramoff was invited by Federici to meet Sec. Norton at a small party hosted by CREA founder and current board member, Julie Finley. (As I pointed out last week, the party was also attended by at least four members of Congress whose names have not been released by the Senate Indian Affairs Committee.) [click on image for larger picture.]

CREA's first webpage, set up in March 2001, indicated that it was a 501(c)3 non-profit organization. As such, it would not have to disclose it's donor lists, which Federici still refuses to do. However, according to IRS records, CREA was never granted tax-exempt status, nor did it file 990 forms, as required by law. In 2005, CREA changed it's web-page, still maintaing it was a non-profit, but removing its 501(c)3 claim.

CREA's website posted its mission:

...to foster environmental protection by promoting fair, community-based solutions to environmental challenges, highlighting Republican environmental accomplishments and building on our Republican tradition of conservation. CREA believes that environmental goals are reached by finding common ground between individuals, the private sector and local conservationists...results that would be impossible to achieve without cooperation.

However, how CREA carried out this mission is still unclear. Very little evidence of CREA's activities have made their way into the public record, at least as is accessible online. However, I have been able to paste together a brief narrative of one of CREA's projects, through documents released through FIOA requests by the NRDC and evidence presented at the Senate Indian Affairs Committee hearings in 2004-05.

A June 28, 2004 press release from the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) disclosed that while many of the documents listed in their FIOA requests had been withheld by the Administration, a few had recently been released. One of note:

Public opinion research (dated 5/16/01) from focus groups in several cities provided by the Council of Republicans for Environmental Advocacy (CREA) to the Interior Department. The research, which suggests how to talk about energy issues, emphasizes using rising gas prices to promote increased drilling. DOI077-0212 to 218. The research concludes, "language that . . . emphasizes price increases in gasoline and natural gas and the California situation resonates with voters." Another finding: "Gasoline price stability is the single most potent argument for opening up ANWR."

So how was it that "public opinion research" from a Republican front group, one without offices or non-profit credentials, whose ties with the Secretary had purportedly been officially severed, ended up as a document released by the Interior Department? Equally important, who funded the research, and how was it used by non-governmental organizations?

The latter question is easiest to answer through documents released by the Senate Indian Affairs Committee. On March 21, 2001, just weeks after Abramoff met Sec. Norton at the CREA reception, Federici emailed a still unknown person (in Interior?) with the message to let Steve (Griles) know that Abramoff had requested an invoice for the "focus groups". Apparently, Federici, Abramoff, Griles and others asssociated with CREA and/or Interior had discussed Abramoff's clients covering the costs of public opinion research.

On March 28, 2001, Abramoff forwarded on via email an "invoice" to Kathryn Van Hoof, attorney for the Coushatta Tribe of Louisiana, a client of Abramoff's Greenberg Traurig lobbying firm. Van Hoof forwarded the email along with this fax, to the Coushatta, requesting a check for $50,000 for 1/2 the cost of a poll for CREA, which was to be "conducted on behalf of Gayle (sic) Norton, Secretary of Interior." Two days later, on March 30, 2001, the Coushatta FedExed the check to Abramoff. Other tribal clients have testified that they too paid between $10,000 to $50,000 for the CREA survey.

Federici wasted no time getting the "survey" work done. On April 19, 2001, she emailed Abramoff that they had "great results" from the focus groups and would provide "very good material" for an "infomercial". Federici also dropped that CREA would be forwarding the results of the research onto the White House (Office of Public Liaison) and "Hill". (Note that the name of at least one recipient has been redacted from the email, along with two other complete sentences.)

On July 23th, Federici, along with Mike McKenna and William Greener, met with Norton's Chief of Staff, Brian Waidmann at the Interior Department. Waidmann's schedule does not indicate the reason for the meeting, but the inclusion of William Greener does provide a clue. Greener is founding partner of the Washington public relations firm, Greener and Hook, whose current political clients include the Republican National Committee and the National Republican Congressional Committee. One of Greener's specialties is print ads, such as the one to the left, paid for by Republican front groups, supporting the Administration's anti-environmental policies. [Note: I have not yet determined the identity of Mike McKenna, the other meeting attendee. However, it's conceivable that was the voter education director of the Alaska Teamsters, as the union was heavily involved in promoting Bush's energy plan, with its emphasis on ANWR drilling.]

In early April, 2002, CREA placed an ad supporting Bush's energy plan in the Washington Post. According to the email exchange between Federici and Abramoff on the Friday preceding the ad, Federici emphasized Abramoff's financial backing for the campaign: "I'm letting EVERYONE know that you are the only reason we have funding to do this." Along with the ad campaign, CREA distributed a video clip of John Kerry at a 2000 Earth Day event. Federici bragged of her connections to Right-leaning media organizations such as Fox,"We have transferred the video to beta for Hannity and Colmes, O'Reilly, etc... and we have help distributing from interested friends whom I'm sure you can guess."

Thus CREA, a purely partisan group funded by natural resource industries and corrupt lobbying money, produced propeganda with the knowledge, and even assistance, of Bush Administration officials, whch was then distributed to the de facto media arm of the GOP.

The influence of CREA went far beyond this small example. That's fodder for the next installment in this series.