{"id":5122,"date":"2013-05-22T07:15:19","date_gmt":"2013-05-22T13:15:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/?p=5122"},"modified":"2013-05-22T07:15:19","modified_gmt":"2013-05-22T13:15:19","slug":"the-secret-donors-behind-the-center-for-american-progress-and-other-think-tanks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/?p=5122","title":{"rendered":"The Secret Donors Behind the Center for American Progress and Other Think Tanks"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ken Silverstein<\/a>: <\/p>\n

Though the think tank didn\u2019t disclose it, First Solar belonged to CAP\u2019s Business Alliance, a secret group of corporate donors, according to internal lists obtained by The Nation. Meanwhile, Jos\u00e9 Villarreal\u2014a consultant at the power-?house law and lobbying firm Akin Gump, who \u201cprovides strategic counseling on a range of legal and policy issues\u201d for ?corporations\u2014was on First Solar\u2019s board until April 2012 while also sitting on the board of CAP, where he remains a member, according to the group\u2019s latest tax filing.<\/p>\n

CAP is a strong proponent of alternative energy, so there\u2019s no reason to doubt the sincerity of its advocacy. But the fact that CAP has received financial support from First Solar while touting its virtues to Washington policy-makers points to a conflict of interest that, critics argue, ought to be disclosed to the public. CAP\u2019s promotion of the company\u2019s interests has supplemented First Solar\u2019s aggressive Washington lobbying efforts, on which it spent more than $800,000 during 2011 and 2012.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe only thing more damaging than disclosing your donors and having questions raised about the independence of your work is not disclosing them and have the information come to light and undermine your work,\u201d says Sheila Krumholz, executive director of the Center for Responsive Politics. \u201cThe best practice, whether required by the IRS or not, is to disclose contributions.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nowadays, many Washington think tanks effectively serve as unregistered lobbyists for corporate donors, and companies strategically contribute to them just as they hire a PR or lobby shop or make campaign donations. And unlike lobbyists and elected officials, think tanks are not subject to financial disclosure requirements, so they reveal their donors only if they choose to. That makes it impossible for the public and lawmakers to know if a think tank is putting out an impartial study or one that\u2019s been shaped by a donor\u2019s political agenda. \u201cIf you\u2019re a lobbyist, whatever you say is heavily discounted,\u201d says Kathleen Clark, a law professor at Washington University and an expert on political ethics. \u201cIf a think tank is saying it, it obviously sounds a lot better. Maybe think tanks aren\u2019t aware of how useful that makes them to private interests. On the other hand, maybe it\u2019s part of their revenue model.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ken Silverstein: Though the think tank didn\u2019t disclose it, First Solar belonged to CAP\u2019s Business Alliance, a secret group of corporate donors, according to internal lists obtained by The Nation. Meanwhile, Jos\u00e9 Villarreal\u2014a consultant at the power-?house law and lobbying firm Akin Gump, who \u201cprovides strategic counseling on a range of legal and policy issues\u201d […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5122"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5122"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5122\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5122"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5122"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5122"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}