Ties between scientists, investment banks, food companies and oil probed as controversy swirls around California’s Low Carbon Fuel Standard

An interesting analysis of potential conflicts of interest, and a tangled web of shared financial resources, in the California Air Resources Board debate over the Low Carbon Fuel Standard, was provided by biofuels advocate Paul Wikoff.

Wikoff determined that the W.K. Kellogg Foundation is providing funding to Environmental Defense and the Nature Conservancy, noting the ties between Environmental Defense and author Timothy Searchinger, author of “Use of U.S. Cropland Increases Greenhouse Gases Through Emissions From Land-Use Change”;  the Nature Conservancy is associated with Joseph Fargione, author of “Land Clearing and the Biofuel Carbon Debt” and Dr. Stephen Polasky of the University of Minnesota who released a finding that corn ethanol was worse in CO2 emissions than gasoline last February.

Among the funding sources for the Nature Conservancy: $5 million each from ExonMobil and BP, $3 million from Georgia-Pacific, and $1 million from Phillips Alaska. General Mills, instrumental in funding the “food vs fuel” PR campaign last summer through the Grocers Manufacturers Association, also sits on the Nature Conservancy board.

According to Wikoff, the Kellogg Foundation also provides support to the Rockefeller Family Fund, which in turn channels funds to the Environmental Working Group, which has been vocal in its support of utilizing Indirect Land Use Change analysis into public policy in these early years before the theory is backtested. The Joyce Foundation is also funding Environmental Defense, the Union of Concerned Scientists, the Nature Conservancy and the Environmental Working Group.

Wikoff pointed out that former climate change under-secretary Frank Loy is serving on the boards of the Nature Conservancy, Environmental Defense and the Pew Center for Global Climate Change, noting that Sunoco, BP, and Shell are among funders of the latter. The Pew Center and Environmental Defense are partners in the Partnership for Climate Action, which includes Goldman Sachs, which has an interest in becoming a market marker in global carbon trading. According to Wikoff, “Big money moves from one corporation and investment bank to a fund, and from one fund to another fund. The fund has those on its board that do research that benefits the corporation and investment bank.  Scientists that have existing financial relationships with those corporations or investment banks sit on governmental environmental agencies.”

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