Conservation Law Foundation

CLF is funded by left-of-center grantmaking foundations and businesses including Facebook, Google, Environment America Research and Policy Center, and the Natural Resources Defense Council. ⁵

Background

Conservation Law Center was founded in 1966 by New Hampshire attorney Ben Nason to oppose the development of Mount Greylock in Western Massachusetts into a ski resort. ⁶ Since its founding, the organization has expanded to work in all six New England states and operates advisory boards in each. ⁷

The organization has initiated lawsuits on issues ranging from water, pollution, petroleum, fishing, natural gas, and others. The organization has frequently targeted energy companies such as ExxonMobil, Shell, and Gulf, and it promotes weather-dependent wind and solar energy use. ⁸

Activities

Conservation Law Foundation supports legislative and legal efforts to end the use of traditional fuel and energy sources such as petroleum and coal-powered electricity. The organization also opposed the use of traditional gas-powered vehicles in favor of electric vehicles. It claims credit for legislation in every New England state mandating cuts to each state’s carbon emissions with a goal of eliminating fossil fuel usage by 2050. It also promotes mandates to adopt electric vehicles, calling for “incentives and requirements for utility companies to support a growing market in charging infrastructure and low-cost charging options.” The fund also supports shutting down the remaining coal-fired electricity plants in New England and seeks to block technologies that the organization opposes such as waste-to-energy facilities and biomass plants. ⁹

The fund also opposes the expansion of natural gas, stating that while gas is clean burning and stated that “helped to serve as a bridge as we worked to bring more renewable energy online” and that “it’s time to put an end date on gas or risk our climate future.” ¹⁰

Conservation Law Foundation lobbied the Obama administration to declare large areas of the ocean off the coast of New England a national monument to prevent industrial usage of the ocean which resulted in the establishment of the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument. The organization has continued this work and lobbied the Biden administration to “protect at least 30% of the ocean nationwide, including through new protected areas here in New England.” ¹¹

The organization has also been involved in promoting policies that would ban the use of traditional lobster fishing gear in Maine amid allegations that such gear could entangle whales. ¹²

Policy Positions

Black Lives Matter affiliation

The Conservation Law Foundation has endorsed the Black Lives Matter movement and released a statement in 2022 stating that “CLF stands with those affected by the deep-seated racism in our society” and that “Black and brown communities are the most likely to be living on the frontlines of climate impacts and are disproportionately affected by pollution.” The organization also encouraged supporters to donate to Black Lives Matter-aligned organizations in their states such as the ACLU, Color of Change, and the Movement for Black Lives. ¹³

Opposition to Oil and Gas

CLF has criticized the United Nations’ annual climate conference (COP27) in 2022 for the lack of progress on “on phasing out fossil fuels globally.” ¹⁴

Opposition to Plastics

Conservation Law Foundation supports a highly “ambitious” United Nations Treaty on Global Plastic Pollution that would ban the production of the most-used plastics globally and has criticized the United States’ delegation to the ongoing treaty negotiations for supporting voluntary national action plans as opposed to a legally binding ban. ¹⁵

Opposition to Nuclear Energy

CLF has opposed the routine operation of nuclear power plants.

In June 2022 CLF opposed the discharge of hot water from the Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station into Cape Cod Bay. In a news release, CLF claimed the discharge was “toxic waste” that “would threaten marine life, public health, and the local economy.” In the second to last sentence of the release, a spokesperson for CLF revealed the group had no factual foundation for these claims: “The effects on the health of the bay, marine life, and the public are largely unknown but could be disastrous.” ⁴

The CLF website features a page boasting of the group’s 12-year campaign to close the Vermont Yankee nuclear power station, which closed in 2014. ¹⁶

Nuclear power plants produce no carbon dioxide or other greenhouse gas emissions, and from 1990 until 2021 accounted for 20 percent of American electricity production—the largest source of zero carbon electricity in the United States. ¹⁷ An October 2018 proposal from The Nature Conservancy noted that zero-carbon nuclear plants produced 7.8 percent of total world energy output and recommended reducing carbon emissions by increasing nuclear capacity to 33 percent of total world energy output. ¹⁸

A 2021 U.S. Department of Energy tutorial on nuclear power production reported that nuclear energy “produces minimal waste” and that all of the spent nuclear fuel “produced by the U.S. nuclear energy industry over the last 60 years could fit on a football field at a depth of less than 10 yards!” The tutorial also noted that nuclear waste “can also be reprocessed and recycled, although the United States does not currently do this” and that “some advanced reactors designs being developed could operate on used fuel.”¹⁹A 2020 analysis from Our World in Data reported that nuclear energy “results in 99.9% fewer deaths than brown coal; 99.8% fewer than coal; 99.7% fewer than oil; and 97.6% fewer than gas,” making it “just as safe” as wind and solar power production. ²⁰ The U.S. Department of Energy has concluded that “nuclear energy produces more electricity on less land than any other clean-air source” and that it would require “more than 3 million solar panels to produce the same amount of power as a typical commercial reactor or more than 430 wind turbines.” ²¹

People

Bradley “Brad” Campbell is president of the Conservation Law Foundation. Campbell previously was an appointee in the Clinton administration where he was the Regional Administrator at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Mid-Atlantic Region. He later served as the Commissioner of the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection from 2002 to 2006. He also worked as the associate director of the White House Council on Environmental Quality in the Clinton White House and was a trial attorney at the U.S. Department of Justice from 1990 to 1995. He previously was on the board of directors for the New Jersey Conservation Foundation and Common Ground Community, Inc. ^{22 3}

Campbell is named partner of a law firm, Bradley M. Campbell LLC, and also owns a renewable energy company, Swan Creek Energy LLC, which develops solar energy projects. He attended Amherst College and the University of Chicago Law School. ²² Campbell earns over $280,000 in annual salary in his role as president of the fund according to tax documents. ²³

Funding

Conservation Law Foundation receives funding from a variety of left-of-center foundations as well as companies. Funders of the organization include Amazon Smile Foundation, Amgen Foundation, Ayco Charitable Foundation, Bank of America Charitable Gift Fund, Ben and Jerry’s Foundation, Boston Scientific, Bright Funds, Charities Aid Foundation of America, Charles Schwab and Co., Combined Jewish Philanthropies of Greater Boston, Dell Technologies, EarthShare of New England, Environment America Research & Policy Center, Facebook, Fidelity Charitable Gift Fund, Fiduciary Trust Charitable, Google, Harvard Law School, Hewlett Packard Enterprise Foundation, ImpactAssets, J.P. Morgan Charitable Giving Fund, Legal Sea Foods, Liberty Mutual, The Limerick Charitable Trust, Natural Resources Defense Council, Network for Good, Raymond James Charitable Endowment Fund, RiverSource Life Insurance Company, Schwab Charitable Fund, and the U.S. Charitable Gift Trust. ⁵