Idaho Conservation League (ICL)

Background

Mary Lou Reed, along with her husband, environmental lawyer Scott Reed, co-founded the Idaho Conservation League (ICL) in 1973 and later assisted with the Local Land Use Planning Act of 1975, laying the groundwork for statewide zoning and land-use plans. A six-term Idaho Democratic state senator, Mary Lou Reed became known for her left-leaning activism, including co-founding the Kootenai Environmental Alliance, a left-leaning environmental advocacy group; serving on the board of the Human Rights Education Institute, a left-leaning organization focused on teaching diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) throughout the Pacific Northwest; and writing monthly columns for the Inlander. ^{2 3 4}

Mary Lou and Scott Reed’s son, Bruce Reed, held senior roles with the administrations of both President Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, and later became then-President Joe Biden’s deputy chief of staff. ⁵

Activities

In April 2025, the Idaho Conservation League (ICL) criticized U.S. Senators Jim Risch (R-ID) and Mike Crapo (R-ID) for voting against an amendment during a U.S. Senate budget reconciliation process that would have prohibited the sale or transfer of public lands. ⁶ The ICL argued that the Senators’ votes supported the sale of public lands to provide tax breaks for billionaires and corporations. This portion of the bill was later blocked when the U.S. Senate parliamentarian ruled it violated budget reconciliation rules. ⁷

In February 2025, the ICL, along with the Center for Biological Diversity, American Rivers, Idaho Rivers United, Save the South Fork Salmon, and Earthworks, sued the U.S. Forest Service after its approval of the Stibnite Gold Project, an open pit mine planned for the headwaters of the Salmon River. ⁸ The lawsuit argued the agency ignored risks to water quality, fish habitats, and public health, claiming the environmental review failed to meet federal standards under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and Clean Water Act. As of October 2025, the case was ongoing. ⁹

In 2018, Shannon Poe, a small-scale miner and the founder and president of the American Mining Rights Association, a mining nonprofit for miners who mine on state and federal lands, was sued by ICL for suction dredge mining in the South Fork Clearwater River. Poe argued that he followed Idaho’s permitting rules and that suction dredging only stirs up riverbed material without adding pollutants, making a federal Clean Water Act permit unnecessary. A federal district court disagreed, finding him liable and fining him $150,000, while also barring him from mining without a federal permit. Critics contend the ruling stretches the law’s definition of “discharge,” since floods and storms release far more sediment naturally, and warn that the precedent could apply to farming and other ordinary land-use activities. Poe, represented by the Pacific Legal Foundation, appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court after losing in the Ninth Circuit. The court declined to hear his case, leaving in place the lower court’s ruling. ¹⁰

Financials

In 2022, the Idaho Conservation League reported $4,455,535 in total revenue, approximately 14 percent of which was from government grants. ¹¹ In the ICL’s 2022 annual report, ¹² there was no mention of the $611,605 in government grants that were reported in the organization’s tax documents to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). In the organization’s 2024 annual report, it stated that the ICL does not receive any federal or state funding. ¹³ As of October 2025, the 2024 tax documents were not available to verify whether the organization did in fact receive any government grants. ¹³

In 2022, the ICL spent $110,764 in lobbying expenditures as well as “grassroots” lobbying efforts. ¹⁴

In 2023, Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund awarded $222,560 to the ICL and the Laural Foundation awarded $125,000. In 2022, Lake Pend Oreille Waterkeeper awarded ICL $170,840. ¹⁵

The ICL granted a total of $40,000 in 2022 to Advocates for the West, the Payette Land Trust, and the Idaho Dark Sky Alliance. ¹⁶