The New Jersey Public Interest Research Group (NJPIRG) Citizen Lobby is the New Jersey state-level organization of the National Association of Organizations in the Public Interest (NAOPI). ¹ NJPIRG Citizen  Lobby sends much of its annual revenue to Fund for the Public Interest, which supports paid activists who perform fundraising and outreach activities on behalf of more local and organic-seeming organizations. ²³

NJPIRG Citizen  Lobby is a separate entity from NJPIRG Student Chapters, the college-campus presence of U.S. PIRG in New Jersey.

Background

In the 1970s, Ralph Nader was engaging in a nationwide campaign to form well-funded left-leaning environmentalist organizations on college campuses around the country through Public Interest Research Group (PIRG), his national nonprofit organization. With the support of the Rutgers University administrators and efforts of student organizer Edward Rosenthal, PIRG succeeded in establishing a presence at Rutgers University which would eventually become NJPIRG. ⁴

NJPIRG Citizen Lobby was formed in the 1980s as the professional lobbying arm of NJPIRG after a federal appellate court ruled against the methods PIRG previously employed to automatically collect PIRG dues from college students in the form of supplemental fees. The appellate court forced PIRG to provide students with a clear opt-out option for the fees. ⁴

Funding

NJPIRG Citizen  Lobby reported $435,000 of revenue from membership dues in FY 2019, along with $53,479 in investment income. The organization holds $642,092 worth of investments in publicly traded securities and $4,036,195 in other securities held by Paradigm Partners, a Colorado-based holding company co-founded and co-owned by NJPIRG. ²

NJPIRG’s highest contractor payment for FY 2019 was $308,856 to Fund for the Public Interest, a left-wing advocacy organization that serves as the fundraising arm for state-level PIRG groups. ²

The organization reported spending $247,590 on “public education and outreach services” in FY 2018 and $150,260 for “researching and influencing public policy.” In FY 2019, the expenditures for these activities were $151,963 and $6,858, respectively. The activities included “recruiting volunteers, distributing educational literature, conducting surveys, and discussing issues with the public.” ^{2 2}

Activities

NJPIRG Citizen Lobby engages in public outreach and advocacy for a variety of left-leaning causes, including climate change initiatives, carbon reduction measures, increased financial regulations, agricultural industry restrictions, and election administration proposals favored by the Democratic Party. ⁵

Climate Change

NJPIRG Citizen Lobby advocates for the forced replacement of internal combustion engine vehicles with electric vehicles, including all public transit, school buses, and government automobile fleets. ⁶ NJPIRG urges government bans on the sale of internal combustion engine vehicles to ensure all vehicles sold after 2035 are electric, with government assistance for electric vehicle purchases and charging infrastructure. The organization also advocates for a reduction of vehicle usage, echoing a national-level PIRG call for doubling the amount of people traveling by foot or bicycle by 2030. ⁷

NJPIRG Citizen Lobby advocates for replacing conventional energy sources with government-subsidized weather-dependent energy sources. ⁸ The organization is also a proponent of eliminating the use of gas stoves, comparing child exposure to gas stoves to second-hand cigarette smoke exposure. ⁹

Agricultural Regulation

NJPIRG Citizen Lobby advocates against what it claims is the “overuse” of antibiotics in food products. The organization also lobbies against the use of certain types of pesticides and herbicides. ^{10 11}

Financial Regulation

NJPIRG Citizen Lobby conducts several campaigns to increase government regulations on businesses and financial institutions under the pretext of “consumer protection” and environmentalism. The organization campaigns to prevent insurance companies from insuring oil and gas projects, to stop banks from financing fossil fuel projects, and to ban the use of plastic packaging. ^{12 13}

Election Law

NJPIRG Citizen Lobby campaigns for the expansion of mail-in voting and several campaign finance restrictions, including Democratic-backed proposals for the federal government to match small dollar donations to political candidates. The organization also supports automatic voter registration, a federal takeover of state redistricting procedures, and overturning the Citizens United ruling that allows corporations and nonprofits to run political ads. ^{14 15}

The Democracy for the People project, with nearly identical webpages on the U.S. PIRG and NJPIRG websites, supports the removal of “big money” from politics. A May 2016 report from OpenSecrets, a center-left political money and nonprofit accountability database run by the Center for Responsive Politics, described Environment America as a “major dark money donor” that outsourced its advocacy to Fund for the Public Interest (a major funder of NJPIRG and part of the Public Interest Network). ^{16 17 18}

1. Return of Organization Exempt from Income Tax (Form 990). NJPIRG Citizen Lobby. 2020. Schedule R.
2. Return of Organization Exempt from Income Tax (Form 990). NJPIRG Citizen Lobby. 2020.
3. Tucker, Will. “Lucky Sole Vendors for Some Nonprofits Do Very Well, Thank You.” OpenSecrets News, May 23, 2016. Accessed January 11, 2023. https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2016/05/lucky-sole-vendors-for-some-nonprofits-do-very-well-thank-you/.
4.  E., Clemens Paul G. “Student Protest.” Rutgers since 1945: A History of the State University of New Jersey, 181–186. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2015.
5.  “Our Work – NJPIRG.” NJPIRG, 2022. Accessed January 10, 2023. https://pirg.org/newjersey/our-work/.
6. “Transportation.” NJPIRG, July 21, 2022. Accessed January 10, 2023. https://pirg.org/newjersey/our-work/transportation/.
7. “Transform Transportation.” NJPIRG, August 16, 2022. Accessed January 10, 2023. https://pirg.org/newjersey/resources/transform-transportation/.
8. “Clean Energy.” NJPIRG, October 21, 2022. Accessed January 10, 2023. https://pirg.org/newjersey/topics/clean-energy/.
9.  Frank, Lisa Executive. “How the Inflation Reduction Act Can Help You Move on from Your Gas Stove.” NJPIRG, September 11, 2022. Accessed January 11, 2023. https://pirg.org/newjersey/articles/how-the-inflation-reduction-act-can-help-you-move-on-from-your-gas-stove/.
10. “Pesticides.” NJPIRG, July 29, 2022. Accessed January 11, 2023. https://pirg.org/newjersey/topics/pesticides/.
11. “Food & Farming.” NJPIRG, October 23, 2022. Accessed January 11, 2023. https://pirg.org/newjersey/topics/food-farming/.
12. “Financial Protection.” NJPIRG, October 27, 2022. Accessed January 11, 2023. https://pirg.org/newjersey/campaigns/financial-protection/.
13. “Beyond Plastic.” NJPIRG, October 23, 2022. Accessed January 11, 2023. https://pirg.org/newjersey/topics/beyond-plastic/.
14. “Voting & Elections.” NJPIRG, July 22, 2022. https://pirg.org/newjersey/topics/voting-elections/.
15. “Statement: House Passes Timely, Important Democracy Reform Legislation.” NJPIRG, August 6, 2022. Accessed January 11, 2023. https://pirg.org/newjersey/media-center/statement-house-passes-timely-important-democracy-reform-legislation/.
16. Tucker, Will. “Lucky Sole Vendors for Some Nonprofits Do Very Well, Thank You.” OpenSecrets News, May 23, 2016. https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2016/05/lucky-sole-vendors-for-some-nonprofits-do-very-well-thank-you/.
17. “Big Money Out.” NJPIRG. Accessed January13, 2022. https://njpirg.org/feature/njp/big-money-out/.
18. “Big Money Out.” PIRG. Accessed January 13, 2023. https://pirg.org/campaigns/big-money-out/.