Pew what is that smell?

Many anglers have become aware recently of the involvement of Pew Charitable Trusts in fisheries management. Below is a synopsis is just what the organization is courtesy of www.discoverthenetworks.org.


PEW CHARITABLE TRUSTS
2005 Market Street
Suite 1700
Philadelphia, PA
19103

Phone :215-575-9050
Email :info@pewtrusts.com
URL :http://www.pewtrusts.com

• Assets: $197,741,615 (2005)
• Grants Received: $232,032,960 (2005)
• Grants Awarded: $198,477,867 (2005)

The Pew Charitable Trusts (PCT) are comprised of seven individual funds established between 1948 and 1979 by the four children of Joseph N. Pew, founder of the Sun Oil Company, and his wife Mary A. Pew.

Mr. Pew and his immediate heirs were politically conservative, as were most of the causes that PCT supported in its early years. In recent decades, however, leftwing staffers have taken control of the organization, radically transforming its ideology and funding philosophy. Particularly responsible for this change was the late neurosurgeon Thomas W. Langfitt, who served as PCT's President and Chief Executive Officer from 1987 through 1994.

Rebecca Rimel, who joined the Trusts in 1983 as Health Program Manager, ascended to the positions of President and CEO in 1994 when Langfitt, her mentor, retired. She became the Executive Director in 1998.

PCT currently identifies its three major objectives as: (a) "to support the arts, heritage, health and well-being of our diverse citizenry and civic life, with particular emphasis on Philadelphia"; (b) "to inform the public on key issues and trends, as a highly credible source of independent, non-partisan research and polling information"; and (c) "to inform and advance the debate on issues that matter to the long-term health and well-being of the American people, [and] when the case is compelling, we advocate for change."

In March 2004 the Pew Global Attitudes Project, a series of worldwide public opinion surveys on a broad array of subjects, polled people in the United States and eight foreign nations regarding their views about the Iraq War and concluded: "A year after the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq sent anti-Americanism soaring, the United States finds itself still unpopular, feared, and mistrusted around the world. ... Resentment of America and its policies -- even of Americans themselves -- has intensified, not lessened, in the last year." The researchers added that in Jordan, Morocco, and Pakistan, "the public supports suicide bombings against Americans in Iraq, and Osama bin Laden is still far more popular than President Bush in those three countries." The Pew Global Attitudes Project is chaired by Madeleine Albright, who served as U.S. Secretary of State in the Clinton administration.

PCT supports a host of organizations that are passionately anti-corporate and anti-capitalist, while it simultaneously holds many millions of dollars worth of investments in major corporations. For instance, while PCT invests in Exxon-Mobil, it grants money to Greenpeace, the Ruckus Society, the U.S. Public Interest Research Group, Public Citizen, Global Exchange, the EarthJustice Legal Defense Fund, Friends of the Earth, the Sierra Club, the World Resources Institute, the World Wildlife Fund, the Wilderness Society, the Environmental Defense Fund, Trust for Public Land, the Environmental Working Group, the Rainforest Alliance, the Izaak Walton League of America, the Rainforest Action Network, the Natural Resources Defense Council, the Nature Conservancy, and a host of other environmentalist groups that view Exxon-Mobil as an ecological menace.

PCT is the largest funding source for the Tides Center, having given the latter nearly $109 million between 1990 and 2002. Other PCT grantees include: Physicians for Social Responsibility; the Institute for Policy Studies, the Council on Foundations; the Brennan Center for Justice; Planned Parenthood; the Conservation Law Foundation; National Public Radio; the Union of Concerned Scientists; the National Environmental Trust; the Consumers Union; the Urban Institute; the National Trust for Historic Preservation; the Brookings Institution; the Center for Biological Diversity; the Center for Science in Public Participation; the Aspen Institute; the Liberty Resources; the Criminal Justice Reform Education Fund; the Alliance to Save Energy; the AIDS Law Project; the Homeless Advocacy Project; Lighthawk; Global Trade Watch; the Green Party; the Center for Rural Affairs; the Juvenile Law Center; Population Action International; Action AIDS; the National Right to Work Legal Defense and Education Foundation; the Center for Responsive Politics; the Center for Public Integrity; the Worldwatch Institute; the Western Environmental Law Center; Zero Population Growth; Environmental Media Services; SeaWeb; the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse; the Center for Science in the Public Interest; and the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy.

In addition to earmarking enormous sums of money to fund the projects and activities of the aforementioned organizations, PCT also proposes its own policy solutions in a number of areas:

Global Warming: Reasoning from the premise that pollution from human industrial activity is causing drastic climatological changes, PCT declares: “The United States is the world’s largest emitter of global warming pollution, accounting for roughly 25 percent of global emissions to date. No strategy to address global warming can succeed without substantial and permanent reductions in U.S. emissions.” Working in partnership with the Energy Foundation to promote “the adoption of state and regional policies that curb global warming pollution,” PCT seeks “to advance the climate change debate through analysis, public education and a new cooperative approach with business.”

Wilderness Protection: Since the early 1990s, PCT “has been investing in public education and advocacy efforts to mobilize support for improved management of and strict protection for old-growth forests and wilderness areas on public lands in North America.”

Foster Care Reform: In 2003, the Trusts launched a policy initiative “to help move children in foster care more quickly and appropriately to safe, permanent families and prevent the unnecessary placement of children in foster care.”

Protecting Ocean Life: “Our marine work is aimed at preserving the biological integrity of marine ecosystems and primarily focuses on efforts to curb overfishing, reduce bycatch and prevent the destruction of marine habitat.”

Pre-K Education: Seeking “to fundamentally change the way this country invests in education for its three- and four-year-olds,” PCT directs large sums of money to “policy-focused research” and “public education campaigns” that “demonstrate the value of high-quality preschool for all three- and four-year-olds.” It also targets its funding to “organizations committed to advancing quality pre-Kindergarten for all three- and four-year olds.”

State Sentencing and Corrections: Founded on the axiom that the American criminal-justice system is infested with inequities and racism, PCT’s Public Safety Performance Project, launched in 2006, “supports in-depth research and public and policy-maker education to help states increase public safety, manage corrections spending, and hold offenders accountable." The project has three main objectives: (a) to help states collect and analyze data about who is admitted to their prisons, the lengths of their sentences, their rates of recidivism, and the implications of this data for public safety and state budgets; (b) to aid states in understanding how their existing sentencing, release and community-supervision policies compare to those of other states; and (c) to "explore policy changes that will increase public safety and deliver a solid return on taxpayers’ investment.”

In a related effort, PCT’s Death Penalty Reform program finances the Justice Project Education Fund, which “works to advance reforms that would ensure fairness and accuracy in the administration of capital punishment.” According to the Justice Project: “Since 1976, more than 100 people have been wrongfully convicted and sentenced to death in the United States.” PCT granted this initiative $1 million in 2003, and another $1 million two years later.

PCT is a member organization of the International Human Rights Funders Group (IHRFG), a network of more than six-dozen grantmakers dedicated to funding leftwing groups and causes.