Reason Foundation
Reason Foundation is a libertarian think-tank that consists of the Reason Public Policy Institute and Reason Magazine. It describes itself as “a leading voice for individual liberty, economic freedom, and dynamic market-based public policies.”
Contents
Funding
Reason lists it corporate and Foundation funders. According to Reason “In 2000, the Foundation’s revenue grew to a new high of $5.3 million. There were 30 private foundation contributors and 95 corporate contributors. Contributions from individuals provided 40 percent of total revenue —75 percent of the 2130 individual donations were in the $50 to $500 range. Larger individual donations are made each year by members of the Torchbearer Society ($1000)[1]. Corporate Supporters in 2000 were[2]:
The Institute received some $5,289,712 from 1985 to 2002, in 107 grants from the following foundations[3]:
Earhart
John M Olin
Sarah Scaife
Lynde and Harry Bradley
Claude R. Lamb
Carthage Foundation
David H Koch
JM Foundation
Smith Richardson
Scaife Foundation
Charles G Koch
Links to Republicans
Californian Republican governor Arnold Schwarzenegger named several co-authors of Reason’s Roadmap to Reform and members of its budget-working group to his transition team, including former Secretary of State Bill Jones, former State
Treasurer Matt Fong, and former Congressman Bill Baker[4].
The ex-President of the Foundation, Lynn Scarlett, became the Assistant Secretary for Policy, Management at the Department of the Interior under Gale Norton.
“I am honored by this appointment and eager to join Secretary Norton's leadership team at Interior,” said Scarlett. “The Department has critical and far-reaching stewardship missions that touch the lives of millions of Americans. I look forward to working in close, collaborative initiatives with our state, tribal, and private sector partners to meet those responsibilities[5]”. Scarlett had served as an environmental campaign advisor to President Bush in the 2000 election and was a member of the Bush transition advisory team for the EPA[6].
Scarlett is also an advisor to the National Environmental Policy Institute along with Robert Hahn from the American Enterprise Institute, amongst others [7] Scarlett was also a senior fellow at the Foundation for Research on Economics and the Environment (FREE), a Montana-based organization. FREE “is bankrolled by polluting interests that often have litigation before the federal bench[8]”
In a special report on Scarlett, CLEAR argued that Scarlett had “rarely met a regulation she likes. According to her, the world is just too complex for pesky things like mandated air pollution limits, recycling, or day care standards to work efficiently. In her worldview, regulations stifle innovations that would be cheaper and better because each business owner could decide what works best for the company. On the other hand, Scarlett thinks nutrition labels are too confusing for the general public, so we shouldn’t have them at all. Can be enlightened enough to control their pollution levels when people are too stupid to understand the label on their cereal box?” [9].
Whilst at Reason, Scarlett was the host of Tech Central Station.com’s New Environmentalism site where she wrote a weekly column. James Glassman was sad to see her go: “our loss - both at Tech Central Station and at the Reason Foundation - will be the nation's gain. We're proud that the president has chosen Lynn Scarlett as a steward for the nation's natural resources. He could not have made a better choice”[10].
Scarlett was also a contributor to the book called “Fearing Food - Risk, Health and Environment”, edited by Julian Morris and Roger Bate, at the time from the right-wing think tank the Institute of Economic Affairs in London. Other contributors included Dennis Avery from the Hudson Institute, and Bruce Ames the controversial cancer scientist on the board of SEPP and a Director of the George C Marshall Institute and academic advisor to the Reason Foundation[11].
Current Personnel
David Nott – President, Reason Foundation -ex petroleum engineer for Shell Western Exploration & Production. Also ex- Institute for Humane Studies (IHS) and the Mercatus Center, both at George Mason University in Virginia.
Nick Gillespie - Vice President, editor of the libertarian Magazine Reason
Adrian T. Moore - Vice President for Research Executive Director, Reason Public Policy Institute
Robert W. Poole, Jr - Founder. He advised the White House Office of Policy Development on privatization during the Reagan years, and testified before the President's Commission on Privatization in 1987. During the Bush administration, he worked with the Vice-President's Competitiveness Council and the White House Counsel to help develop an executive order on infrastructure privatization.[12]
Board of Trustees
- Thomas E. Beach - Beach Investment Counsel, Inc.
- William A. Dunn - (Chairman elect) DUNN Capital Management on Board of CEI and PERC
- David Fleming - Latham & Watkins
- C. Boyden Gray - Wilmer, Cutler & Pickering
- James D. Jameson
- Manuel S. Klausner - Law Offices of Manuel S. Klausner
- David H. Koch - Koch Industries
- James Lintott - Sterling Foundation Management
- Stephen Modzelewski - Maple Engine, L.L.C.
- Sarah A. O’Dowd - Heller Ehrman White & McAuliffe
- Robert W. Poole, Jr - Reason Foundation
- Randall Smith - InSite MediaCom, L.L.C.
- Al H. St. Clair - Procter & Gamble
- Harry Teasley, Jr - (Chairman)
- Frank Bond - Trustee Emeritus
- Walter E. Williams - George Mason University
Business Advisory Board includes:[13]
- Joseph Alibrandi -Whittaker Corporation (Retired)
- Frank Baxter - Jefferies & Company Inc.
- Ron Boehm - ABC-Clio
- Jeff Buckingham - New Edge Networks
- Kenneth Butler - Capital Partnerships Virginia
- Viggo Butler - United Airports Ltd.
- Willard Z. Carr, Jr - Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher
- Shane A. Chalke - Annuity Net Inc.
- Chris Conway - Mentor Corporation
- Joseph Coulombe - Trader Joe’s (Retired)
- Devon Cross - Donors’ Forum on International Affairs
- Marie L. Fioramonti - Prudential Capital
- Daniel Fylstra - Frontline Systems
- Charles Gibbons - PricewaterhouseCoopers
- Karen J. Hedlund Nossaman - Guthner, Knox & Elliott
- Doug Henderson - Western States Petroleum Association
- Warner W. Henry - Henry Companies
- Yvette Hirth - The DBT Group Inc.
- William Huston - Watson Land Co.
- James D. Jameson - LIDCO Inc.
- Jerry L. Jordan - Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland
- A. Samuel King - University Restaurant Group
- John Mackey - Whole Foods Market Inc.
- Roy E. Marden - Philip Morris
- T.J. Rodgers - Cypress Semiconductor
- Cliff Slater - Maui Divers Inc. (Retired)
- Shawn Steel - Shawn Steel & Associates
- Michael E. Tennenbaum - Tennenbaum & Co.
- Loronzo Thomson - L.H. Thomson Company
- Ron K. Unz - Wall Street Analytics
- Richard Wallace - Freedom Communications Inc.
- Thomas W. Wathen - Pinkerton Security & Investigative Services (Retired)
- Pierluigi Zappacosta - Digital Persona
Academic Advisory
The Academic Advisory Board consists of libertarian and conservative think tank types such as Bruce Ames (was on the advisory board of TASSC, is a Director George C. Marshall and academic advisor to SEPP), Terry Anderson of PERC, John Baden of FREE, Stuart Butler of the Heritage Foundation, Richard Epstein the father of “takings”, Thomas Gale Moore of the Hoover Institution, Charles Murray of American Enterprise Institute, and Paul Craig Roberst of the Cato Institute.
Other Staff at the Foundation or the Reason Public Policy Institute:
- Ronald Bailey, Science Correspondent of Reason Magazine
- Michael De Alessi - Director of Natural Resource Policy including regulation. Author of Fishing for Solutions published by the right-wing Institute of Economic Affairs in London[14]
- Kenneth Green, Director of Environmental Program Reason Foundation; Chief Scientist the right Wing Fraser Institute in Vancouver.
Issues
Reason runs the website http://www.newenvironmentalism.org/, which is another website to promote Ronald Bailey’s views and that of Reason magazine and other Reason staff.
Contact
- Address: Reason Foundation, 3415 S. Sepulveda Blvd, Suite 400, Los Angeles, CA
- Web address: http://www.reason.org/
References
- [1] Reason Foundation (2000) Annual Report – Forging A World of New Choices, p25
- [2] Reason Foundation (2000) Annual Report – Forging A World of New Choices, p30
- [3] http://www.mediatransparency.org/search_results/info_on_any_recipient.php?286
- [4] The Reason Report (2004) Winter, p7
- [5] http://www.doi.gov/news/010713e.html
- [6] http://www.clearproject.org/reports_scarlett.html
- [7] http://www.nepi.org/Directory.htm
- [8] http://www.ems.org/interior/scarlett.html
- [9] http://www.clearproject.org/reports_scarlett.html
- [10] http://www.Tech Central Station.com/040201A.html
- [11] J. Morris & R. Bate (1999) Fearing Food – Risk, Health and Environment, Butterworth, Heinemann,
- [12] http://www.reason.org/robert.html
- [13] Reason Foundation (2000) Annual Report – Forging A World of New Choices, p31
- [14] http://www.rppi.org/dealessi.html
- [15] http://www.prwatch.org/prwissues/1998Q4/ashes.html; http://www.prwatch.org/prwv8n4.pdf
