Ethics and Public Policy Center

The Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, DC, "is one of several [organizations] devoted to improving public appreciation of the role of business in what it terms a 'moral society.' It was founded by Ernest Lefever, who expressed his concern that 'U.S. domestic and multinational firms find themselves increasingly under siege at home and abroad. They are accused of producing shoddy and unsafe products, fouling the environment, robbing future generations, wielding enormous power, repressing peoples in the third world, and generally being insensitive to human needs. We as a small and ethnically oriented center are in a position to respond more directly to ideological critics who insist the corporation is fundamentally unjust.'"[1]

According to the EPPC website the organisation was "established in 1976 to clarify and reinforce the bond between the Judeo-Christian moral tradition and the public debate over domestic and foreign policy issues." [2]

In Tom Barry has this to say about EPPC:

Created in 1976, EPPC was the first neocon institute to break ground in the frontal attack on the secular humanists. For nearly three decades, EPPC has functioned as the cutting edge of the neoconservative-driven culture war against progressive theology and secularism, and the associated effort to ensure right-wing control of the Republican Party. It explicitly sought to unify the Christian right with the neoconservative religious right, which was mostly made up of agnostics back then. A central part of its political project was to "clarify and reinforce the bond between the Judeo-Christian moral tradition and the public debate over domestic and foreign policy." Directed by Elliott Abrams from 1996-2001, EPPC counts among its board members well connected figures in the neocon matrix including Jeane Kirkpatrick, Richard Neuhaus, and Mary Ann Glendon.
—Tom Barry, op. cit.

Board of Directors and personnel

• Jeane Kirkpatrick – Chairwoman
• Elliot Abrams – former President
• Hillel Fradkin – President [3]
• Michael Cromartie – Acting Director [4]
• Ernest W. Lefever – Senior Scholar, Founder and first president

Fellows and Scholars

• Ed Whelan, President
• Michael Cromartie, Vice President
• George Weigel, Senior Fellow
• Eric Cohen, Director, Biotechnology & American Democracy Program
• Christine Rosen, Fellow
• Timothy Samuel Shah, Director South Asian Studies Program, Research Fellow
• Wilfred M. McClay – Senior Fellow and co-director of the Evangelicals and Civic Life program
• Michael Cromartie – Acting Director and co-director of the Evangelicals and Civic Life program
• Rick Santorum, Senior Fellow and Director of EPPC's America's Enemies program.

Funding

Between 1985 and 2001, the Center has received $9,190,704 in 114 separate grants from only eight foundations:

• Castle Rock Foundation
• Earhart Foundation
• Koch Family Foundations (Claude R. Lambe Foundation)
• John M. Olin Foundation, Inc.
• Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation
• Scaife Foundations (Sarah Mellon Scaife, Carthage)
• Smith Richardson Foundation[5]

EPPC has also received three grants from the Pew Charitable Trusts:

• In December $925,000.00 over 3 yrs was granted to support "a seminar series for journalists on the role of religion in American public life." [6]
• in September 1999, $1,350,000.00 over 3 yrs was granted "to examine the role of Evangelicals in American public life." [7]
• in December 2001, $430,000.00 over 2 yrs was granted to "strengthen the national media's reporting on the impact of religious conviction and religiously grounded moral argument in American political and public life." [8]

Other SourceWatch Resources

• Think tanks

External Links

• "Contra-Intuitive" by Mary McGrory, Washington Post, July 8, 2001; re Elliott Abrams, president of the EPPC as of June 2001.
• David Corn, "Elliott Abrams: It's Back!:The most generous of rehabilitations", The Nation, June 14, 2001.
• Media Transparency, "Ethics and Public Policy Centre", accessed February 18, 2004.
• Media Transparency, "Funding matrix: Ethics and Public Policy Centre", accessed February 18, 2004.
• Tom Barry, "Elliott Abrams: the Neocon's Neocon", CounterPunch, February 9, 2005.

Contact

Web: www.eppc.org