¶ Natural Resources Defense Council
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The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) is an American nonprofit organization based in New York City, New York.
¶ History
NRDC was founded in 1970 by Whitney North Seymour Jr. and Stephen Duggan, environmental lawyers who successfully prevented Consolidated Edison from constructing a new hydroelectric power station near the Hudson River.[1][2][3] Along with David Sive,[4] the pair represented a dozen citizens in Scenic Hudson Preservation Conference v. Federal Power Commission, a landmark case “credited with launching the modern environmental movement.”[5]
Following their victory, Seymour, Duggan and Sive sought funding from the Ford Foundation to launch the NRDC to pursue broader environmental defense efforts. The foundation offered NRDC seed funding on the condition that it appoint Laurance Rockefeller and other oil-rich conservatives as trustees, and merge with a similar effort led by a group of recent Yale Law School graduates.[6] This group included Gus Speth, Richard Ayres, Edward Strohbehn Jr. and John Bryson.[7] John H. Adams served as founding director.[8]
As a supporter of the defeated Con Ed power plant, Laurance Rockefeller's leadership position on the NRDC granted him the ability to influence the activities of the nascent organization, including “coerc[ing] the NRDC into dropping its controversial strategy of suing corporations.”[9] The Rockefeller Brothers Fund began funding the NRDC shortly thereafter.[10]
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. joined the NRDC in 1986 as an attorney.[11] He left the organization in 2017.
¶ Organization
The NRDC's Center for Campaigns & Organizing (CC&O) oversees the NRDC Action Fund, "an affiliated but separate 501(c)(4) nonprofit organization, which engages in advocacy and political (including electoral) activities for NRDC."[12] It is also affiliated with Environmental Entrepreneurs (E2), led by NRDC trustee Nicole Lederer.[13][14]
¶ Personnel
Current and honorary members of the NRDC's team are listed on the organization's website.[15]
| Name | Position | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Manish Bapna | President and Chief Executive Officer[16] | World Resources Institute (WRI), Global Commission on Adaptation (GCA), NDC Partnership, New Climate Economy, Bank Information Center (BIC), World Bank, McKinsey & Company, China Council for International Cooperation on Environment and Development (CCICED), Meridian Institute, Natural Resources Governance Institute (NRGI) |
| Tisha Alfred | Chief Real Estate and Workplace Strategy Officer | - |
| Robyn Arville | Chief People and DEI Officer | Wikimedia Foundation, Public Library of Science (PLOS), Humanity United |
| Mitchell Bernard | Chief Counsel | American College of Environmental Lawyers, United States Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York |
| Susan Casey-Lefkowitz | Chief of Staff | Environmental Law Institute (ELI), IUCN Environmental Law Centre |
| Yamide Dagnet | Senior Vice President, International | Open Society Foundations, World Resources Institute |
| Veronica Foo | Chief Financial Officer | Goldman Sachs, Goldman Sachs Asset Management (GSAM) |
| Christy Goldfuss | Executive Director | Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ), Council on Climate Preparedness and Resilience, National Ocean Council (NOC), Center for American Progress (CAP), National Park Service (NPS), United States House Committee on Natural Resources |
| Ashok Gupta | Chief Program Officer | New York City Sustainability Advisory Board, New York City Energy Policy Task Force |
| Ticora V. Jones | Chief Science Officer | United States Agency for International Development (USAID), Materials Research Society (MRS) |
| Mollie Marsh-Heine | Chief Development Officer | Denver Public Schools, Outward Bound, Nature Conservancy, Earthjustice |
| Gina McCarthy | President and Chief Executive Officer (former)[17] | United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) |
| Melissa Lin Perrella | Chief Equity and Justice Officer | - |
| Irina Petrova | General Counsel | Simpson Thacher & Bartlett |
| Shelley Poticha | Managing Director, Regional Impact, Center for Campaigns & Organizing[18] | Global Urban Development, Partnership for Sustainable Communities, Office of Sustainable Housing and Communities (OSHC), Congress for the New Urbanism (CNU) |
| Vivek Sawhney | Chief Information Officer and International Operations | Young Adult Institute (YAI), IntraLinks |
| Douglass Sims | Managing Director, Green Finance and Economic Development | - |
| Matthew Tejada | Senior Vice President, Environmental Health | Office of Environmental Justice and External Civil Rights (OEJECR), National Environmental Justice Advisory Council (NEJAC), Air Alliance Houston, Texas Public Interest Research Group (TexPIRG), Peace Corps |
| Michael Wall | Chief Litigation Officer | United States Department of Justice, American College of Environmental Lawyers |
| Andrew Wetzler | Senior Vice President, Nature | - |
| Kristin Wilson-Palmer | Chief Communications Officer | Edelman, Insurance Information Institute (III), AARP, National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ), America's Public Television Stations (APTS), Brodeur Partners, Kamber Group |
| Jackie Wong | Senior Vice President, Climate and Energy | United States Department of Energy, Bain Capital, McKinsey & Company |
| Ed Yoon | Chief External Affairs Officer | NRDC Action Fund |
| John H. Adams | Founding Director[8:1] | Open Space Institute, Nicholas School of the Environment, Duke University School of Law |
| Stephen Duggan | Founding Chairman[2:1] | Simpson Thacher & Bartlett |
| Richard Ayres | Co-founder[7:1] | Ayres Law Group |
| John Bryson | Co-founder[7:2] | United States Department of Commerce |
| Whitney North Seymour Jr. | Co-founder[3:1] | United States Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York |
| David Sive | Co-founder[4:1] | Sive, Paget & Riesel (SPR) |
| Gus Speth | Co-founder[7:3] | World Resources Institute (WRI) |
| Edward Strohbehn Jr. | Co-founder[7:4] | Morgan, Lewis & Bockius |
| Scott Burns | Leadership Committee member[19] | COVID Collaborative, Sundance Institute |
| Kathleen Welch | Chair of the Board of Trustees | Corridor Partners |
| Frederick A.O. Schwarz Jr. | Chair Emeritus | Brennan Center for Justice, Cravath, Swaine & Moore |
| Mary P. Moran | Treasurer | - |
| Katherine Adams | Trustee | Apple, Beaverkill Valley Land Trust |
| Geeta Aiyer | Trustee | Boston Common Asset Management |
| Claire Bernard | Trustee | Mariposa Foundation |
| Sarah Cogan | Trustee | Simpson Thacher & Bartlett |
| Nathaniel Dean | Trustee | Capula Investment Management |
| Leonardo DiCaprio | Trustee | Earth Alliance |
| John Echohawk | Trustee | Native American Rights Fund |
| Catherine Coleman Flowers | Trustee | Center for Rural Enterprise and Environmental Justice (CREEJ) |
| Lisa Hall | Trustee | Apollo Global Management |
| Jeremy Kahan | Trustee | North Peak Capital |
| Nicole Lederer | Trustee | Environmental Entrepreneurs (E2) |
| Laura Lin | Trustee | Simpson Thacher & Bartlett |
| Julia Louis-Dreyfus | Trustee | - |
| Kelly Chapman Meyer | Trustee | American Heart Association Teaching Gardens |
| Peter Morton | Trustee | 510 Development Corporation |
| Wendy Kelman Neu | Trustee | Hugo Neu Corporation |
| Frederica Perera | Trustee | Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia Center for Children's Environmental Health |
| Lynn Price | Trustee | Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) |
| Diana Propper de Callejon | Trustee | Cranemere |
| Robert Redford | Trustee | - |
| Bill Richardson | Trustee (former)[20] | United States Department of Energy, Freedom House |
| Elene Rios | Trustee | National Hispanic Medical Association, National Hispanic Health Foundation |
| Tom Roush | Trustee | - |
| Tom Soto | Trustee | Latimer Partners |
| Gerald Torres | Trustee | Yale School of the Environment |
| Margret Trilli | Trustee | Impact Assets |
| David Vladeck | Trustee | Georgetown University Law Center |
| David Welch | Trustee | Infinera |
| Daniel Yates | Trustee | Dandelion Energy |
| Alan F. Horn | Honorary Chair Emeritus of the Board of Trustees | Walt Disney Studios |
| Daniel R. Tishman | Honorary Chair Emeritus of the Board of Trustees | Tishman Realty |
| Frances Beinecke | Honorary Trustee | - |
| Anita Bekenstein | Honorary Trustee | - |
| Anna Scott Carter | Honorary Trustee | Clean by Design |
| Laurie David | Honorary Trustee | - |
| Sylvia Earle | Honorary Trustee | Deep Ocean Exploration and Research (DOER) |
| Robert J. Fisher | Honorary Trustee | Gap |
| Chuck Koob | Honorary Trustee | Simpson Thacher & Bartlett |
| Philip Korsant | Honorary Trustee | Long Light Capital |
| Ruben Kraiem | Honorary Trustee | Covington & Burling |
| Shelly Malkin | Honorary Trustee | New York Restoration Project |
| Josie Merck | Honorary Trustee | Ocean View Foundation |
| Laurance Rockefeller Jr. | Honorary Trustee; Trustee (former)[10:1] | - |
| Jonathan F. P. Rose | Honorary Trustee | Jonathan Rose Companies |
| Christine Russell | Honorary Trustee | Columbia Foundation, Gaia Fund |
| William H. Schlesinger | Honorary Trustee | Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies |
| James Taylor | Honorary Trustee | - |
| George Woodwell | Honorary Trustee | Woodwell Climate Research Center |
| Robert F. Kennedy Jr. | Senior Attorney (former)[21] | Children's Health Defense |
¶ Partners
NRDC is or has been partnered with:
- Indivisible[22]
- Resource Media[23]
Additionally, NRDC has been a client of Capalino,[24] Democracy Partners[25] and Eastern Research Group (ERG).[26]
¶ Funding
NRDC has received funding from:[27]
- Brian Tomasik
- Ford Foundation[6:1]
- John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation
- John Merck Fund
- Nathan Cummings Foundation
- Quixote Foundation
- Rockefeller Brothers Fund[10:2]
- Steven and Michele Kirsch Foundation[28]
- Surdna Foundation
- Walton Family Foundation
- William and Flora Hewlett Foundation
- William E. Simon Foundation
¶ Activities
NRDC has provided funding to:
¶ External links
- Ballotpedia
- Business-Managed Democracy
- Cause IQ
- Charity Navigator
- InfluenceWatch
- NNDB
- SourceWatch
- Website
- Website (China)
- Wikipedia
¶ Further reading
- 1996: Who Owns the Sun? People, Politics, and the Struggle for a Solar Economy by Daniel Berman and John T. O'Connor
- June 3, 2008: "The Liberal Foundations of Environmentalism: Revisiting the Rockefeller-Ford Connection" by Michael Barker, published in Capitalism Nature Socialism
- May 2, 2024: "Has the Natural Resources Defense Council Abandoned its Core Mission?" by Liam Sturgess, published by The Kennedy Beacon
Collection: Natural Resources Defense Council records, MS 1965. Archives at Yale. Retrieved November 3, 2023, from https://web.archive.org/web/20231103152444/https://archives.yale.edu/repositories/12/resources/5167 ↩︎
Saxon, W. (1998, November 13). Stephen Duggan, Environmentalist, Dies at 89. The New York Times. http://archive.today/2023.08.24-221206/https://www.nytimes.com/1998/11/13/nyregion/stephen-duggan-environmentalist-dies-at-89.html ↩︎ ↩︎
Whitney Seymour Papers, 1966-1968. M.E. Grenander Department of Special Collections & Archives. Retrieved September 1, 2023, from https://web.archive.org/web/20230901181459/https://archives.albany.edu/description/catalog/apap278 ↩︎ ↩︎
Robinson, N. A. (2014, March 26). 2014 Lloyd K. Garrison Lecture. Pace University School of Law. https://web.archive.org/web/20240424193747/https://law.pace.edu/sites/default/files/environmental/SiveSaxGarrisonLectureMar2014.pdf ↩︎ ↩︎
The Scenic Hudson Decision. Marist Environmental History Project. Retrieved April 29, 2024, from http://archive.today/2024.04.29-172823/https://archives.marist.edu/mehp/scenicdecision.html ↩︎
Berman, D. M., & O’Connor, J. T. (1996). Who Owns the Sun? People, Politics, and the Struggle for a Solar Economy (p. 107). White River Junction; Chelsea Green Publishing. https://archive.org/details/whoownssunpeople00berm/page/106/mode/2up ↩︎ ↩︎
Law School Honors Four Alumni Who Helped Create the Natural Resources Defense Council. (2010, May 7). YaleNews. https://web.archive.org/web/20240228183555/https://news.yale.edu/2010/05/07/law-school-honors-four-alumni-who-helped-create-natural-resources-defense-council ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎
John Adams, Founding Director. Natural Resources Defense Council. Retrieved April 24, 2024, from http://archive.today/2024.04.24-182708/https://www.nrdc.org/bio/john-adams ↩︎ ↩︎
Barker, M. (2008). The Liberal Foundations of Environmentalism: Revisiting the Rockefeller-Ford Connection. Capitalism Nature Socialism, 19(2), 15–42. https://doi.org/10.1080/10455750802091495 ↩︎
Conservation and the Environment. Rockefeller Brothers Fund. Retrieved March 16, 2023, from http://archive.today/2023.03.16-142242/https://www.rbf.org/about/about-us/conservation-and-environment ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎
Lord, D. (2018, June 5). Robert Kennedy assassination: What happened to RFK’s children after he was killed? The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. http://archive.today/2023.05.08-221611/https://www.ajc.com/news/national/robert-kennedy-assassination-what-happened-rfk-children-after-was-killed/Nu7ndfLSIy7FHbE5tCCgTN/ ↩︎
Center for Campaigns & Organizing. Natural Resources Defense Council. Retrieved April 28, 2024, from https://web.archive.org/web/20240428184346/https://www.nrdc.org/center-campaigns-organizing ↩︎
About Us. Natural Resources Defense Council. Retrieved April 28, 2024, from https://web.archive.org/web/20240428184401/https://www.nrdc.org/about ↩︎
Founders. E2. Retrieved March 9, 2024, from https://web.archive.org/web/20240309175656/https://e2.org/founders/ ↩︎
Leadership. Natural Resources Defense Council. Retrieved April 25, 2024, from https://web.archive.org/web/20240425232431/https://www.nrdc.org/leadership ↩︎
Manish Bapna, President & Chief Executive Officer. Natural Resources Defense Council. Retrieved April 25, 2024, from http://archive.today/2024.04.25-232951/https://www.nrdc.org/bio/manish-bapna ↩︎
Gina McCarthy, Former President. Natural Resources Defense Council. Retrieved April 28, 2024, from https://web.archive.org/web/20240428221150/https://www.nrdc.org/bio/gina-mccarthy ↩︎
Shelley Poticha, Managing Director, Regional Impact, Center for Campaigns & Organizing. Natural Resources Defense Council. Retrieved February 3, 2024, from https://web.archive.org/web/20240203094750/https://www.nrdc.org/bio/shelley-poticha ↩︎
Scott Burns. COVID Collaborative. Retrieved July 24, 2023, from https://web.archive.org/web/20230724202019/https://www.covidcollaborative.us/team/scott-burns ↩︎
Former Energy Secretary Bill Richardson Elected to NRDC Board of Trustees. (2001, June 11). Natural Resources Defense Council. https://web.archive.org/web/20231129001137/https://www.nrdc.org/press-releases/former-energy-secretary-bill-richardson-elected-nrdc-board-trustees ↩︎
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on “The Junk Science of George W. Bush” in the Nation. (2004, February 20). Natural Resources Defense Council. http://archive.today/2023.06.05-092042/https://www.nrdc.org/press-releases/robert-f-kennedy-jr-junk-science-george-w-bush-nation ↩︎
Stand in Solidarity with Charlottesville. Indivisible Guide. Retrieved January 10, 2022, from https://web.archive.org/web/20220110175630/https://act.indivisibleguide.com/event/stand-in-solidarity-with-charlottesville/search/ ↩︎
Recent Partners. Resource Media. Retrieved August 30, 2004, from http://archive.today/2004.08.30-191658/http://resource-media.org/Partners/ ↩︎
Clients. Capalino. Retrieved December 9, 2023, from https://web.archive.org/web/20231209011424/https://www.capalino.com/clients/ ↩︎
Client List. Democracy Partners. Retrieved July 26, 2023, from https://web.archive.org/web/20230726023456/https://www.democracypartners.com/?q=page/client-list ↩︎
About ERG. ERG (Eastern Research Group Inc.). Retrieved May 17, 2023, from https://web.archive.org/web/20230517181802/https://www.erg.com/about ↩︎
Natural Resources Defense Council donations received. Vipul Naik. Retrieved April 28, 2024, from https://web.archive.org/web/20240428234617/https://donations.vipulnaik.com/donee.php?donee=Natural+Resources+Defense+Council ↩︎
Kirsch, S. T., Kirsch, M. van B., & Gwynn, K. 2005-2006 Annual Report. Kirsch Foundation. Retrieved April 19, 2022, from https://web.archive.org/web/20220419131010/http://www.kirschfoundation.org/who/ar2006/Kirsch_AR06.pdf ↩︎
Donor Thanks. Sierra Club. Retrieved January 4, 2023, from http://archive.today/2023.01.04-212113/https://vault.sierraclub.org/foundation-annual-report-2019/donor-thanks.html ↩︎