The Environmental Working Group

The Environmental Working Group EWG? is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization, founded in 1993 by Ken Cook and Richard Wiles. The organization provides information to consumers and plays an activist role for national policy change

It states that its organizational goals are to:

• Protect the most vulnerable segments of the human population children, babies, and fetuses from health problems attributed to a wide array of toxic contaminants
• Replace federal policies, including government subsidies that damage the environment and natural resources, with policies that invest in conservation and sustainable development

EWG acknowledges on its website that ways to reduce fossil fuel use and greenhouse gas emissions while producing enough energy to support economic development worldwide are this century’s preeminent challenge. The organization is staunchly against ethanol production in the United States at scale from first generation corn ethanol facilities and does not acknowledge science from DOE, NREL, the Argonne National Laboratory?, universities or other global organizations that is peer reviewed and which is oppositional to their anti-corn ethanol position.

The ActivistCash website says that the EWG takes positions that provide headlines to provide the greatest funding opportunities. It makes the following claims about 990 tax returns filed by the Environmental Working Group. It says the EWG’s total revenue was more than $6.2 million in 2008. Approximately $3.2 million was distributed to the group’s board members:

• $219,401 to president Kenneth Cook
• $179,218 to executive director Richard Wiles
• $150,226 to director of research Jane Houlihan.
• Five more board members received six-figure salaries. Another $2 million was distributed to other employees, and almost $300,000 was put into pension plans and other benefits packages.

Activist Cash