(HERNDON, VA)...Landmark Legal Foundation today filed three lawsuits against government agencies to force them to release information about hundreds of millions of dollars in taxpayer funds paid to the Nature Conservancy, the Environmental Defense Fund, the World Wildlife Fund and other activist environmental groups. The lawsuits, which have been filed against the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the Department of Interior's Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and the Department of Agriculture's Forest Service (USDA), were brought because the agencies failed to respond to earlier Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests by Landmark. The Foundation sought the information after a Sacramento Bee article in October detailed how more than $400 million in federal grants and other payments since 1998 may have been misused or used to advance the political agendas of environmental activists. "America's taxpayers have a right to know if their money is being used to feather the political nests of radical environmental groups," commented Landmark President Mark R. Levin. "And the agencies of our government have a responsibility to ensure that the money it pays to private organizations is used appropriately, and not to lobby lawmakers or spin public perception to achieve the groups' political goals." Landmark has an impressive record in FOIA litigation with the EPA. In a pending lawsuit against the agency over last-minute regulations imposed in the closing days of the previous administration, the Foundation found that the EPA was destroying information that Federal District Judge Royce Lamberth had ordered it to preserve. Judge Lamberth is currently considering a motion filed by Landmark to hold the EPA, several former EPA officials and the U.S. Attorney's Office in the District of Columbia in contempt over the destruction of the information at the EPA. In addition to the lawsuits filed today, Landmark anticipates suing the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in a few weeks, after administrative avenues in its FOIA request with that agency are exhausted. Landmark Legal Foundation is a public interest law firm founded in 1976 with offices in Kansas City, Missouri and Herndon, Virginia. The complaints Landmark filed today against the EPA, the BLM and the USDA are available on Landmark's website at: www.landmarklegal.org ===== Shelley Wadsworth Hartmann Planning Coordinator Lincoln County Planning & Building Department P.O. Box 307 Pioche, Nevada 89043 ph: 1-775-962-5165 fax: 1-775-962-5164 ***** |