Talk: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]

Founded in 1976, the EPPC describes itself as "Washington, D.C.’s premier institute dedicated to applying the Judeo-Christian moral tradition to critical issues of public policy."

Koch Wiki

Charles Koch is the right-wing billionaire owner of Koch Industries. As one of the richest people in the world, he is a key funder of the right-wing infrastructure, including the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) and the State Policy Network (SPN). In SourceWatch, key articles on Charles Koch and his late brother David include: Koch Brothers, Americans for Prosperity, Stand Together Chamber of Commerce, Stand Together, Koch Family Foundations, Koch Universities, and I360.

Ties to the Koch brothers

Organizations with links to the Koch brothers have reported giving funding to the Ethics and Public Policy Center, including Donors Trust and the Claude R. Lambe Foundation.

Positions

Counterpunch has described the Ethics and Public Policy Center's role in the right as follows:

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.

Questioning anti-government orthodoxy?

In a May 2014 article about "reform conservatism," The Atlantic called EPPC senior fellow Henry Olsen "[o]ne of the most creative Reformicon thinkers" and called Olsen's critique of Mitt Romney's failed 2014 presidential campaign "devastating." About Tea Party-style anti-government conservatism, Olsen wrote, "If American principles simply require hands-off government, then American principles have not been part of our politics for a very long time. A hands-off approach is not what American politics and principles require; it is a parody of what America and American conservatism mean."

New York Times columnist Thomas Edsall included EPPC senior fellow Peter Wehner in a group of "conservative analysts who over the past three years have undergone something of an intellectual conversion." Edsall describes an article Wehner co-write with former Bush speechwriter Michael Gerson as "an attack on the idea cherished by many Tea Party activists that all (or nearly all) government action and intervention is bad."

Personnel

Board of Directors

As of June 2014:

• William R. Burleigh (Chairman, E.W. Scripps Company), Chairman
• Robert P. George (McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence, professor of politics, and director of the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions at Princeton University), Vice Chairman
• Kenneth W. Bickford (Managing Partner, Roseline Development), Director
• Mary Ellen Bork (writer), Susan B. Anthony List
• Eric Cohen (Executive Director, Tikvah Fund; former senior consultant on the President's Council on Bioethics; Fellow, New America Foundation; and Editor-At-Large, The New Atlantis), Director
• Joseph D. Decosimo (Managing Partner, Decosimo business consulting and accounting firm), Director
• Frank A. Orban, III (deKieffer & Horgan law firm), Director

Staff

As of June 2014:

• Edward Whelan, President
• Michael Cromartie, Vice President
• Brian Walsh, Executive Director, American Religious Freedom Program
• Sylvia Travaglione, Senior Director of Operations
• Josh Britton, Director of Communications
• Tim Schultz, State Legislative Policy Director, American Religious Freedom Program

Fellows and Scholars

As of June 2014:

• George Weigel, Distinguished Senior Fellow and William E. Simon Chair in Catholic Studies
• James Capretta, Senior Fellow
• Bruce Cole, Senior Fellow
• Mary Eberstadt, Senior Fellow
• Stanley Kurtz, Senior Fellow
• Henry Olsen, Senior Fellow
• Wilfred M. McClay, Senior Fellow
• Roger Scruton, Senior Fellow
• Peter Wehner, Senior Fellow
• Brian Walsh, Senior Fellow
• Mary Hasson, Fellow
• Adam Keiper, Fellow, Editor of The New Atlantis,
• John Mueller, Lehrman Institute Fellow in Economics
• Yuval Levin, Hertog Fellow
• James Bowman, Resident Scholar
• Stephen P. White, Fellow
• Eric Cohen, Adjunct Fellow
• Carter Snead, Fellow
• Algis Valiunas, Fellow
• Herbert Schlossburg, Fellow

Former Fellows and Scholars

• Ernest W. Lefever, Former Fellow (In Memoriam, 1919-2009)
• Christine Rosen, Former Fellow
• Timothy Samuel Shah, Former Director South Asian Studies Program, Research Fellow
• Wilfred M. McClay, Former Senior Fellow and co-director of the Evangelicals and Civic Life program
• Rick Santorum, Former 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
  • Between 2001 and 2010, the Ethics and Public Policy Center received almost $3 million from the conservative Bradley Foundation.
• Scaife Foundations (Sarah Mellon Scaife, Carthage)
• Smith Richardson Foundation[2]

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." [3]
• in September 1999, $1,350,000.00 over 3 yrs was granted "to examine the role of Evangelicals in American public life." [4]
• 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." [5]

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

We: http://www.eppc.org