Recently the Environmental Defense Fund's Executive Director Fred Krupp has criticized the proposed merger between Exxon and Mobil on grounds that the two corporations oppose the Kyoto global warming treaty. Yet the Environmental Defense Fund ( EDF ) has carried out a similar merger with an opponent of the treaty.

An EDF non-profit subsidiary the "Environmental Resources Trust" (ERT) includes on its seven person board C. Boyden Gray.  Not only is Mr. Gray on the board, but he is Chairman of the board.  For Mr. Gray to chair this environmental project is surprising to say the least. In 1997 Gray led the industry campaign to neutralize the effort of EPA's chief Carol Browner to strengthen the nation's clean air standards.  It is the height of audacity to think of Gray as an environmentalist in that he has followed in the footsteps of James Watt -- the actions of both men have been so outrageous that they created issues for environmentalists to rally against and to base fund-raising appeals. Let's look at the reasons why Gray's presence on ERT's board is like inviting the wolf into the hen house.

Mr. Gray is a long time opponent of a global warming treaty. He also chairs the board of Citizens for a Sound Economy, a leading anti-environmental group opposing the Kyoto treaty as evident from the group's home page that denounces Vice-President Gore as a "Pain in the Gas" and calls for the treaty's defeat. Gray has been a reliable major donor to the Republican Party which as a whole stalwartly stands against the Kyoto treaty. As a Reagan and Bush lieutenant, Boyden "Regulatory Relief" Gray spent 12 years scuttling a multitude of environmental endeavors, including a global warming treaty at the Rio Earth Summit in 1992. Leaving his government perch, he stuck to the same agenda: through his law firm and Beltway lobbying groups, Gray represents the interests of a rogue's gallery of carbon-spewing corporations, including Geneva Steel which years ago was shown to be sickening school children from the company's smokestack emissions. With this background, Gray's presence on ERT's board evokes a specter of inherent corruption.

Critics of the market-based global carbon trading scheme advocated by EDF have charged that trading is geared towards saving oil and industrial interests. At the recent Buenos Aires meeting, controversy surrounded the insistence of the U.S. to pursue its emissions reductions primarily by trading; many question whether this tact will lead to a pro-environmental outcome. These doubts are reinforced when arch anti-environmentalist and fixer C. Boyden Gray stands with EDF/ERT as advocate and guarantor for the integrity and efficacy of emissions trading.

Regarding Gray's affiliation with ERT, Bernardo Issel of NonProfit Accountability Project commented that " it is appalling for EDF to bring onto the board of its new group Gray -- a recidivist opponent of the environmental community; furthermore, considering that Boyden Gray has for almost two decades dedicated himself to attacking the command and control regulatory backbone of our environmental laws, it is incredulous that he would be placed in command of this EDF sponsored project."

The fact that EDF would bring Gray on to the board of ERT explains why some environmental activists think EDF has "sold-out" and believe EDF and Fred Krupp are corrupt.