Congress of Racial Equality
Group: 'Extreme environmentalists' are harming the poor and minorities
Salt Lake Tribune - Saturday, March 8, 2008
The Congress of Racial Equality is rolling out a new environmental justice campaign that focuses on "extreme environmentalists" such as wilderness advocates, charging them with harming poor people and minority groups.
Niger Innis, CORE's national spokesman, attended a news conference this week at the Utah Capitol to announce the consumers' campaign, which he is taking across the nation. Innis, son of civil rights leader Roy Innis, said environmental organizations intimidate governments and have a trickle-down effect on minorities. "You can't have economic development in my community when my community is worrying about paying their gas bill," Innis said.
Innis has a growing reputation as a conservative who questions environmentalists' "pseudoscience" and condemns what he calls the global green movement's oppression of poor people in the Third World.
Earlier in the week, Innis spoke to members of the Colorado Legislature during a news conference held to oppose efforts to restrict energy development there. Colorado news organizations reported the media event was organized with the help of Colorado-based Americans for American Energy.
AAE associate Jim Sims accompanied Innis at the news conference in Utah, held on the last day of the legislative session. There, Innis was surrounded by state lawmakers who congratulated the CORE effort. "I remember his father, Roy Innis, who marched with Martin Luther King [Jr.]," said Rep. Mike Noel, R-Kanab. AAE in January circulated a missive linking wilderness supporters with terrorists.
CORE will sue the Bush administration if the polar bear is designated an endangered species, Innis said later. Innis said CORE receives donations from a wide variety of sources, including energy companies. "Quite frankly, we should be getting more, given our position," he said.