Lately OSPIRG has been under considerable public examination; I want to keep it that way, considering that the problems with this organization don’t deserve just lip service but action. This fiscal year we will be handing OSPIRG a check for more than $117,000- a ridiculous amount of money, none of which will be publicly accounted for by the corporation. However, we do know that more than two-thirds of that budget is used to pay the salaries of about eight researches and activists who work in Portland.
Student groups have to show how they spend money allocated to them by the University. Why not OSPIRG? The reason is because it is a contracted organization, which allows it to skirt financial scrutiny by concerned students. Instead, its contract is enforced by the Athletics and Contracts Finance Committee. Other contracted organizations include LTD, Legal Services and the Emerald. The difference is clear – all of the latter services directly benefit the student population.
Let me preface or semi-preface my argument by saying that OSPIRG advocates some worthy causes. While many of its solutions are misguided and at times counterproductive, its intentions are admirable. Nevertheless, this is no reason to hand it an annual six-figure check, not knowing where the money is going except for what OSPIRG will divulge.
The problem with OSPIRG, as has previously been pointed out in the Emerald, is that the money it receives from our incidental fees rarely benefits anyone on campus directly. In fact, when looking at OSPIRG’s “accomplishments” Web-page I could not find any having to do with the University; only two had anything to do with Lane County at all. This leads me to conclude that student funding of OSPIRG is the equivalent of student funding of the NRA; both have admirable objectives, both are justified in those objectives, and both have absolutely nothing to do directly with the University of Oregon. Why should students bear the financial responsibility of an organization that operates nationwide?
My principal criticism of OSPIRG is that it claims to fight special interests, specifically government lobbyists, when in reality it is nothing more than a special interest group with just as many lobbyists in Washington. Randy Shaw, former chairman of Young Americans for Freedom has said, “There is a very real possibility that OSPIRG will simply become an unresponsive bureaucracy incapable of anything constructive, but merely a parasite on the students’ pocketbooks.” This day has come.
Again, its mission is commendable. It’s good that it fights for national forests and renters’ rights, but it is not our responsibility to pay for it. That responsibility belongs to private donors and in a worst-case scenario state taxpayers – if they subscribe to doing so by electing politicians who will implement these types of policies.
Now, enough of the talk and onto the action; just because I am an advocate of less government intervention doesn’t mean I don’t care about student interests, and more indicative of this situation, the environment. I simply don’t believe that the only way to fulfill these goals is to give our money to an unaccountable nation-wide special interest group.
What we need is competition in order to ensure our money is spent as efficiently and effectively as possible, and more importantly, to keep our money at our campus. I believe the reason the UO hasn’t rid itself of OSPIRG is because we feel a moral responsibility to contribute to the interests it fights for, despite the fact that we lose money in the process. Fortunately, the alternative has arrived in the form of the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow, or CFACT.
CFACT is attempting to form a student group here on campus with the promise of keeping students’ money with the students. Any money spent off campus comes from foundations, businesses and private citizens. In fact, the growing campus network is known as Collegians for a Constructive Tomorrow, which recognizes the difference between the use of student funds and financial aid from nationwide donors.
What is CFACT’s mission? To help meet basic food, water and energy needs of people around the world; promote wise stewardship of wildlife; reduce pollution and waste while maximizing the use of resources; educate the public about these issues. And the differences between CFACT and OSPIRG don’t stop at financial issues. CFACT’s strategy for achieving its mission does not include inappropriate government red-tape; instead, as its Web site describes, “CFACT is therefore working to promote market-oriented and safe technological solutions to such growing concerns as energy production, waste-management, food production and processing, air and water quality, wildlife protection and much more.”
I urge you to learn more about CFACT. It couldn’t hurt to have another major environmental group on campus, which will challenge OSPIRG to conform to University students’ needs and not the perceived needs of the state of Oregon or the nation at large.
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