Critics say the administration conducts its land policy by settling lawsuits with groups that oppose environmental laws.
On the contrary, it will merely encourage those who oppose environmental and climate policy to believe that they now have a new mandate to get rid of it.
When Peabody went bankrupt this year a Guardian analysis of court documents revealed America's biggest coalmining company was funding at least two dozen groups that cast doubt on human-made climate change and oppose environmental regulations.
"The pedigree for these think tanks and law firms," Mr. Cook said, referring to the ones with which Ms. Norton has been connected, "has at every turn been to oppose environmental regulations".
The effort to broaden support comes as the groups find themselves competing with industries that oppose environmental measures, sometimes claiming that they will result in higher energy bills or the loss of jobs.
In response to Anna Li, the proprietor of a dried seafood emporium in San Francisco's Chinatown, whom you feature, the real message of "no shark's fin soup" is not "you're cheap," but rather that "you oppose environmental degradation and animal cruelty".
