Sierra Club

History of the Organization

The organization was founded by John Muir, Warren Olney (an attorney), and a group of professors from the University of California at Berkeley and Stanford University in May 1892. It was modeled after the eastern Appalachian Mountain Club, and their initial goals included establishing Glacier and Mount Rainier national parks, convincing the California legislature to give Yosemite Valley to the U.S. federal government, and saving California's coastal redwoods.

In the early part of the 20th century, the Sierra Club focused mostly on social and recreational activities by organizing outings and improving trails in the west. In the mid-1950s, the Sierra Club gained in national reputation in preventing the Echo Park dam construction in Dinosaur National Monument in Utah. Primarily because of this effort, it saw its membership swell from 10,000 in 1956 to 15,000 in 1960. In the 1960s, the organization continued campaigning against building dams that would flood portions of the Grand Canyon.

In 1966, full-page ads were placed in major newspapers such as the New York Times and the Washington Post, prompting the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to suspend the club's 501(c) (3) status, pending an investigation. Hence, the organization noticed steep loss of revenue from contributions, but the memberships continued to increase steadily to about 75,000 members in 1969.

In the 1970s, the club focused on preserving Alaskan lands and eastern wilderness areas as well as supporting various environmental legislation, including the 1976 Toxic Substances Control Act, the Clean Air Act amendments, and the 1977 Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act. The Sierra Club made its first U.S. presidential endorsement for Walter Mondale in 1984 and has since then continued to support mostly Democrats. In the 2008 presidential election, it endorsed Barack Obama for [Page 816]“his strong record of support for clean air, wetlands protection, and clean energy.”

Environmental Policies

The Sierra Club focuses primarily on 17 conservation-related issues: agriculture, biotechnology, energy, environmental justice, forest and wilderness management, global issues, government and political issues, land management, military issues, nuclear issues, oceans, pollution and waste management, precautionary principle, transportation, urban and land use policies, water resources, and wildlife conservation.

The club has been active in the protection of national forest and other federally owned public lands. It opposed the building of new nuclear reactors (both fission and fusion) until safety risks have been mitigated. It has argued for alternative energy sources to coal, given that coal accounts for over 40 percent of the nation's carbon dioxide emissions, which are a leading cause of respiratory illness. The organization has advocated investment in alternative energy resources, such as wind, solar, and other renewable resources, and favored restructuring energy markets to facilitate innovation, creation of green jobs, and efficient energy use.

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