The Foundation for Research on Economics and the Environment and Montana State University are the beneficiaries of a curious but important trend. Many highly successful, extraordinarily well-educated people are attracted to Montana, the most remote of the contiguous 48 states. Concurrently, to our mutual benefit, MSU is gaining national recognition and respect.

When I came to Bozeman some 35 years ago, it was a quiet town hosting an unpretentious cow college. There were three agricultural-implement dealers on our two major streets. John Deere (green) and International Harvester (red) on Main Street and Allis-Chalmers (orange) on North Seventh. I miss them.

I was teaching at MSU when I received my first grant to host a series of national conferences on resource economics. I was advised to work with a consultant from Los Angeles and told him the program site was Bozeman.

He assured me this was a huge mistake: No one of significance would come; those invited would be offended; the program would fail; and this would be my last grant from the supporting foundation. I explained that the program was on rural environmental issues and he replied, "Well, if you're determined to have it in a hick town, at least pick Denver or Dallas." I, of course, stuck with Bozeman and it was a huge success.

I went on to produce dozens more seminars in the Bozeman area. Decades later, FREE's seminars attract leaders in environmental science, jurisprudence, and public policy. Several Nobel laureates have attended my programs.

We benefit from, celebrate, and encourage the progress of Montana State University. Although meddling by politicians killed the environmental policy center, MSU has since developed several internationally acclaimed institutes, e.g., the Center for Biofilm Engineering and the Thermal Biology Institute.

FREE explores incentives and institutions that promote environmental quality. We harmonize ecological and economic well-being. While our programs are explicitly pro-environment, they explain why ecological values should not trump all others, e.g. health research. Tradeoffs are inescapable. Only the ethically and politically naive pretend such choices can be avoided.

Yet several activist organizations, in particular the Community Rights Counsel (CRC), generate financial support by discrediting our federal judges programs. They have orchestrated four hit pieces in the Washington Post and a segment on ABC News. We have sent the CRC lists of speakers and the content of our seminars and I have twice visited their D.C. office. Yet they ignore evidence, label us as environmental enemies, and attack judges who attend our seminars. They somehow justify lying about both our funding and substance to promote their vision of "ecology."

FREE's incentive-based orientation challenges subsidized environmental exploitation, e.g., mine-reclamation bonds that underestimate or conceal the true risks involved. We explain the importance of removing subsidies that foster ecological damage. We advocate sound science and environmental entrepreneurship. Our positions are strongly supported by informed and concerned environmentalists.

FREE's programs help judges make socially and environmentally responsible choices in a highly contentious arena. Professionals with Environmental Defense, Defenders of Wildlife, and the National Wildlife Federation regularly lecture at our judges seminars. Progressive environmental organizations share our views on the value of economic and risk analysis. Only a pitiful few are fossilized in the 1960s.

Here are comments from Hank Fischer of Defenders of Wildlife: "I'm chagrined to hear that FREE is under attack by people who claim it is a tool of the radical right and big business. They clearly know nothing of your organization and certainly have never attended any of your programs."

He continues: "Over the last 20 years I have attended several FREE programs, including a seminar for federal judges where I made a presentation. I've never attended a FREE function that wasn't both intellectually stimulating and fair-minded. Moreover, I have never attended a FREE program that didn't feature a full array of viewpoints. For instance, at [my] judges seminar … the judges also heard from Michael Bean of Environmental Defense (one of the nation's most respected endangered species experts) and Doug Honnold of Earth Justice (one of the nation's leading environmental litigants)."

Federal judges face many attractive opportunities. We're flattered that so many choose to allocate their limited discretionary time with us. I appreciate their willingness to lecture (without pay) at our law professors seminars. We are pleased that so many judges, law professors, and environmental professionals support our programs. I'm delighted that MSU is adding its intellectual resources to this effort, now in its second decade, to educate some of America's most respected and influential opinion leaders and decision makers.