Q. & A.: Campaigning in an Age of Deadlock All environmental politics is local, and local politics can be fierce, particularly at the Sierra Club. Witness members" outrage over the revelation in February that the group had accepted $26 million for its "Beyond Coal" campaign from a natural gas company, Chesapeake Energy. Chesapeake is one of the biggest players in the controversial business of fracking deep rock structures to free embedded natural gas. At the same time came a declaration by the club's executive director, Michael Brune, who had succeeded Carl Pope in the job in 2010, that the group had stopped accepting Chesapeake money after he took over. The loss of the funding came as the club was confronting a decline in dues-paying members. After peaking at 780,000 in 2004, membership had dropped to 601,000 by last year. From 2007 though 2010, the Chesapeake grant amounted to eight percent of the club's annual inflow of contributions. A $50 million donation from Mayor Michael Bloomberg of New York City helped to offset some of turned down funds. Last month Mr. Brune sat down and offered his views on many subjects local and national, including the Obama administration's abandonment of an Environmental Protection Agency proposal to curb emissions of smog-causing chemicals, and the E.P.A."s subsequent adoption of a rule to make utilities cut emissions of toxic mercury. Here are excerpts, edited for brevity and clarity. In relation to the campaign against new coal plants, what can you do now that you could not do, say, 25 years ago? Compared with 25 years ago, we have a much bigger staff working on this; we have a much better-trained corps of volunteers. The knowledge that we've built in stopping new coal plants from being built has made us a much more potent, well-informed, sophisticated force for changing energy markets. And what can you not do now that you could do 25 years ago? I would say it is much more challenging for us to find and collaborate with people across the ideological spectrum. For a group like the Sierra Club that has historically built alliances across the aisle, that has worked with not just tree-huggers form Berkeley or Amherst but hunters and anglers and ranchers and farmers, the politicization of almost every issue we work on makes it hard to collaborate across ideological lines. What is there less emphasis on as you put more emphasis on coal? We didn't shift $50 million from saving salamanders to working on coal. It was an infusion of new cash. Like most groups, we have less unrestricted funding that enables us to be flexible. So more and more of your funding is coming dedicated to a specific purpose. So if there's an oil spill, we have a much more limited ability to jump on that. I looked at the club's tax returns for the period of the Chesapeake Energy contributions and it showed, if I read them right, a decline in general membership contributions starting slightly before the 2008 economic downturn. The Chesapeake money saved you from a stair-step decline in revenues. Am I reading those returns right? If you look at how many members we have, there was a big buildup in the 1990s that peaked around the dot-com bubble. Then we tanked for a while. And then built up again to 2004-5. And then slowly declined. Last year, we bottomed out and now it's slowly increasing. Welcome to my challenge. In terms of the club's finances over all, how important was the Chesapeake money? It was huge. It was $26 million. Those are extraordinary-size gifts for any nonprofit. It had a very big impact. It allowed the anti-coal campaign to scale up, to hire a bunch of organizers and communications staff and lawyers. It paid for training of local groups. And it helped the Sierra Club build a very strong record of resisting the expansion of coal-fired power plants. In a post-Chesapeake world, you still have the same priorities vis-à-vis coal? The same priorities, but there aren't as many new coal plants to fight so we are focusing on existing ones. How do you make up for the loss of the Chesapeake money? We diversified our funding; we found a bunch of other donors to increase their investment into the campaign. Bloomberg being one prominent donor. But other donors also increased their gifts. The Sierra Club has always been a contentious place... Laughs ... with strong-minded, passionate people. What's your philosophy for dealing with the strain when the local chapters have a different policy interest from where the national is going? Listen carefully. That's the heart of my philosophy. And remembering that a local Sierra Club member holds in their heart the idea that the Sierra Club should be fighting for what's right in their community. My job is to honor that. The challenge is when there's a conflict between different local entities or a national and local perspective. Then you need to listen even more closely to find out where there is common ground. One argument you inherited is where to put concentrated solar power plants in the desert. There is an irreducible minimum of people who are not going to be satisfied. Listening and showing respect helps to validate the perspective of these local groups, many of whom have been leaders, national leaders, in the effort to save millions of acres in the desert and protect some of the most beautiful and ecologically important areas in the country. We can't avoid having conflict altogether, but when we have it we can try to make it less damaging. The best that I can do is communicate clearly why a particular decision was made, to be honest about the negative consequences of that decision from a different perspective, and then take the heat. And breathe deeply when I'm getting it. Do you see a way out of the national political deadlock and the effort to marginalize environmental concerns, once we are past this election? Well, yes and no. I see a way out in terms of the issues we're working on. Whether or not there's a way out in the political tone in the Senate or inside the Beltway or just in most places across the country, I don't have a clear vision on that. It will take a small set of leaders on both sides of the aisle to change the conversation. Is Barack Obama one of those leaders? He hasn't been a disappointment to you? I actually think that he did an excellent job of helping to foster a healthier, more respectful debate. I continue to think that he does a good job pulling ideas from both sides of the aisle, giving credit for those ideas, attempting to build personal relationships. The criticism I would have is the administration has been too self-critical.There's no way that one side can unilaterally change the nature of the debate. About strictly environmental policies, I would say we are mostly pleased with most of the things the administration has done most of the time. And when weren't you? I can give some examples of when I was and when I wasn't. Just in the last six months. The mercury rule. Twenty-one years in the making, probably the single most effective rule to reduce air pollution in a generation. Will have a big impact on public health. Huge rule. Will have a big impact on coal-fired power plants. The car fuel efficiency rules. Historic. They will cut gas prices in half because they will be doubling fuel efficiency. But? Ozone? I would put at the top of the heap that he could have led much more strongly on the climate bill. In the absence of that, there hasn't been strong and aggressive leadership on climate issues. The second thing: The response to oil spill was a little weak, and I'd like to see a more inspiring, bolder goal. We'd like to see a stronger goal on reducing oil consumption. A lot less focus on drilling and a lot more focus on getting us off oil. The ozone rule? Yes, that was a slap in the face. A clear opportunity to protect public health. Ample amounts of scientific data ignored. And dropped at the last minute.