Michael Hardiman
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Michael Hardiman founded Hardiman Consulting[1], a public relations and lobbying company in 1999 after a seven-year stint working as press secretary and adviser for Congressman Richard Pombo (R-CA) on endangered species and other natural resources issues. [2]
Hardiman Consulting's lobbying clients [3] have included the American Trucking Association, the American Conservative Union, the American Land Rights Association (ALRA) and Grasslyn Farms. He has also done work for the National Federation of Independent Business [4] and other entities in non-lobbying roles.
Hardiman has testified before United States Senate and House committees, state legislatures and local governments on land use issues. [5] [6] [7] [8] [9][10]He was named Advocate of the Year by the Property Rights Foundation of America (PRFA) for his role in defeating a $47 billion land acquisition trust fund proposed in congress. [11] He has been an invited speaker at PRFA's and other organizations' conventions on several subjects including legislation and congressional affairs, public relations and grassroots organizing[12][13][14][15]. He is named annually to the Heritage Foundation's Public Policy Experts directory [16] and was acknowledged as a contributor to the first International Property Rights Index [17] in 2007.
In June 2002, Hardiman, wearing his ALRA hat, co-signed a letter initiated by the Competitive Enterprise Institute to George W. Bush taking issue with the Environmental Protection Agency's scientific assessment of climate change. In 2003, Hardiman and 32 other co-signatories wrote to House International Relations Committee Chairman Henry Hyde expressing their concern "about the approach Congress is taking to climate change policy". [18]
On September 3, 2002, he founded and served as Executive Director of Public Interest Watch (PIW), a group that lobbied the Internal Revenue Service to withdraw the charitable tax-status for environmental groups such as Greenpeace, the Rainforest Action Network and the Dogwood Alliance.
In January 2004, Hardiman left PIW to work in Iraq as a civilian employee of the U.S. Department of Defense [19] and remained in Iraq through late 2005 as a U.S. Department of State employee.
Hardiman worked for the National Federation of Independent Business[20] in early 2006. He then re-established his public relations and lobbying operation, Hardiman Consulting. Included among his current clients is the American Land Rights Association, for which he registered to lobby in July 2006.
