For years, environmentalists had opposed building an upscale shopping and entertainment complex in Carlstadt, N.J., because it would require filling more than 90 acres of marshland that is home to rare waterfowl and other wildlife. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service opposed it for the same reasons, then reversed itself as part of a federal endorsement of the complex engineered by the White House.

Executives of the development company, Mills Corp., and a spokesman for Gore denied that there was any connection between the endorsement of the project and the campaign contributions.

Once the site of unrestricted development and huge mounds of garbage alongside the New Jersey Turnpike, the 8,000 or so undeveloped acres in the New Jersey Meadowlands are gradually being reclaimed. Because that acreage is primarily wetlands, the federal government has to approve any development there.

The various federal agencies involved could not agree on whether Mills and other developers should be allowed to build in the Meadowlands. So the White House Council on Environmental Quality took the lead in trying to resolve the question and brokered the endorsement.

The council is closely affiliated with Gore, who has made environmental protection a top issue.

According to federal records, Mills executives contributed to the Gore campaign on April 28 and 29, 1999, within a week after White House staffers coordinated the endorsement that improved the mall's prospects. The contributions had been solicited by the Gore campaign in February 1999, according to a company executive.

Staffers at the White House Council on Environmental Quality said that they briefed Gore on the project as the agreement was being negotiated but that he made no effort to influence the decision.

Environmentalists voiced outrage, however, and said the White House was going against its commitment to save wetlands. "This is a good example of special-interest money trying to influence public policy," said Jeff Tittle, director of the New Jersey chapter of the Sierra Club, which wants the affected area set aside as a wildlife reserve. "New Jersey needs more malls like Washington needs more bureaucrats."

Jim Kennedy, a Gore spokesman, said Thursday that the contributions played no role in shaping federal policy. He said the decision struck a balance between preserving open space and private property rights. The federal agreement in some ways went against the developer, he added, because it halved the size of the project, which originally was more than 200 acres.

"There is certainly no connection between anyone's contributions and the administration's work on this management plan," Kennedy said. "The White House became involved at the request of environmentalists and helped fashion a solution which benefits the environment and in fact bars the Mills Corp. from building the mall it had planned."

Brad Campbell, then with the White House environmental council, said Gore was briefed on the proposal simply to prepare him for questions from the news media in New Jersey.

James Dausch, a vice president for development at Mills, said the company had been trying to get approval for the mall project from the necessary state and federal agencies for more than five years.

"There wasn't any connection" between the contributions and the federal decision, he said.

Mills executives have not been big political donors in recent years. Their contributions to candidates in federal races totaled only $36,500 from 1995 through 1998, according to an analysis by the Center for Responsive Politics, a watchdog group that tracks money in politics.

Their donations jumped last year to $48,250, in large measure because of the contributions to the Gore campaign.

Dausch said the executives made the donations as a result of a solicitation from the Gore campaign. A source familiar with the matter who asked not to be identified said the funds were solicited by Peter Knight, a former pharmaceutical industry lobbyist and a friend of Gore's who is also a major Democratic Party fund-raiser.

Dausch said the executives discussed the matter but decided individually what to do. A company spokesman, David D'Onofrio, said the solicitation came in February. He said Mills did not reimburse the executives and their relatives.

Under federal law, it is illegal for companies to contribute directly to federal political candidates, but employees are free to make donations on their own.

For much of this year, when Democrats had hoped to put Republican George W. Bush on the defensive about his campaign fund-raising, Gore has been forced to defend his own fund-raising tactics. A senior Justice Department official has called for a special counsel to investigate Gore's fund-raising.

The April 22, 1999, decision by the federal Environmental Protection Agency and other state and federal agencies to give preliminary endorsement to the New Jersey project was a step forward for Mills.

There were other benefits for the developer. The preliminary endorsement said that although the mall would need permits from state and federal agencies, there was a heavy presumption that those permits would be granted.

And unlike most other development sites proposed for the Meadowlands, Mills would not have to look for ways to further minimize the amount of wetlands it proposed to fill, a standard requirement for wetlands projects.

"We are going to be fighting this tooth and nail," said Tittle of the Sierra Club. Of the vice president, he said: "Mr. Environment has gone AWOL on this one."

Inquirer staff writer Josh Goldstein contributed to this article.