Duke Energy Quits Coal Group Over Its Opposition to Climate Action

by Emily Gertz

categories: Astroturf, Clean Energy, Fossil Energy, Jobs & Economy, Policy & Legislation

Published September 02, 2009 @ 07:01PM PT

Above: Pro-coal lobby's "Clean Coal Carolers" campaign was last December's Christmas jeer.

Major electric utility Duke Energy has left a prominent coal industry lobby group over the group's opposition to climate change action. But some critics wonder why its CEO is still involved with another business group that's determined to derail energy policy reform.

Citing disagreements with "influential member companies who will not support passing climate change legislation in 2009 or 2010," Charlotte, N.C.-based Duke yesterday announced that it would drop out of the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity, reports the National Journal.

Duke Energy's move has cheered prominent voices in the climate change blogosphere, but only to a point.

ACCCE, despite the grassrootsy name, is Astroturf: a front group for dozens of coal, utility and railroad companies. It was formed to promote the largely oxymoronic "clean coal" meme, toward derailing passage of strong federal climate legislation and renewable energy standards. (ACCCE is the group that mounted the (in)famous ad campaign last December, featuring cutie-pie lumps of coal caroling pro-coal-power holiday tunes. The campaign was pulled amid heavy criticism from eco-advocates.)

Brendan DeMille suggests that Duke's move may mean the ACCCE is collapsing from within. "Duke did the right thing. The company realized that its membership in ACCCE did not square with its role with the U.S. Climate Action Partnership (USCAP), a coalition of industry and environmental groups working together to support federal action on climate change," writes DeMille.  DeMille also notes that Duke recently quit the National Association of Manufacturers as well, in part because of that group’s active opposition to climate legislation.

Duke CEO Jim Rogers is a prominent advocate from within the energy industry for greenhouse gas caps and reductions. But Wonk Room's Brad Johnson accuses Duke of playing both sides of the issue: "[Rogers] still sits on the board of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce — alongside right-wing climate deniers Don Blankenship, Harry Alford, and George Argyros — which is spending tens of millions of dollars to kill clean energy jobs."

The USCOC's opposition to Obama administration clean energy policies verges on the epic. Trying to create a PR splash, the Chamber recently demanded that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency put climate science on trial, a la the famous Scopes Monkey Trial of 1925, to justify its position that human-caused carbon dioxide is a dangerous pollutant. (The EPA has responded that such an exercise would be a waste of money and time.)

Johnson lists several other groups that are members of both USCAP and the USCOC.

But as Grist's Dave Roberts notes, while the COC knows how to play hardball on behalf of the "corporate class,"

...many business see enormous opportunities in the shift to clean energy. Many businesses want the stability and predictability [energy and climate legislation] would bring. And many of those businesses happen to be members of the CoC.

In May, several of them, including Nike and Johnson & Johnson, dealt the CoC a very public smack on the nose, asking it to quit speaking on behalf of “business” when lobbying on behalf of a few dirty-energy industries.

This kind if dissension in the ranks is new and embarrassing for the CoC.

How to account for this foot on both sides behavior? Are companies like Duke and Nike trying to have the best of both worlds -- looking enviro-saintly while doing business as usual -- or are they doing the best they can in an economic system that's stacked against the climate's best interests?