Fossil Energy
Astroturf Energy Campaign Plan Fractures Oil Industry
Published August 15, 2009 @ 01:15PM PT
Related posts:
- Join the real grassroots movement to get action on climate change
- Bill McKibben: 'There finally is climate change activism' and anyone can join
- Conservatives Point Astroturf Campaign at Climate-Energy Reform
- Coal Lobby Group Faked Grassroots Opposition to Climate Bill
The leak of an American Petroleum Institute memo that details plans to turn out thousands at supposed "Energy Citizens" rallies in coming weeks -- in reality, energy industry-sponsored rallies designed to derail energy policy reform -- is apparently exposing fissures within the powerful oil lobby group's own membership.
According to Jim Pickard and Kate Mackenzie in the Financial Times, while "core members" of API, like fossil energy giant ExxonMobil, support the plan, it's being rejected by those who are members of the US Climate Action Partnership, a business-environmental group coalition that supports many of President Obama's climate and energy policies.
API member Shell backs USCAP's position and is refusing to join the astroturf effort, reports FT, because the company believes solving global warming is "the pro-growth strategy." Other overlapping USCAP/API members include General Electric, Siemens, BP America and Conoco-Phillips. “The truth is that the API is all over the place on this issue, there is nowhere near a unanimous view,” a source inside the oil industry told FT's reporters.
The smoking gun memo is signed by API president and CEO Jack Gerard. In it, he asks all API members to organize and turn out their employees at least two events during the Congressional recess, aimed at swing vote or vulnerable senators in "11 states with a significant industry presence and 10 other states where we have assets on the ground."
Gerard seems to make clear in the memo that API is underwriting much of the effort, even though it has recruited allies from related industries:
To be clear, API will provide the up-front resources to ensure logistical issues do not become a problem. This includes contracting with a highly experienced events management company that has produced successful rallies for presidential campaigns, corporations and interest groups. It also includes coordination with the other interests who share our views on the issues, providing a field coordinator in each state, conducting a comprehensive communications and advocacy activation plan for each state, and serving as central manager for all events.
(USCAP's stance has also fractured the environmental advocacy sector, to some extent. Check out this January 2009 back and forth between Joe Romm of progressive think tank Center for American Progress, who essentially calls USCAP's position a sellout, and NRDC Climate Center director Dave Hawkins, who says it's a pragmatic position that will result in strong emissions controls and transformation of our energy economy.)
Conservatives Point Astroturf Campaign at Climate-Energy Reform
Published August 12, 2009 @ 01:31PM PT
Above: President Barack Obama arrives at a town hall meeting at Portsmouth High School in Portsmouth, N.H., to speak about health care reform, Tuesday, Aug. 11, 2009. Official White House photo by Pete Souza.
FreedomWorks is the conservative campaign consultancy that's been inciting people to violence with distortions about the Obama administration's health-care reform effort.
Apparently it's going to bring the same shrewd astroturfing and flexibile definition of accuracy to blocking climate and energy legislation. And the American Petroleum Institute, the American Farm Bureau, the American Highway Users Alliance, and other very interested business-and-industry groups will be footing the bill.
Reporting today for Greenwire, Alex Kaplun writes that this industry coalition is employing conservative advocacy firms, including FreedomWorks, to kick off a faux-grassroots campaign next week called "Energy Citizens." The effort will target Democratic senators who are on the fence about enacting climate legislation. "A list of planned events obtained by E&E shows rallies in the Midwest and the South," writes Kaplun. 'Two rallies are set for New Mexico, home of Senate Energy and Natural Resources Chairman Jeff Bingaman (D). Others are schedule Id for Indiana, Michigan, Missouri, Ohio, Pennsylvania and several Southern and Plains states."
Ian Talley of Dow Jones Newswires reports that rallies will be organized in about 20 states, targeting Blue Dog Democrats including Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, and Mark Begich, D-Alaska. Other states include Texas, New Mexico, South Carolina, South Dakota and Georgia.
To get people out to the events, the campaign is distributing materials that claim the Waxman-Markey climate and enegy bill, which passed the House this past spring, will eliminate 1.2 to 2.3 million jobs in America; raise gas prices to $4 a gallon; and demonize a cap-and-trade market for greenhouse gas emissions as an "energy tax" that will cost ratepayers $800-1,300 a year.
While all these figures are off base, that last is particularly disingenuous (a polite way of saying it's a flat-out lie, I suppose), since it's based on an MIT economic study whose own author has asked Republicans to stop misusing his work to make their case against cap-and-trade.
"What do you think of President Obama's campaign to raise taxes on oil companies?" someone off-camera asks "Bruce, a Colorado resident," on the Energy Citizens YouTube Channel. Bruce is almost aggressively a regular guy, from the earth-toned crocheted afghan draped over a chair in his living room, to the amateur-quality video lighting that turns his face into a giant, peachy golden-pink orb, to his apparently unscripted willingness to shill for fossil energy companies:
If you want to inhibit our nation's ability to develop its own natural resources, then tax away. If you want to incent the process, then you'll remove tax burdens and access burdens, and let the oil companies produce and generate additional revenues for the government, just on the basis of their increased productivity.
The campaign is even supplying adherents with a pre-packaged tweet: Congress: Don't raise energy taxes. Higher taxes = fewer jobs & diminished #energy security. http://sn.im/fg4m1
How can climate action advocates counter this oncoming wave of misinformation?
One good start: The White House can learn a lesson from health care reform about the depths reactionaries will go to incite fear, uncertainty, doubt and borderline violence about change. Start busting the myths, setting up town halls, and doing prime time press conferences right now about climate and energy policy reform, before the astroturf campaign sinks its roots too deeply into the national debate.
Demanding Closure of W. Va's "Department of Encouraging Pollution"
Published August 11, 2009 @ 09:55AM PT
Related Actions:
- We Don't Need More Dirty Coal! Urge Congress to oppose the construction of new coal-fired power plants unless they feature carbon capture technologies.
- Help Save The Cerulean Warbler: Support Senate Bill 696 to stop mountaintop removal coal mining
- Tell Sec. Salazar to to protect streams and rivers in Appalachia
Four protestors were arrested this morning after they chained themselves to the entrance of the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection (DEP), in Charleston. Saying that the state is not properly regulating mountaintop removal mining of coal in the state, they demanded the resignation of DEP secretary Randy Huffman that the agency turn control of key mining-related programs to the federal government. Reportedly dozens of people appeared at the demonstration.
As one local news outlet reports, "The WVDEP simply fails to adequately regulate the coal industry,” said Rock Creek resident Lorelei Scarbro, one of the demonstrators. “When WVDEP Secretary Randy Huffman runs off to lobby the EPA to grant illegal valley fill permits, he’s abdicated his responsibility to the people. Corporate coal influence has become so great inside the WVDEP that he has become a public relations spokesperson for the coal industry instead of an enforcer of mining laws and regulations.”
The Applalachian Center for the Economy and the Environment, Coal River Mountain Watch, Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition, West Virginia Highlands Conservancy, and Sierra Club have filed a petition asking that the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), as well as the US Office of Surface Mining, Reclamation and Enforcement (OSMRE), take over enforcement of a crucial enviro protection rule, mandating that all mining activities leave a 100 foot buffer zone around both perennial and intermittent streams.
This rule has been in contention for over a decade. Most recently, the Bush administration essentially eliminated the buffer zone mandate, and the Obama administration moved to reverse that rule change. But the administration has yet to state firmly that it will enforce the rule, when it comes to filling nearby valleys with the waste from mountaintop removal mining operations.
According to reporter/blogger Ken Ward Jr. at The Charleston Gazette, "Of course, various administrations over at the WVDEP has always argued that the rule does not apply to valley fill footprints and, if it did, the rule would essentially end all coal mining."
The impacts of climate change and fossil fuel dependence are still abstract to many Americans. Not so in West Virginia, however, where mountaintop-removal mining of coal has created post-apocalyptic landscapes worthy of 1970s sci-fi. Protestors say there have been around a dozen protests this year alone against the destructive mining method, organized by grassroots groups like Mountain Justice, and over 90 arrests for civil disobedience.
Read more:
- Breaking: Coalfield Uprising Grows, More Sit-ins: Will Feds Take Down WVA's Embarrassing DEP? The Huffington Post
- "Protesters chain themselves to DEP building," The Charleston Gazette
- Coal Tattoo blog at The Charleston Gazette
- "Appalachian Uprising continues in fight against Mountaintop Removal," Coal is Dirty blog
- "Protestors Arrested at DEP Headquarters", The State Journal
- "Protest at DEP Ends in Four Arrests," WSAZ News Channel 3
Fatalistic Friday: Glaciers shrink, coal lobby spends, more
Published August 07, 2009 @ 06:03PM PT
Retreat of South Cascade Glacier, Washington, during the 20th Century and the beginning of the 21st Century. Source: U.S. Geological Survey
Scientists See Alaska, Washington Glaciers Shrinking Fast: Three major glaciers in Alaska and Washington state have thinned and shrunk dramatically, clear signs of a warming climate and signaling lower stream flows in summer months, according to a study released Thursday by the U.S. Geological Survey. (Associated Press)
Coal's biggest lobbying group is launching a $1 million campaign to win support from Senate Democrats, an effort that employs the same public relations firm ensnared by a scandal over forged letters to Congress. (Greenwire)
Climate Action May Stall in Fall: With the fight over health care reform absorbing all attention on Capitol Hill, Democrats fear climate change legislation may lose momentum. (Politico)
Realtors Get Labels Cut From Climate Bill for Older Houses: Real estate industry gets older homes exempted from energy labeling provision of energy and climate legislation, saying it threatened a lucrative corner of their industry. (Climatewire)
The Trouble With Nuclear Fuel: Nukes represent a promising bridge from fossil fuels to truly clean energy technologies. But it's really hard to prevent it from being used to make bombs. (The Economist)
Some California Amphibians May Need a Lift to Survive Climate Change:
As amphibian habitat shifts with global warming, some species will be trapped in shrinking territories, and need human interventions to survive. (Scientific American)
"Serious" Climate Talks Hinge On U.S. Bill: The success or failure of international climate treaty talks depends upon the U.S. passing a strong bill to slash carbon pollution, says American Clean Energy and Security Act co-sponsor Edward Markey (D-Mass.) (Reuters)
Tiny Prairie Grouse Native To Wind-Rich Swath Of America: If the lesser prairie chicken is listed as threatened or endangered – the species' numbers have dropped 80 percent nationally since 1963 – significant restrictions would be placed on companies hoping to plant towering turbines across a five-state region believed to have some of the nation's best wind energy potential. (The Dallas Morning News)
Climate Bill Demands Pile Up for Boxer, Kerry Headed Into Summer Break: "Liberal Democrats, for example, want stronger emission targets compared with the House-passed bill. Coal-state senators are pressing for changes to a delicately crafted House deal that would send their electric utilities a larger share of free allocations. And expanded energy production sits atop the wish list for oil patch Democrats." (Climatewire)
Nobel Halo Fades Fast for Climate Change Panel: As the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change gears up for its next climate review, many specialists in climate science and policy, both inside and out of the network, are warning that it could quickly lose relevance unless it adjusts its methods and focus. (The New York Times)
Coal Lobby Group Faked Grassroots Opposition to Climate Bill
Published August 04, 2009 @ 11:52AM PT
Last week news broke that one of the most prominent coal lobby groups, the cheerfully named "American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity," was responsible for forged grassroots letters to Congress in opposition to the American Clean Energy and Security Act, the clean energy and climate action bill sponsored by Reps. Henry Waxman and Edward Markey.
Now, as Politico reports, Rep. Markey (D-Mass.) is calling for an investigation into ACCCE's fraud, part of its $45 million media and lobbying campaign to support coal-based electricity.
Mr. Markey, whose House Subcommittee on Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming has subpoena power, has sent an investigative letter to Bonner & Associates, which contracted with ACCCE with Hawthorn Group, a "grassroots contractor" hired by ACCCE to do campaign work, listing 12 detailed questions about the fraudulent letters.
At least 3 Representatives received 12 forged letters prior to the ACES vote in June, purporting to come from 8 grassroots groups, including the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), which in fact is calling for strong action by Congress on stopping global warming and promoting green economy jobs.
"The letters, replete with letterhead and made-up identities, purported to be from Virginian minority organizations including the NAACP," writes ThinkProgress, which has put copies of the letters online.
"My organization Creciendo Juntos represents minorities in your district. You are about to vote on important environmental legislation (the Waxman-Markey bill)," reads one to Rep. Tom Perrielo. "We ask you to help protect minorities and other consumers in your district from higher electricity bills." It's signed by "Marisse K. Acevado, Asst Member Coordinator."
"Perriello was not the only congressman to receive forged letters urging him to oppose the so-called cap-and-trade legislation," reports The Daily Progress of Charlottesville, Va. "Reps. Kathy Dahlkemper and Christopher Carney, both of Pennsylvania, also received falsified letters that originated at Bonner & Associates, the clean coal advocacy group said."
ACCCE's put responsiblity on Bonner & Associates, which has used underhanded tactics before to undermine health policy reforms that threatened corporate profits. "This incident demonstrates the incredible lengths that the vested interests of health care and energy are willing to go through to undermine reform. With Congress going on recess soon, more of these astroturf tactics will undoubtedly occur as corporate backed anti-reform groups gather in Congressional districts throughout the country to obstruct health care and clean energy reform," writes Think Progress, which lists several of B&A's past astroturf frauds.
The Institute for Southern Studies' Facing South blog notes that ACCCE has itself been pretty hands-on with the misleading lobby techniques:
Last year, we reported that the group was behind phone calls urging recipients to oppose an earlier version of the climate legislation -- and that at least one of the calls misrepresented the organization.
Last May, Pete MacDowell with the N.C. Waste Awareness and Reduction Network reported receiving a call from a woman who identified herself as being from Americans for Balanced Energy Choices, which a month previously had merged with the Center for Energy and Economic Development to form ACCCE. MacDowell said the caller asked to add his name to a fax to Sens. Lieberman and Warner, the legislation's sponsors:
When I asked who ABEC was, I was told that they were individuals concerned about utility rates. When I asked if they were an environmental group, the answer was "yes." When I asked whether they were related to the utilities, the answer was "No."
After publishing our story about the deceptive call, we heard from Steve Gates, ACCCE's communication director. He blamed a new staff member who decided to "wing it" when asked some off-the-script questions and said the person was "no longer working on this project," as we reported in a follow-up story."
History repeats: Bonner is trying to shunt culpability for the more recent fradulent letters onto a temp employee gone rogue.
Believe it if you like. But just as a counterpoint, watch as Jon Stewart and The Daily Show nail the workings of the "outrage-generating ecosystem," when it comes to blocking health care reform:
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
| Master Rebators - The Crank Cycle | ||||
|
||||
If these reforms are so awful on the merits, why do industry lobby groups spend tens of millions and invent popular opposition to try and defeat them?
Enviroknow has a good timeline of developments in this story, with lots of links.
Fatalistic Friday: 'Cash for Clunkers' could save 16 mpg Hummer
Published July 24, 2009 @ 11:02AM PT
Source: failblog
It's been an unusually fertile week for apocalypcious news, so let's dive right in:
'Cash For Clunkers' Program Could Boost Hummer: People who trade in their gas guzzlers for more fuel-efficient cars can get a government subsidy -- even if they trade in old pickups for ones that get just 2 miles per gallon more. Which means the program could provide an unexpected boost to the beleaguered Hummer brand. Its H3T pickup gets 16 mpg. (NPR)
Related:
Cash for Clunkers: Compare the fuel savings (Consumer Reports)
Cars.gov, the official cash for clunkers website
Energy companies opened wallets wide to sway house climate bill: Electric utilities boosted lobbying in the second quarter of 2009, narrowing the gap with oil and gas companies that had dominated spending on persuasion by a wide margin earlier this year. (Greenwire/The New York Times)
Grist grades senate websites on climate transparency; flunks some: Grist combed the Web sites of 99 senators and issued report cards grading them on how well they explained the senators' positions on climate change and energy. "The results aren't pretty. We found a distinct lack of information among Democrats and Republicans alike, senators with and without strong environmental voting records, and from all regions of the country." (Grist)
Meet Belcha - Europe's biggest carbon polluter (and it's about to get even bigger): The biggest single producer of carbon emissions in the European Union has been named - and it is about to get even bigger. The appropriately titled Elektrownia Belchatow - a massive coal-fired power station - belched out 30,862,792 tonnes of CO2 last year and by 2010 the whole generating facility will have grown by 20%. (The Guardian)
Sea Ice Melting Faster Than Expected: A NASA study finds that Arctic ice is melting at a rate that scientists didn't anticipate. (Environment Report)
Massive Glacier In Sub-Antarctic Island Shrinks By A Fifth: French scientists say satellites show a glacier on a southern Indian Ocean island shrunk dramatically in recent decades. They think global warming may be a factor. (AFP)
Warmest june on record for global ocean surface temperature: The world's ocean surface temperature in June rose to its warmest since 1880, breaking the previous high mark set in 2005, according to a preliminary analysis by NOAA's National Climatic Data Center in Asheville. (Environment News Service)
Arctic Mystery: Identifying The Great Blob Of Alaska: The mysterious, miles-long "blob" found floating in the Chukchi Sea is not an oil spill or alien life-form, according to early tests, but an unusual algal bloom. (TIME)
Caribou Populations Fall Sharply: Scientists are finding what seems to be a global decline in caribou populations, due to global warming (Christian Science Monitor)
Shrinking fish, dying sequoias, rampant tomato fungus, and more after the jump.
Violence Escalating Against Anti-Coal Activists
Published July 23, 2009 @ 08:28AM PT
Above: The devastated landscape of a mountaintop coal removal site. Source: Wikimedia Commons
Coal is the dirtiest fuel around, which is why movements are springing up across the country to end our reliance on this supremely destructive fossil fuel. The epicenter of this movement is Appalachia, which once produced two-thirds of America's coal.
These activists are often being met with hostility and even violence by the coal miners and their families, tens of thousands of whom still rely on King Coal to put bread on the table.
The frontline in the fight is no doubt West Virginia, the heart of Appalachian coal country, where a constellation of small, citizen-led groups have been working to stop environmentally devastating mountaintop removal mining. Among them are some of the environmental movement’s biggest heroes: Maria Gunnoe, of the Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition, received a 2009 Goldman Prize (sometimes called the "green Nobel") for her work to stop mountaintop removal in her native West Virginia. She's pursued this work despite harrassment and threats of violence from coal miners.
Another West Virgininan woman honored with a 2003 Goldman Prize is Judy Bonds, founder of Coal River Mountain Watch.
Violence and intimidation against these and other activists in West Virginia's moutaintop removal country are escalating. In late June, Ms. Bonds was violently attacked by the wife of a coal miner. She was participating in a nonviolent march to support an elementary school that sits downslope from 2.8 billion gallons of coal sludge and a coal prep site operated by Massey Energy, a company with mountaintop removal mining operations in the area The woman hit Bonds around her head, ear and jaw, and also attempted to attack another protestor, Lorelei Scarbro, a coal miner’s widow and local community organizer.
