LOBBYISTS

[irishbobcat]

LOBBYISTS
Polluting The Debate

Just as "death panels" and "swastikas" poison the debate over President Obama's health care reform agenda in town hall meetings across America, oil and coal interests are polluting Obama's effort to pass clean energy reform. Through a variety of front groups, companies like ExxonMobil, Chevron, Peabody Coal, and Koch Industries are fueling misinformation about global warming and fear about clean energy solutions. Lobbyists and public relations firms have established websites and Twitter feeds while crisscrossing the nation on "clean coal" and "energy citizens" tours. The oil industry's "American Energy Express" bus tour has now joined the coal industry's "Factuality" bus tour, going to state fairs and political events. A "Hot Air" balloon tour attacking "global warming alarmism" is being run by Koch's Americans for Prosperity, the polluter-funded group behind "tea party" protests and "hands off my health care" rallies. When the groups can't find enough radical right-wing activists to support their message, they resort to deception and intimidation. The coal industry forged letters to Congress opposing the American Clean Energy and Security Act, and oil company employees are being bused to rallies that attack the legislation as a job-killing menace. Conservative oil- and coal-powered millionaires are willing to go to any lengths to convince Americans that pollution standards are instead energy taxes, using methods as dirty as their fossil fuels.

DIRTY ENERGY FRAUD: The coal industry's prime lobbying group, the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity (ACCCE), is spending over $40 million on a campaign to defeat clean energy reform. Bonner & Associates, a conservative PR firm working for ACCCE, sent forged letters this June to several members of Congress purporting to be from black, Hispanic, womens' and senior citizens' groups telling them to vote against the American Clean Energy and Security Act, despite the act's $60 billion support for coal technology. ACCCE knew about the fraud days before the pivotal House vote on the energy legislation, but kept silent until Rep. Tom Perriello (D-VA) independently discovered the forgeries a month later. While announcing that ACCCE was firing Bonner & Associates, spokesman Joe Lucas claimed last week that his organization "did nothing wrong." Meanwhile, ACCCE continues to employ the notorious voter-fraud company Lincoln Strategy Group to run its "grassroots" campaign. Staffers have been hired across the nation to plant questions at town hall meetings while a "Factuality" tour distributes "clean coal" propaganda. ACCCE's members include General Electric, Duke Energy, and Caterpillar, who as members of the U.S. Climate Action Partnership have claimed to support aggressive climate action.

DIRTY ENERGY LOBBYISTS: The American oil industry, working with a coalition of business interests, is manufacturing rallies in opposition to clean energy reform. The American Petroleum Institute (API) is busing oil industry employees to "Energy Citizen" rallies targeting U.S. Senators in 21 states. API's membership, which includes ExxonMobil, GE, and Halliburton, has joined "allies from a broad range of interests: the Chamber of Commerce and National Association of Manufacturing, the trucking industry, the agricultural sector, small business, and many others" to create company picnics disguised as grassroots rallies.  Employees of Chevron, Anadarko Energy, ConocoPhillips, and others were bused to Houston's Verizon Wireless Center to hear billionaire Drayton McLane Jr. attack Obama's clean energy agenda as an economy-destroying energy tax. Former House Majority Leader Dick Armey's Astroturf organization FreedomWorks is inviting tea-party activists to attend the events. In Greensboro, NC, only politicians who opposed energy reform were allowed in; Pricey Harrison, the local state representative, was locked out. Of the 21 planned rallies, 15 are being organized by registered oil industry lobbyists.

DIRTY ENERGY OPERATIVES: The American Energy Alliance (AEA), a new polluter initiative, is touring the nation with the "American Energy Express" bus in opposition to clean energy reform. Like other groups, AEA claims that the American Clean Energy and Security Act is a "national energy tax" that will "cripple our sluggish economy." AEA is the advocacy offshoot of the Institute for Energy Research, a right-wing oil-industry think tank run by Robert Bradley, former speechwriter for Kenneth Lay. Although AEA claims it has "no ties to any political party," all of its employees are former House Republican staffers. Its president, Thomas J. Pyle, is a Koch Industries lobbyist who worked for former Republican congressman Tom DeLay and Richard Pombo. Other employees worked for the Bush White House, Rep. Don Young (R-AK), Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL), and other oil-defending politicians. The AEA tour is visiting "Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, West Virginia and Virginia." These events are "designed to pressure Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH)" and Sen. Arlen Specter (D-PA), both of whom "recently indicated that they would vote for cloture on a climate bill."