astroturf bak 2

see other, this no lnx

see AFP

astroturf619

see energy and pol inst activist watchdog

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Astroturf

SEE WHALE WIND OFFSHORE BS MARZULLA BROWN U ACAD SUPPRESS SHELLENBERGER

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NYT

NO LNX

Law Firm Pressures Brown University to Erase Research on Anti-Wind Groups

The firm, which represents opponents of offshore wind, said it would complain to Brown’s federal and private funding sources.

Lisa Friedman

By Lisa Friedman

Aug. 25, 2025

A law firm representing opponents of offshore wind farms is demanding that Brown University retract research that details links between the fossil fuel industry and anti-wind groups.

The firm, Marzulla Law L.L.C., which has close ties to the conservative legal movement, called the research “false and injurious” and said it would complain to Brown’s public and private funders, including the Energy Department, the National Science Foundation and the Mellon Foundation.

A spokesman for the university, Brian E. Clark, did not comment directly on the law firm’s demands but said the university intended to uphold its principles of academic freedom.

“Scholars shape their own research and course of instruction at Brown,” Mr. Clark said in a statement. “One principle that is core to research at Brown is the ability for scholars to discuss contested topics and themes and to have those topics openly debated.”

Roger J. Marzulla, a founding partner of the firm, did not respond to email and telephone requests for comment.

The demands come at a precarious time for the nation’s universities, which have become targets of a pressure campaign conducted by the Trump administration. Last month, Brown struck a deal with the government to restore lost federal research funding and end investigations into alleged discrimination.

The Trump administration is trying to stop the country’s nascent wind industry, a source of energy that President Trump has disparaged since he failed to stop an offshore wind farm from being built within view of one of his Scottish golf courses.

Marzulla Law L.L.C. is representing several groups that are fighting offshore wind, including Green Oceans, a nonprofit organization that is trying to overturn federal permits for Revolution Wind, a 65-turbine wind farm off the coast of Rhode Island.

That $6.2 billion project is nearly built, but on Friday the Trump administration ordered construction to stop, citing unspecified concerns.

In an Aug. 11 letter to Brown’s general counsel, Mr. Marzulla objected to research published by the Climate and Development Lab at Brown that found that Green Oceans had spread misinformation about climate change and operated as part of “a fossil-fuel-funded disinformation network.”

Mark Herr, a spokesman for Green Oceans, said in a statement that Green Oceans was a local and nonpartisan group, adding, “We have no association with the fossil fuel industry nor any conservative political groups.”

“These oft-repeated lies are designed to discredit the messenger while preventing the public from absorbing the substance of our valid and well-researched concerns,” he said.

J. Timmons Roberts, who leads the Climate and Development Lab, said in an interview that his students had found that groups fighting offshore wind “have chosen to get in bed with some of the most anti-environment and anti-climate actors.” He called the letter “strategic harassment to shut me up and waste my time and make me more cautious.”

Lauren Kurtz, the executive director of the Climate Science Legal Defense Fund, a nonprofit organization that provides legal aid to climate scientists, called the letter academic harassment.

“It definitely struck me that they were dangling the possibility of getting the Trump administration involved,” Ms. Kurtz said. “It seems to me like they’re trying to bully Brown and their researchers.”

The Climate and Development Lab, founded in 2010, is a student and faculty research organization. Nearly three years ago, students began looking into groups fighting offshore wind off the coast of Rhode Island.

Their research does not accuse Green Ocean of accepting money from fossil fuel companies, but it highlights the similarities between arguments made by Green Ocean and those advanced by fossil fuel groups that spread climate misinformation.

A new publication issued by the Climate Development Lab on Friday maps connections between groups that oppose offshore wind and the law firms that represent them, and uses Marzulla Law as a case study. It describes the firm as having “a history of advancing anti-environmental lawsuits and significant ties with the fossil fuel industry.”

Mr. Marzulla and his wife, Nancie, who together founded the firm in 1997, both previously worked at Mountain States Legal Foundation, a conservative public interest law firm based in Colorado.

Mr. Marzulla took over as head of the foundation in 1981, and later the couple founded the Defenders of Property Rights, which defended private property owners from what they viewed as cumbersome environmental regulations. Defenders of Property Rights joined the Cooler Heads Coalition, a group of organizations that rejected the scientific finding that the burning of fossil fuels was driving climate change.

Lisa Friedman is a Times reporter who writes about how governments are addressing climate change and the effects of those policies on communities.

A version of this article appears in print on , Section A, Page 9 of the New York edition with the headline: Right-Wing Firm Presses Brown Over Wind Study.

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(Bloomberg) — Timmons Roberts is used to receiving legal complaints about his work examining groups who oppose offshore wind.

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What was surprising about the letter he received earlier this month wasn’t that one of those groups was asking Roberts and his employer, Brown University, to retract some of his research. It was that the group was represented by a Washington, DC law firm, that said it was preparing to send “coordinated reports” about his work to the US National Science Foundation and Energy Department.

The move parallels the recent targeting of universities over alleged antisemitism and for their diversity initiatives, suggesting climate and clean energy research could be another line of attack.

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Roberts’ research focuses on opposition to offshore wind and other forms of climate obstruction. In a 2023 report, he and his research team chronicled how arguments made by the group Green Oceans — based in Little Compton, Rhode Island — echoed claims made by fossil fuel-funded opposition groups.

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In response, Green Oceans enlisted a different law firm and asked him to take down the research, saying it was causing reputational harm. The group and Roberts met in May 2024, but there was no resolution. Roberts said his research was already in peer review at the time, and it was subsequently published in a journal later that year. (In its most recent letter, Green Oceans said Roberts “threatened to publish the same material in a peer-reviewed journal.”)

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The group sent the latest letter via Marzulla Law, dated Aug. 11, 2025. Green Oceans asked for “immediate corrective action by Brown University” to take down three publications from Roberts’ group and conduct a formal review into “publishing and oversight practices.”

In the letter, Green Oceans also said it sent a request to the journal to retract the study, which was denied, as was a request for a local environmental newsroom to retract a story on the findings.

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Green Oceans declined to comment, saying the letter laid out its position.

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“Everything in this letter, practically, they’ve said before” in previous letters, Roberts said. But the warning about escalating the matter to the administration was a shift. The letter notes that “Brown University has received significant federal funding,” and that Green Oceans was drafting reports chronicling “the pattern of misconduct and institutional risks of continued association with research units that engage in political targeting.”

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Roberts said his lab isn’t funded by the NSF or the Energy Department, nor is the Climate Social Science Network, an international constellation of researchers who study climate politics. Bloomberg has contacted the agencies for comment.

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The letter “sounds like going to the Trump administration to do what in fact the Trump administration has done with universities: That is, threaten them and their funding,” Roberts said. He added that he’s been in touch with the Union of Concerned Scientists and the Climate Science Legal Defense fund, nonprofits that defend academic freedom.

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In response to questions about how Brown was handling the new communication from Green Oceans, a university spokesperson said, “scholars shape their own research and course of instruction at Brown. One principle that is core to research at Brown is the ability for scholars to discuss contested topics and themes, and to have those topics openly debated.”

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The letter was sent by Marzulla Law, a boutique property-rights firm run by husband and wife duo Roger and Nancie Marzulla. Both worked for the US Department of Justice under former President Ronald Reagan, and Roger Marzulla served as assistant attorney general in charge of the Environment and Natural Resources division. The firm has argued a number of anti-offshore wind cases, including one brought by Green Oceans challenging the Revolution Wind Project off the Rhode Island coast. Roberts published new research on Aug. 22 that includes exploring Marzulla Law’s connections with the offshore wind opponents.

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The firm didn’t respond to a request for comment.

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The request to take down research and the proposed escalation of the complaint to the administration is “extraordinary,” said Veena Dubal, a law professor at the University of California at Irvine and general counsel of the American Association of University Professors.

The Trump administration has assailed universities for a host of issues, including allegations of failing to confront antisemitism and promoting diversity programs. Columbia and Brown universities reached deals with the White House to unfreeze hundreds of millions of dollars in US funding. The University of Pennsylvania was the first to settle for allowing a transgender swimmer on the women’s team.

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The NSF has cut more than 100 climate research grants since Trump took office and has said it “will not support research with the goal of combating ‘misinformation,’ ‘disinformation,’ and ‘malinformation.’”

Researchers whose work doesn’t align with administration policy are finding “their jobs, their funding, their futures” at risk, Dubal said.

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The Trump administration has also taken actions to cut support for renewables, particularly offshore wind. Since taking office in January, President Donald Trump has put forward a barrage of policies designed to stop offshore wind development. Those include halting the sale of new offshore wind leases and removing millions of acres of ocean that had been set aside for future wind projects.

The Interior Department on Aug. 22 halted the mostly built Revolution Wind project off the Rhode Island coast, citing the need for further review. Green Oceans opposes the project.

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In April, the administration temporarily stopped work on the $5 billion Empire Wind project off the coast of New York, sending a shudder through the industry. (It allowed construction to resume in May.) Trump has repeatedly attacked wind farms, saying they have ruined the views of some of his golf properties.

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Offshore wind has also been the subject of numerous attacks and lawsuits by local coastal residents. Those efforts have been successful in some cases; one notable example is Cape Wind, which was canceled in the face of opposition from wealthy homeowners on Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket who included the Kennedy family and industrialist William Koch.

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Kit Kennedy, a managing director for power, climate and energy at the Natural Resources Defense Council, said there’s broad bipartisan support for wind — including from a majority of Republicans, according to a June poll commissioned by pro-offshore wind group Turn Forward — and that building more projects may help assuage any concerns. She said the Brown research has been “very, very valuable” to understanding anti-wind influence groups.

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But according to Parrish Bergquist, an energy policy researcher at the University of Pennsylvania, the administration’s push against offshore wind may mean “we’re going to start to see deeper polarization on this, in a way that mirrors attitudes about climate change more generally.”

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eletrek

Scientist exposes anti-wind groups as oil-funded. Now they want to silence him.

:{Jameson Dow | Aug 25 2025 -

51 Comments

Oil-funded groups are engaging in strategic harassment to stop scientists from revealing the nature of their politically-linked disinformation networks – in what should be a surprise to nobody.

A new report came out last week from the Climate & Development Lab (CDL) at Brown University, titled “Legal Entanglements: Mapping Connections of Anti-Offshore Wind Groups and their Lawyers in the Eastern United States.”

The study focuses on several examples of law firms with connections to anti-wind groups, the fossil fuel industry, and the American political right wing. These fossil-funded groups have spread disinformation to slow the adoption of clean and cheap wind power, in order to keep America addicted to the poison that the fossil fuel industry wants to keep selling us.

The lab is headed by J Timmons Roberts, but the research was done by various students and faculty at at the lab. The new report builds onformer research by the CDL cataloguing extensive connections between these groups and the dark money networks that fund the anti-wind movement.

Why the East Coast needs offshore wind

Offshore wind, especially in the North Atlantic, is a cheap and abundant form of energy that is heretofore relatively untapped in the US. It also has very little environmental cost, given that its carbon emissions and land use are both zero, and wind tends to be quite consistent over the ocean, making it more reliable as a power source.

Many other countries have successfully implemented offshore wind projects to bring this cheap and clean power to their populaces, with particular booms in China, the UK, Vietnam, Germany and several other Northern European countries (like Denmark, where many large wind power companies are based).

And wind is important for the global transition to renewable energy and the fight against climate change. As a zero-emission power source, it’s essential for meeting the US East Coast’s climate and renewable energy goals, and could provide a huge chunk of the power needs for the entire US Eastern seaboard, where the country’s population is clustered.

However, offshore wind has recently encountered setbacks due to the spread of disinformation from fossil-funded networks, which has made its way into the popular conception and into right-wing politics. (Nevertheless, Americans of all political stripes still support greater deployment of offshore wind)

How and why fossil fuel companies oppose wind

Fossil fuel companies oppose wind power because it would help to wean America off of fossil fuels, displacing coal and methane generation for electricity and enabling greater electrification of the vehicle fleet to wean us off of oil. All of these would result in air quality improvements, cost reductions, health improvements and avoidance of climate change – which are all anathema to themost deadly industry the world has ever seen.

So, fossil fuel companies have developed and funded a complicated network of fake public interest groups, politicians and lawyers to oppose wind power by spreading disinformation. And the CDL’s report highlights how certain legal firms have received funding from fossil fuel companies and/or given support to these fake public interest groups in attempts to sue wind projects out of existence.

One of many diagrams in the report showing these anti-wind legal networks

While many of these lawsuits have been unsuccessful, they can still add delays to a project, making it more expensive and slower to deploy (which then makes your electricity more expensive). In some cases, the delays can result in project cancellation, like when oil billionaire William Koch sued Cape Wind out of existence via a fake public interest group called the Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound.

In the report, five specific legal networks are highlighted in particular, showing how each is related to fossil fuels and science denial. The networks have provided representation, written comments, filed lawsuits and otherwise spread disinformation in an attempt to stop the public good that offshore wind power represents.

The nature of the disinformation

The disinformation largely focuses on the North Atlantic Right Whale, a whale whose population is currently experiencing an “unusual mortality event” due to changing climate and Atlantic shipping and fishing.

Anti-wind groups have invoked laws like the Endangers Species Act and Marine Mammal Protection Act, despite the fact that the products of the industry they are funded by are the deadliest thing for marine life.

Burning oil raises both the temperature and acidity of our oceans, disrupting marine ecosystems in profound ways. For example, North Atlantic krill populations have dropped by 50% due to ocean warming driven by fossil fuel use. Krill are the main food source for the North Atlantic Right Whale, which anti-wind groups claim to be interested in protecting, but are in fact aiding the decline of.

Further, whale populations are directly harmed by vessel strikes, which are the leading direct cause of death for North Atlantic Right Whales in recent years. And29% of those vessels are carrying oil across the globe – shipments that would be unnecessary if transportation were powered by clean renewable energy instead of deadly oil. Not only that, but some of the exact same groups that oppose wind also opposed draft regulations to reduce vessel strikes, showing that they are actually interested in continuing to harm whales, not protecting them.

Law firm responds to the truth by pressuring university to hide it

One of the law firms highlighted in the report, Marzulla Law, sent a letter threatening its authors. Marzulla Law said it would complain to mommy… I mean, Brown’s funding sources, including the US Department of Energy which a former oil executive is currently squatting as the head of, in an attempt to get the entirety of Brown University’s funding pulled if the CDL doesn’t self-censor its research findings.

The CDL itself is not funded by the Department of Energy, Roberts said to Bloomberg, so the threat isn’t even related to CDL’s funding sources, but to Brown University’s as a whole.

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Marzulla Law represented one of the disinformation groups which the CDL has highlighted before, the deceptively-named “Green Oceans.” Green Oceans opposed the Revolution Wind project, which was halted on Friday over fake national security concerns by a convicted felon who is Constitutionally barred from holding office in the US, despite the project already being 80% finished, costing the US billions in waste and increased utility bills.

Mike Herr, a spokesman for Green Oceans said “these oft-repeated lies are designed to discredit the messenger while preventing the public from absorbing the substance of our valid and well-researched concerns,” which is itself an example of the very thing he’s wrongly accusing the researchers of.

Herr’s organizationlies about offshore wind, and their attack on science (through their law firm) is designed to discredit the messenger while preventing the public from absorbing the substance of valid and well-researched concerns: the connection between fossil fuels, the republican party, and disinformation that keeps us from embracing superior forms of cheaper, cleaner energy like wind.

Marzulla Law is deeply tied to anti-wind networks, far-right and climate denial foundations, and oil companies

Discrediting science and knowledge is increasingly becoming a feature of the American right wing, which is currently on a crusade against universities as it tries to make America stupider.

Roberts called Marzulla’s response “strategic harassment to shut me up and waste my time and make me more cautious,” which is a common reaction faced by truth-tellers in this day and age, particularly when funding from the largest and most deadly industry on the planet, which has repeatedly shown its interest in propaganda, is involved.

Top comment by Lee

Liked by 30 people

Everything wrong with the USA right now is because Trump has made lying acceptable. Imagine if USA believed in the Truth. All these law companies and Fossil Fuels companies would be prosecuted.

View all comments

For its part, Brown University did not comment on Marzulla’s demands, but did state that “Scholars shape their own research and course of instruction at Brown. One principle that is core to research at Brown is the ability for scholars to discuss contested topics and themes and to have those topics openly debated.”

However, Brown is one of the universities which recently kowtowed to the idiotic demands of an inept moron, making its words about academic independence ring somewhat hollow. We’ll have to see if they step up to defend truth this time around, or bend the knee to one of the dumbest people on the planet once again, if it comes to that.

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BOGUS ACA TOWN HALLS MOJO

Town Hall Protests: Astroturf 2.0? – Mother Jones

This summer, town hall meetings to discuss health care reform have turned into battlegrounds—with fist fights, belligerent protestors, and at least one lawmaker reporting a death threat. Some Democrats have blamed the chaos on astroturf operations: fake grassroots groups funded by special interests. But are the forces whipping up the anti-health care frenzy really astroturf—or a new form of corporate-funded campaigning?

Most astroturf operations are semi-covert activities, precisely targeted at vulnerable or undecided lawmakers. Tried-and-true practices include phone banks in which paid callers posing as concerned voters read from prepared scripts, or phony citizens groups with few members, if any, but plenty of industry money to bankroll television ads and mailers. Particularly unscrupulous operators might mobilize a narrow constituency—like conservative Christians—on behalf of their corporate clients. The idea is to create the impressionof grassroots activism, but rarely to seriously attempt to influence broader public opinion. Michael Scanlon, a colleague of disgraced uberlobbyist Jack Abramoff, once captured the logic succinctly: “Simply put we want to bring out the wackos to vote against something and make sure the rest of the public lets the whole thing slip past them.”

By that standard, some of the groups orchestrating town hall protests against Obama’s health care reform have adopted a new, hybrid model—one that blurs the lines between astroturf and grassroots activism. As far as it’s possible to tell, their financial base remains heavily dependent on corporate interests, and some of their tactics are familiar, too. But instead of furtively targeting selected lawmakers, they’re also mounting highly visible outreach efforts via public forums and Facebook, Twitter, and other social networking tools. In the process, they’re picking up at least some genuine support. It remains to be seen whether they can attract large numbers to their cause, but already they’ve helped to hijack the health care debate at a critical juncture. Here’s MoJo‘s guide to the major groups and their backers.

Americans for Prosperity

Americans for Prosperity is one of the most prominent groups opposing the Obama administration’s two key domestic policy goals: health care reform and cap and trade. The organization presents itself as a grassroots movement that espouses limited government. But a large portion of its money comes via staunch free-market conservative David Koch, part owner of Koch Industries, an oil and gas conglomerate that is perhaps the largest privately owned company in the US, with holdings in medical device and pharmaceutical companies.

Koch helped found AFP in 2003 and serves as chairman of its affiliated foundation. Its president is Tim Phillips, a master of the art of astroturf. Along with Ralph Reed, he cofounded Century Strategies, a PR and consulting firm known for effectively renting out Reed’s evangelical Christian allies to its clients—not to mention clients of Jack Abramoff. In 1999 and 2000, Century mobilized anti-gambling evangelicals to protest proposed casinos—but didn’t know Century was working for an Abramoff client, a casino-owning Indian tribe hoping to vanquish its competition. In a memo, an Abramoff colleague noted that Century’s Christian connections would ensure a “political effort that truly resembles a people’s movement” without the signs of a “paid political operation.”

This year, AFP is devoting its deep resources and strategic prowess to organize protests at Democratic health care town hall meetings, where activists hold signs like “Sorry Grandma, No Health Care for You.” But unlike most typical astroturf operations, AFP’s efforts seem intended to gather a broader base of supporters. To that end, the group makes use of social networking sites to reach out to potential followers. It posts information about local events and organizing strategies for its nearly 4,500 fans on Facebook, who share YouTube videos of protests. More than 1,000 people rallied at an August event in Scottsdale, Arizona, organized by AFP; the local fire department was called to handle overflow.

AFP sponsors two other groups advocating against the Obama administration’s proposed reforms, innocuously titled Patients United Now and Patients First. Both fund ads that make misleading claims. One Patients United Now television ad wrongly asserts that “Washington wants to bring Canadian-style health care to the US.” Patients First also launched a 13-state bus tour that wraps up at the end of August. At one stop a speaker compared proposed reforms to the Stalin and Hitler regimes because they would lead to “physician-assisted suicide”—a blatantly false claim. But these outlandish accusations have proved convincing to some: More than 206,000 people have signed Patients First’s petition opposing current health care reform proposals.

FreedomWorks

FreedomWorks is headed by former GOP House majority leader Dick Armey, who left government in 2003 and became a heavy-hitting lobbyist for DLA Piper, whose numerous corporate clients include pharmaceutical firms.

FreedomWorks grew from a group called Citizens for a Sound Economy, which was founded in 1984 and whose resume includes orchestrating “grassroots” opposition to cigarette taxes on behalf of Philip Morris. In 2006, the Washington Post reported that the group had once duped nearly 16,000 people into swelling its membership rolls: Brokers for a company called Medical Savings Insurance Co. pitched patients on discounted insurance, and those who signed up automatically became members of Citizens for a Sound Economy. (A small part of their monthly bill also went to the group, eventually netting it more than $600,000.) In 2003, a spokesman acknowledged that two-thirds of the organization’s money came from corporations, as well as corporate-funded conservative foundations. The next year, CSE morphed into FreedomWorks. Last year, the organization was identified as the creator of AngryRenter.com, an amateur-looking website presented as a spontaneous effort from ordinary Americans opposing government mortgage relief for homeowners.

The arrival of the Obama administration has ushered in a busy year for FreedomWorks, which played a pivotal role in engineering “tea party” protests against government spending. The group distributed organizational tips and talking points and helped to coordinate gatherings around the country that garnered breathless media coverage. FreedomWorks operatives have urged followers to mimic the tactics of the grandfather of community organizing—and inspiration to Barack Obama—Saul Alinsky.

This summer, FreedomWorks is using those tactics to defeat health care reform. It claims a membership of more than 770,000 people and an email list of 400,000 readers. Its website provides numerous resources, including an “August Recess Action Kit” to aid supporters in exposing “the real intentions and the economic ramifications of the Cap and Tax and health care reform legislation on the table.” FreedomWorks has plotted locations of town halls on Google Maps; one memo encouraged supporters to “rattle” lawmakers at these forums. FreedomWorks is also sponsoring a march on Washington on September 12.

In mid-August, Armey abruptly announced that he was leaving DLA Piper after a flurry of media reports raised questions about whether FreedomWorks activities were related to the goals of the firm’s big pharma clients.

Coalition to Protect Patients’ Rights

The Coalition to Protect Patients’ Rights describes itself as a “nonpartisan, grassroots coalition of patients, healthcare professionals, advocacy groups, and engaged citizens.” Its source of funding is unknown. However, according to Think Progress, PR for the organization is managed by the DCI Group, a political consulting firm with a long history of rustling up phony advocacy groups to serve the interests of its corporate clients.

DCI’s managing partners have deep experience in the political dark arts. Tom Synhorst, for instance, is a former associate of Ralph Reed (as well as a former aide to GOP Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa). Synhorst and fellow founding partners Doug Goodyear and Tim Hyde spent years working for or with the tobacco conglomerate RJR Nabisco, where they supported “smokers’ rights” groups.

In the 1990s, DCI generated fake “citizen” letters opposing the breakup of Microsoft, then under investigation for antitrust violations. At least two of the letters were from dead people. During the Bush years, DCI created fake “grassroots” groups to champion one of the administration’s pet causes, privatizing Social Security. And in 2005, Freddie Mac paid DCI $2 million to drum up opposition to a bill that would have reined in the mortgage giant and its sister, Fannie Mae—three years before they nearly collapsed under the weight of their subprime loans.

Its resume also includes several health care campaigns: In 2002, DCI was hired by the Health Benefits Coalition—an HMO trade association—to defeat a proposed “patients’ bill of rights” in Congress. In 2003 and 2004, DCI worked with Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) to pass the GOP’s Medicare prescription drug bill, going so far as to pay health care consultants to find elderly people to speak positively about the proposal.

The face of the Coalition to Protect Patients Rights (CPPR) is Dr. Donald J. Palmisano, a former American Medical Association president whose idea of protecting patients’ rights consists of trying to limit their ability to sue doctors for malpractice. A longtime shill for the tort-reform movement, Palmisano sits on the board of the Doctors Company, a medical liability insurance company, and founded a claims review company that serves physicians and hospitals.

This year, CPPR’s efforts to kill health care reform are more visible and more ambitious than many previous initiatives linked with DCI. It is aggressively seeking supporters for the anti-reform cause via press events, op-eds, a Facebook page, and its Twitter feed, which so far has a modest 1,485 followers. (Sample tweet: “POTUS says you will be able to keep your insurance…but will your insurance survive competition with a public option?”) CPPR has also organized a group of doctors to tour the country warning of the perils of single-payer care. At one recent press conference that it sponsored, a physician said that in countries with government-run health care, the “sickest patients” are denied treatment.

60 Plus

60 Plus presents itself as a “grassroots senior citizen organization.” Although it claims to be nonpartisan, it was formed with help from stalwart conservative direct-mail king Richard Viguerie and refers to its honorary chairman Roger Zion as “one of Washington’s leading spokesmen for the conservative cause.” This year, it’s run a more traditional astroturf operation opposing the administration’s health care proposals.

During the Bush administration, 60 Plus was linked to several dubious political campaigns, and had ties to Jack Abramoff. The investigation of the lobbyist revealed that in 2001, Abramoff told one of his clients, the Coushatta Tribe of Louisiana to give $25,000 intended for Tom DeLay’s political action committee to 60 Plus, although the tribe’s primary interest was in gambling legislation. (A lawyer for the tribe said that Abramoff advised them that the donation would help the tribe win clout with the Republican leadership in Congress.)

But for several years Big Pharma was 60 Plus’ major benefactor. According to a 2006 investigation by the AARP Bulletin, the pharmaceutical industry accounted for “virtually all of [60 Plus’] largest contributions” in the early years of this decade. In return, the group lobbied hard against state laws that would have reduced prescription-drug prices. On one occasion, the industry hired Bonner & Associates (a Washington strategic operation currently being investigated by Congress for forging letters opposing cap and trade and sending them to lawmakers). Bonner paid callers to read from scripts that identified them as members of 60 Plus and urged citizens to tell their governor to veto the legislation. Pfizer later admitted to funding the calls. Ken Johnson Sr., a vice president of PhRMA, told Mother Jones that the organization has not given 60 Plus any money since 2004.

This year, 60 Plus has been tirelessly working to torpedo Obama’s health care reform with a series of misleading and alarmist ads. On August 10, 60 Plus released a television ad warning that “The government—not doctors—will decide if older patients are worth the cost.” A recent mailing from 60 Plus told recipients that proposed changes to Medicare would mean “longer wait times at hospitals and doctors’ offices, less money for new treatments, restrictions on care, prescriptions and what’s best for you—the patient!” And a flyer distributed in Nebraska by 60 Plus features a picture of ailing elderly people and quotes Obama out of context saying, “Maybe you’re better off not having the surgery, but taking the painkiller.”

Conservatives for Patients Rights

CPR was founded by discredited hospital executive Rick Scott, who has emerged as perhaps the most dogged opponent of a Medicare-style public option that would cover uninsured Americans. To sell its message, CPR has enlisted the services of the same PR firm that brought you the Swiftboating of John Kerry: CRC Public Relations. So it should come as no surprise that its million-dollar ads on television and talk radio feature highly questionable assertions to scare citizens into sticking with the status quo. In one ad, an announcer ominously intoned that reform “could put a bureaucrat in charge of your medical decisions, not you.” A CPR flyer referred to the public option as “Patient Enemy #1.”

Scott claims that he will spend as much as $20 million dollars to defeat health care reform—he has already kicked in $5 million of his own funds to jump-start CPR’s media blitz. As Mother Jones has previously reported, he owns an urgent care company called Solantis. That gives him a direct incentive to block the expansion of health insurance coverage. To that end, CPR has sought to whip up frenzies at town hall forums during the August congressional recess, issuing alerts for meetings around the country and posting video footage of heated exchanges on its website. Earlier this month, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs denounced CPR for “organizing and manufacturing that anger.”

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an 1 25

A right-wing advocacy group founded by the billionaire Koch brothers announced Monday the launch of a $20 million campaign to promote an extension of the 2017 Trump-GOP tax cuts, which disproportionately benefited the rich and large corporations.

[vid]

But in a that debuted over the weekend, Americans for Prosperity (AFP) characterizes the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act as a boon to "hardworking Americans" and small businesses—and warns that allowing provisions of the law to expire at the end of this year as scheduled would be disastrous for the working class.

"This year, Congress is facing a countdown to a crisis that threatens family budgets nationwide," Ross Connolly, AFP's regional state director, said in a statement Monday. "We are proud to partner with the incoming Trump administration to protect prosperity and ensure that Congress acts."

AFP is a 501(c)(4) organization that describes itself as a "grassroots" movement despite being launched by Charles Koch and his late brother, David—two of the most notorious right-wing billionaire in U.S. politics.

The group said its new 50-state campaign represents "the largest effort by a conservative organization" to support President-elect Donald Trump's legislative agenda as he prepares to take office next week. The campaign, according to AFP, will include "over 1,000 meetings" at congressional offices, "in-district events" with activists and lawmakers, and "roundtables with job creators."

The campaign aims to "reach millions of voters on the phone and at their doorsteps," AFP said.

"The Trump tax giveaways passed in 2017 did not help working-class Americans. In fact, the top 1% of corporations received almost all of the benefits."

AFP's description of the impacts of the 2017 tax law flies in the face of resounding evidence showing that wealthy Americans—not ordinary workers—were the chief beneficiaries and are poised to reap most of the rewards once again if Trump and the Republican-controlled Congress extend the measure's soon-to-expire provisions.

"Americans for Prosperity is spending $20 million on a new ad campaign that champions the 2017 Trump tax law as a win for working families," Morris Pearl, chair of the Patriotic Millionaires, told Common Dreams. "But don't be fooled: What this Koch-backed group is really only after is protecting tax cuts for wealthy people like me."

"I'm in favor of tax relief for working people, but not yet another huge and unnecessary windfall for America's rich," Pearl added. "If Congress wants to help working families, they should make tax rates on labor income the same as tax rates on profits made by investors."

AFP is one of a number of right-wing, corporate-tied organizations pushing for an extension of the Trump tax cuts, which Republicans are planning to fund by slashing Medicaid, federal nutrition assistance, and other key programs.

The progressive watchdog group Accountable.US noted in a recent analysis that one of the groups pushing for an extension of the 2017 law is Advancing American Freedom, an organization "run by corporate consultants, lobbyists, lawyers, and executives, including former Trump administration officials who were directly responsible for the TCJA."

Accountable also observes that Club for Growth, a group funded by wealthy conservatives, "has pushed a deeper corporate tax cut plan as an 'opening salvo' in the current tax debate."

"The billionaire funders of the group's action arm have benefited enormously from the TCJA, saving hundreds of millions of dollars from a single obscure tax break for pass-through entities," the watchdog added.

In response to AFP's new nationwide campaign, Accountable.US executive director Tony Carrk told Common Dreams that "a glitzy ad campaign from a far-right organization won't change the fact that the Trump administration and Republican-controlled Congress are paying for giveaways to billionaires, wealthy tax cheats, and price-gouging corporations by cutting critical services for working families, like Medicaid and SNAP."

"The Trump tax giveaways passed in 2017 did not help working-class Americans," said Carrk. "In fact, the top 1% of corporations received almost all of the benefits."

Watch the ad below:

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Fueling the Opposition: How Fossil Fuel Interests Are Fighting to Kill Wind and Solar Farms Before They Are Built

anti-Renewable-Energy Activists and Operatives

John Droz

Realtor John Droz resides in North Carolina and maintains a summer cottage in upstate New York. Based on undergraduate and graduate degrees in physics and some work earlier in his career for General Electric, Droz has presented himself as a scientific expert on a wide range of issues.

He’s emerged as an influential source of conspiracy theories and disinformation about everything from climate science and wind and solar power to Covid-19 and the 2020 elections.²⁰⁸(https://docs.google.com/document/d/1QEZy450AR-6-iTNUOlslT8HzmnFAik8pMFt2QhpSY7k/edit#bookmark=id.ozwnc9q5gxxy)

Droz is a member of the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality’s Oil and Gas Commission. In 2018, he self-published a paper that was supportive of offshore drilling for oil and methane gas off North Carolina’s coast.

“Offshore wind energy is a much worse choice than is offshore natural gas,” Droz wrote in the paper.

He’s also a member of the CO2 Coalition, formerly known as the George Marshall Institute, a climate denial group that has received money from the Koch network and oil and gas producer EOG Resources.

Droz co-founded the Alliance for Wise Energy Decisions (AWED) with Ohio anti-wind activist Tom Stacy more than a decade ago. AWED and Droz have provided model local laws, strategies, and information utilized by anti-renewables activists all over the country.

A “Potpourri” section of AWED’s website wiseenergy.org lists individuals “who contributed constructive ideas for this website,” including:

• Rob Aliasso, an outspoken opponent of wind power in upstate New York who served as co-chairman of the Coalition for the Preservation of the Golden Crescent, and spent more than three decades as an executive at Stebbins Manufacturing and Engineering, which saw its coal scrubber business decline amidst the transition to cleaner forms of energy
• Charles Battig, a climate denier associated with the Heartland Institute and CO2 Coalition
• Steve Goreham, a paid speaker and climate denier whose clients have included numerous fossil fuel industry groups
• Jonathan Lesser, a fellow for the Manhattan Institute and Texas Public Policy Foundation and economic consultant whose clients have included gas utilities, pipeline companies, and Bill Koch’s Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound
• George Taylor, a fellow for the Energy and Environment Legal Institute

Since 2009, AWED has published a monthly newsletter that’s frequently cross-posted on the Institute for Energy Research’s blog MasterResource.org, where Droz is listed as a principal contributor.

In 2011, Droz announced in the newsletter that he’d joined the American Tradition Institute as a fellow. He would later describe the position as unpaid.

“ATI has some great aspirations, and getting rid of unscientific options like wind energy is high on their list,” Droz wrote.

He pointed to ATI’s 2011 lawsuit against Colorado’s renewable energy standard as an example, and asked readers to donate money to support ATI.

ATI named coal producer Alpha Natural Resources as a member in a declaration by executive director Tom Tanton filed in the Colorado lawsuit in March of 2012. Tanton said ATI’s membership also included unnamed “electric power generating and transmission companies that generate energy from coal, natural gas and oil-fired and combustion turbine generation facilities.”

One month earlier, in February of 2012, Droz participated in a coordinating meeting between anti-wind activists and representatives of ATI and other national groups backed by the fossil fuel money. He also helped draft an anti-wind public relations strategy in advance of the meeting.

Droz was back in D.C. that December with Taylor and investor Larry Gerdes meeting with representatives of the American Legislative Exchange Council and Competitive Enterprise Institute and staff for multiple members of the U.S. House and Senate, according to an AWED report-back document EPI later found on one of Droz’s anti-wind websites.

“We gave each legislator a copy of the Rasmussen Renewable Energy report(2.0),” that document said.

Kimball Rasmussen is president and CEO of the Utah-based Deseret Power, a coal burning and mining electric cooperative. In 2010, Rasmussen credited Droz and Taylor with providing “thoughtful input” on the 2.0 edition of his report, “A Rational Look at Renewable Energy,” which disparaged renewables while promoting methane gas as an alternative for reducing CO2 emissions.

AWED’s D.C. trip report-back document from 2012 also illustrates how Droz quickly got to work implementing parts of the national anti-wind PR strategy, which included plans to distribute copies of the Rasmussen report and coordinate with well-funded national groups like ALEC and the Heritage Foundation. Droz later continued to coordinate his anti-wind efforts with Koch-backed groups like Americans for Prosperity and FreedomWorks.

“Everyone involved with AWED (including me) is an unpaid volunteer, who is committed to Science-based energy policies,” Droz told EPI 2017.

Lisa Linowes

Lisa Linowes founded the Industrial Wind Action Group in 2006 and has since emerged as one of the nation’s top anti-renewables activists. Her website, WindAction.org, describes her group as the “#1 Trusted Information Resource on Large-scale Renewables.”

WindAction is incorporated as a “Domestic Profit Corporation” in New Hampshire, where Linowes resides, though the group’s incorporation information states it was “organized exclusively for charitable, educational & scientific purposes.”

WindAction’s website claims the group is “not funded in any way” by the fossil fuel industry or “affiliated with large political activists groups.”

Linowes is the co-founder of the Save Right Whales Coalition that’s fighting offshore wind development along the east coast. In 2021, she joined the Caesar Rodney Institute’s American Coalition for Ocean Protection.

In addition, Linowes serves on the board of directors of Environmental Progress, a California-based group known for criticizing wind and solar power and advocating for nuclear energy and fossil fuels. Michael Shellenberger, the group’s president, is involved in the Save Right Whales Coalition with Linowes.

Linowes is also the co-chairman of the Wildlife, Energy & Community Coalition, which opposes “harmful industrial-scale renewables.”

Linowes has long coordinated her efforts with think tanks funded by the fossil fuel industry. The Institute for Energy Research has promoted Linowes’ writings and efforts on its blog MasterResource.org since 2010, and in 2018 she joined IER’s newly formed advisory council.

In 2017, the name of IER’s former director of communications was listed as the “author” in the document properties of an open letter opposing the federal production tax credit for wind power that Linowes claimed she wrote alone.

She’s also served as a senior policy fellow for the Texas Public Policy Foundation, where she authored a two-part anti-wind report in 2018.

Kevon Martis

Kevon Martis is a longtime anti-renewables activist in Michigan who has organized and led multiple groups opposing renewable energy projects. Martis has served as a leader of Our Home, Our Voice (OHOV) since its inception in 2023, when the self-described 501(c)(4) organization opposed the passage of legislation aimed at streamlining renewable energy siting in Michigan. OHOV reported over $145,000 in revenue on its annual tax report for 2023, but was not required to disclose its donors.

Martis is now the spokesperson for a Citizens for Local Choice ballot initiative that’s fighting to repeal Michigan’s new siting law. Matt Brewer, an attorney for a group that’s opposing the ballot initiative, told Planet Detroit earlier this year that OHOV’s contributions to Citizens for Local Choice may have violated campaign finance laws by hiding the source of some early donations to the ballot committee. Brewer then filed a campaign finance complaint against OHOV.

Citizens for Local Choice did publicly report a $10,000 contribution from longtime Ariel Corporation executive Tom Rastin of Ohio.

Martis joined the Energy and Environment Legal Institute as a Senior Policy Fellow in 2016, about a month after the Wall Street Journal reported that Arch Coal had to disclose its funding of the anti-renewables and anti-climate science group in its bankruptcy filings. In 2012, Martis participated in a coordinating meeting in D.C. between anti-wind activists from multiple states and representatives of the American Tradition Institute and other front groups backed by the fossil fuel industry.

Martis has also led the Interstate Informed Citizens Coalition (IICC) since 2011.

“Martis’s co-founder at the IICC, Joshua Nolan, represented Martin County Coal Corporation in a lawsuit that same year,” as Distilled first reported.

The Institute for Energy Research has promoted Martis’s writings and efforts on its blog MasterResource since 2012.

“I have not and do not receive any support from any energy interest of any kind,” Martis said in a 2020MasterResource blog post by IER’s Robert Bradley. “This includes fossil fuel utilities or the Koch family, etc.”

Martis also described his fellowship position at E&E Legal as unfunded and said “I take no direction from them on any matter.”

Martis’s anti-renewables efforts have extended far beyond his own backyard in Michigan.

“And I have testified on wind energy land use issues across the Midwest, including OH, IL, MI and Kentucky as well as in Nebraska and North Dakota,” Martis said during his 2016 testimony to the Ohio Power Siting Board on wind siting rules.

“I have also been invited to testify before members of Congress in Washington DC,” Martis also said, in reference to a 2013 event hosted by IER.

Martis also appeared at anti-wind meetings in Ohio with Samuel Randazzo, the former attorney and lobbyist who was secretly paid millions of dollars by the coal-burning utility FirstEnergy between 2010 and 2019.

Tom Stacy

Tom Stacy has served as a director for the National Wind Watch (NWW), a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization based in Massachusetts that serves as a clearinghouse for anti-wind information, since 2009.

NWW is frequently asked if it is “backed by the coal or nuclear industry.”

“NWW is not backed by, affiliated with, or funded in any way by these or any other industry, political organization, or ‘think tank,’” according to a FAQpage found on the group’s website wind-watch.org.

The FAQ page also states that members of the organization’s board of directors “are unpaid volunteers with no affiliations to fossil fuel or nuclear energy industries or any similar outside interests.”

Stacy began to fight wind power as the leader of Save Western Ohio from 2008 to 2010, and he also co-founded the Alliance for Wise Energy Decisions with John Droz.

For many years, Stacy could be found speaking at events and hearings alongside other prominent wind power opponents like Lisa Linowes, Kevon Martis, and Samuel Randazzo.

By 2014, Stacy became a paid consultant for groups like the Institute for Energy Research and the coal industry group America’s Power. He’s co-authored multiple reports that mislead on the costs of renewable energy with George Taylor, a consultant and fellow for the Energy and Environment Legal Institute.

In 2022, Stacy co-authored a report by the Center of the American Experiment, a State Policy Network group in Minnesota, that opposed Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers’s 100% clean energy plan. The Center received $250,000 that year from the Koch group Americans for Prosperity.

Tom Tanton

Tom Tanton has been the president of the consulting firm T2 & Associates since 2003, and during that time he has churned out reports for groups like the American Petroleum Institute and American Legislative Exchange Council.

Tanton was a vice president at the Institute for Energy Research from 2003 to 2007, where he was part of the fight to kill the Cape Wind offshore wind project. He’s been affiliated with the American Tradition Institute and Energy and Environment Legal Institute for over a decade.

Tanton’s LinkedIn account lists “friend” of Save Western Ohio as his professional experience for 2009. Save Western Ohio was the anti-wind group led by Tom Stacy before Stacy became a paid consultant who co-authored reports for IER and the coal industry.

A slew of influential anti-renewables activists who emerged during the 2000s have cited Tanton as an early influence on their views on wind power.

A page from the website We Oppose Wind Farms last updated in 2009 includes a picture of Tanton posing with “statewide wind warriors” from New York. More recently, the anti-wind group Save Ontario Shores used public intervenor funds to pay Tanton to be an expert witness against the Lighthouse Wind project in upstate New York, which was never built.

“Much of my tutorial about wind energy and grid operations came from Tom Tanton’s knowledgeable bonhomie,” birder and anti-wind activist Jon Boone wrote in a 2006 paper. “His patient mentoring, enkindled through long phone conversations and voluminous exchanges of emails, made this work possible.”

Boone created the website stopillwind.com and produced and directed “Life Under a Windplant,” a documentary often cited by anti-wind activists. Some of Boone’s writings from more than a decade ago can still be found on IER’s blog MasterResource.org.

Tanton topped a 2008 list where anti-winder John Droz dubbed “the better writers regarding the industrial wind power business.”

That same year, Boone credited Tanton, Droz, Lisa Linowes, and others with reviewing a draft of his article “Why Wind Won’t Work.”

In 2010, anti-winder Ken Hawkins credited Tanton, Boone, Droz, and Stacy, as well as IER’s CEO Robert Bradley, with reviewing a draft of his paper on renewable energy grid integration.

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yahoo mail 11 22 judd pop info

shortly after he took office, President Biden announced a goal of building 30 gigawatts (GW) of offshore wind by 2030, enough clean energy to power 10 million homes. For the administration, the offshore wind target was a part of a larger strategy of reducing carbon pollution and putting the country on track for net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. But, like many clean energy plans, this one was met with immediate resistance.

In August 2021, CBS News reported that Nantucket Residents Against Turbines — or ACK Rats — launched a lawsuit against the administration's offshore wind plans. The Massachusetts-based resident group argued that offshore wind development “poses a threat to the critically endangered North Atlantic Right Whale.”

A few months later, a resident group in New Jersey launched another lawsuit against the Biden administration. Bob Stern, president of Save Long Beach Island, told Reuters that he and his fellow residents worried that the wind turbines would destroy their local tourism economy.

Within a year of announcing the goal, the Biden administration faced lawsuits from resident groups in every coastal state from Maine to North Carolina. Some groups sued over endangered whales. Others argued that the turbines would hurt their property values or the local fishing industry.

If you only read the news stories about these lawsuits, you might think this was yet another example of wealthy residents blocking clean energy development. Or you might see a familiar story of environmentalists getting in the way of environmental progress. But you’d be missing the most important part of the story. Nearly every story neglects to mention these groups are being funded by a far-right think tank that receives funding from fossil fuel companies and billionaires.

Who’s behind the offshore wind lawsuits?

According to their website, Protect Our Coast NJ — one of the groups opposing Biden’s offshore wind plans — is a group of “residents, homeowners, business owners, fishermen and visitors of the New Jersey coastal communities.” Media reports accept this description at face value.

In May 2022, Ashbury Park Press — the third largest newspaper in New Jersey — ran a story about Protect Our Coast NJ with the headline, “Could offshore wind turbines blow away Long Beach Island tourism?” The story positions Protect Our Coast NJ as a group of residents and features many of the talking points and studies on the nonprofit’s website:

Ric Bertsch, an Ocean City resident and member of the group Protect Our Coast NJ, which opposes the wind projects as they are currently designed, said he worries about the impacts to communities like his own.

He said the county will suffer the consequences of New Jersey's new experiment with offshore wind turbines, which will harm the tourist experience and block large swaths of ocean from commercial fishing

"The only brand (in Ocean City) that we have to offer the world is our old-fashioned values, our quiet, our peaceful place to be," said Suzanne Hornick, also of Ocean City and leading member of Protect Our Coast NJ. "This (wind turbine project) really screws with our brand."

As of this writing, the “Donate” button on the Protect Our Coast NJ website redirects to a PayPal link that reads “Donate to Caesar Rodney Institute.”

Caesar Rodney Institute (CRI)is one of more than 50 think tanks in the State Policy Network (SPN). As The Intercept’s Lee Fang reported, CRI receives funding from fossil fuel trade groups like the American Fuel & Petrochemical Association. The think tank also receives funding from Donors Trust, the “dark money ATM of the conservative movement.”

In September 2021, CRI’s David Stevenson — a former member of President Trump’s EPA transition team —  held a press conference in front of the Massachusetts State House where he announced a legal fund for groups fighting Biden’s offshore wind plans. By that point, Stevenson had raised $75,000 from his network of donors, and said he hoped to raise $500,000 for the effort.

When asked by E&E’s Ben Storrow who was funding the campaign, Stevenson said, “So far there is no Koch money, not that we wouldn’t take it.”

CRI’s efforts quickly attracted the attention of much larger conservative groups like theHeartland Institute and Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow (CFACT). In September 2022, one year after the press conference, both organizations announced a partnership with CRI to sue an offshore wind project in Virginia.

According to the Union for Concerned Scientists, the Heartland Institute and CFACT have both received about $500,000 in funding from ExxonMobil. The Heartland Institute has been called “a leading force in climate change denial.” Media Matters for America named CFACT Founder Marc Morano its climate denier of the year in 2012. Marano, who began his career working for Rush Limbaugh, has said climate scientists “deserve to be publicly flogged.”

In a press release, CFACT President Craig Rucker said, “We are not only very concerned about the future of the right whale, which extensively uses the ocean waters affected by the wind-power project, but also concerned as to how [the federal government] will address the fact that this project, despite its alleged benefits regarding carbon dioxide and climate change, will actually cause the release of more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere than it will consume.” This, like most of CFACT’s statements about climate change, is false.

Reporters consistently tell a misleading story

None of these connections to the country’s infamous climate denial network are mentioned in the Ashbury Park Press news story about Protect Our Coast NJ. And the local New Jersey newspaper isn’t alone. According to a Popular Information analysis, 11 media outlets have covered Protect Our Coast NJ. None of them mention CRI, its donors, or the legal fund.

Popular Information found that reporters routinely failed to mention connections to CRI when writing about Save Our Beach View, Save Long Beach Island, and Nantucket Residents Against Turbines, three of the other resident groups in the coalition. Instead, these articles spread many of the resident groups’ misleading claims about clean energy.

In January, Reuters wrote a story about Save Long Beach Island’s lawsuit against the federal government. The article did not mention the group's ties to CRI.

Bob Stern, president of Save Long Beach Island, told Reuters that they are concerned by the aesthetic impacts of the turbines, and potential lost tourism due to their interference with Long Beach Island's current unobstructed seascape. The group says tourism is the community's "economic lifeblood."

In 2019, researchers at the University of Rhode Island published a paper analyzing the impacts of offshore wind farms on tourism. They used empirical data based on the United States’ only offshore wind farm off the coast of Block Island, Rhode Island. The researchers concluded that the wind farm resulted in more tourism, not less. This study isn’t mentioned in the Reuters story.

Another frequent concern mentioned by resident groups is the risk to endangered species. CBS covered this last year when they wrote:

The "ACK Residents Against Turbines" who filed the lawsuit said the proposed Vineyard Wind project poses a threat to the critically endangered North Atlantic Right Whale.

Jessica Redfern, a senior scientist at Anderson Cabot Center for Ocean Life, told Cape Cod Times that the greatest threat to the North Atlantic Right Whale’s continued existence “comes from collision with vessels and entanglement in fishing gear, particularly lobster pot buoy lines.” She added, “Another big factor is climate change and one of the ways we can minimize that is adopting clean energy (policies) and offshore wind is a great source of that.” She said she had never heard of Save Long Beach Island.

In addition to misleading readers, this poor coverage creates more opposition to offshore wind projects and funnels local residents to the nonprofits’ websites and Facebook pages, which routinely share misinformation about clean energy.

Decarbonizing America’s electric grid and economy will require support from people in every community in the country. But, letting fossil fuel companies and climate deniers control the narrative is a sure way to turn communities of supporters into groups of passionate opponents.

~ WSPA

https://stopfoolingca.org/

ab 32 implementation gp, californians for energy indep; care, alliance for ca biz, tank the tax, ca drivers alliance; ca mfg and tehnol assoc; californians against higher taxes; fed up at the pump; californians against higher oil taxes; fueling ca

bIG OIL’S LATEST ATTACK ON CLEAN ENERGY

Despite strong support for clean energy and jobs within their memberships, the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce and the California Business Roundtable are supporting a new front group, Californians for Affordable and Reliable Energy, funded with hundreds of thousands of dollars from oil interests like the Western States Petroleum Association and Chevron.

CARE is trying to scare Californians with tired threats about energy shortages and price spikes in order to stop California’s landmark clean energy law, AB 32.

Together, the LA Chamber and Business Roundtable have nearly 2,000 companies. Business associations are usually champions for growth and jobs, and adhere to the adage that the customer is always right.

So why are these two groups siding with the largest multinational corporations in the world and against their customers and innovative companies right here in California?

You can help cut the puppet master’s strings. Tweet the LA Chamber and Business Roundtable and tell them to stop propping up big oil. Tell them to withdraw their support from CARE, and focus instead on creating jobs for the economy.

wow api a whole bunch:

food & ww

http://web.archive.org/web/20160220093132/https://www.foodandwaterwatch.org/insight/**who-supports-fracking**

11.21.14

By Alison Grass

The science is in: climate change is a threat, and fracking worsens climate change. Fracking also brings many other well-documented problems, including water contamination, air pollution and adverse health effects. Clean, safe energy solutions are available, such as wind and solar power, energy efficiency technologies and conservation policies. To harness these solutions, we must remake the U.S. energy system -- but the oil and gas industry stands in the way.

The oil and gas industry has captured U.S. energy policy. To see that U.S. energy policy continues to serve the industry’s bottom line, it has erected a huge money machine to push a pro-fracking agenda at all levels of government. Whether it’s lobbying the halls of Congress or spreading misinformation in the media, the following groups are helping the oil and gas industry manipulate public opinion so it can continue drilling and fracking for fossil fuels. Here is our list of some of the main players helping to push fracking on the American public.

Trade Associations

America's Natural Gas Alliance (ANGA)

• ANGA was formed in 2009 by a group of 27 independent natural gas companies to lobby for an industry-friendly climate bill.
• ANGA “… works with industry, government and customer stakeholders to promote increased demand for and continued availability of our nation’s abundant natural gas resource … ”
• ANGA lobbies for natural gas interests and spends millions of dollars on advertising and public relations aimed at convincing people to carry out its agenda.
  • ANGA spent $300,000 on lobbying in the early stages of the failed climate bill in 2009, to push for natural gas incentives.
  • In 2012, ANGA gave $50,000 to a group called Longmont Taxpayers for Common Sense, the largest donation to help keep a local fracking ban off of the ballot in Longmont, Colorado.
• In one of its most egregious public relations stunts, which can be seen in its 2012 IRS 990 form, ANGA gave $1 million to help fund “Truthland,” a short film devised by the oil and gas industry to respond to the 2010 documentary “Gasland.”

American Gas Association (AGA)

• AGA is a natural gas utility trade association that advocates for the use of natural gas and “represents companies delivering natural gas to consumers …”
• AGA’s president and CEO, Dave McCurdy, is a former Democratic congressman from Oklahoma. Among McCurdy’s priorities at AGA is to expand the use of natural gas for transportation, so as to serve the AGA membership’s interests in increasing demand for natural gas.
• AGA is credited with positioning natural gas as a “bridge fuel” decades ago. This positioning has allowed natural gas to be viewed as part of the solution to climate change, but climate pollution stemming from natural gas dependence is a major threat.

American Petroleum Institute (API)

• API is “the only national trade association that represents all aspects of America’s oil and gas industry.”
• API uses its financial power to back several dark money groups, including the Coalition for American Jobs, a 501(c)(6) group, which was set up by API lobbyists and is also supported by the chemical industry to air political ads for supportive candidates.
• Since 2008, API has been led by its president, oil lobbyist Jack Gerard. Under Gerard’s leadership, API has invested heavily in public relations campaigns, like its Vote4Energyadvertisements that inundated televisions during the 2012 presidential election.
• According to the Center for Public Integrity, in 2012 API spent $85.5 million to four PR and advertising firms including $51.9 million to just one firm—Edelman, which calls itself “the world’s largest public relations firm.” The API is Edelman’s biggest client.
• A bulk of API’s advertising and lobbying is done under names of its front groups: Energy Nation, Energy Citizens, EnergyTomorrow and America’s Energy Forum.
• API’s front groups aggressively employ astroturf campaigns to give the appearance of grassroots support by organizing rallies and spreading misinformation to promote its agenda.

Independent Petroleum Association of America (IPAA)

• IPAA is a national trade association that represents companies focused on exploration and production of oil and natural gas.
• IPAA is responsible for creating Energy In Depth (EID), an industry-biased media outlet designed to respond to hydraulic fracturing criticism.
  • In 2011, DeSmogBlog revealed an IPAA leaked memo from 2009 that stated: “For months, IPAA’s government relations and communications teams have been working around-the-clock on a new industry-wide campaign — known as “Energy In Depth (energyindepth.org) — to combat new environmental regulations, especially with regard to hydraulic fracturing.”

Marcellus Shale Coalition (MSC)

• The MSC is a trade association working to promote drilling and fracking for shale gas from the Marcellus and Utica shale formations.
• The MSC comprises a large number of companies and law firms with stakes in expanded drilling and fracking for natural gas in the region, and across the country.
  • One of the MSC’s associate members, Aqua America, the second largest U.S. investor-owned water company, sells water to shale drillers.
• The MSC’s Executive Board is run by industry employees from Range Resources, Williams, XTO Energy, CONSOL Energy, EOG Resources and numerous other companies profiting from fracking.
• The group spends big money on public relations initiatives, has funded industry-biased fracking studies and has given money to colleges.
• Many of Pennsylvania’s elected officials, regulators, lobbying groups and law firms have direct ties to the natural gas industry and the MSC.
  • For example, in 2010, the MSC brought on former Department of Homeland Security Secretary and Pennsylvania GovernorTom Ridge for a year as a strategic adviser under a $900,000 contract, shared by his two consulting firms.

Astroturf Campaigns and Front Groups

American Clean Skies Foundation (ACSF)

• While ACSF benignly describes itself as “an independent nonprofit working for cleaner energy in the U.S. transportation and power sectors,” it is, at best, an astroturf group that works to advance the natural gas industry.
• ACSF was co-founded in 2007 by Aubrey McClendon, the former Chesapeake Energy CEO who was stripped of his chairmanship in 2012 after it was revealed that major financial backers of Chesapeake issued personal loans to McClendon in order for him to take personal stakes in the company’s wells.
• Although McClendon stepped down from the ACSF board in 2013, its leadership still has ties to oil and gas industry interests.
• One way that ACSF exerts its influence is through its financial backing of academic studies — funding so-called “frackademia” — such as the high-profile 2011 MIT study, The Future of Natural Gas, led by Ernest Moniz, now U.S. Secretary of Energy.
  • In 2011, before the report was released, Moniz was appointed to a profitable position on the Board of Directors of ICF International, a consulting firm with strong ties to the oil and gas industry.
  • Moniz also served on the NGP Energy Technology Partners advisory board for several years (although it is unclear whether or not he was compensated), in addition to his many other professional ties to the energy sector.

America's Energy Forum

• America’s Energy Forum, launched in 2008 by the American Petroleum Institute (API), is a lobbying group.
• In a presentation by API, the target audience of America’s Energy Forum is described as: “Politically influential third parties — 'grasstops' — including ‘political family’ members of local, state, federal lawmakers and federal candidates.”
• API says that the mission of America’s Energy Forum is to: “Orchestrate new public policy outcomes for the industry by surrounding lawmakers with the most politically persuasive grass-top constituents supporting energy issues.”
  • For an example of how the group operates, in early 2014 America’s Energy Forum managed to write, and have a North Carolina mayor sign, a letter of support for oil exploration off the state’s coast.

Big Green Radicals

• On March 6, 2014, Big Green Radicals, an industry front group, launched an attack on Food & Water Watch, and two other activist groups, with a full-page ad in The Wall Street Journal, a 90-second commercial online and a website calling us a “big green radical.”
• Big Green Radicals is led by PR flack/lobbyist Rick Berman, a man nicknamed “ Dr. Evil.” He has been the force behind many industry front groups pushing the interests of tobacco companies, payday lenders and casinos, and is often hired by companies to attack consumer and public interest groups.
• Berman runs an advertising firm, Berman and Company, which shares office space with many of his industry-driven nonprofits, devised to appear like grassroots advocacy groups or independent research institutions.
• Big Green Radicals is a project of Berman’s Environmental Policy Alliance.

Center for Sustainable Shale Development (CSSD)

• The Center for Sustainable Shale Development (CSSD) greenwashes the public with the delusion that widespread drilling and fracking can be done safely and sustainably, as long as the industry follows the CSSD’s drafted voluntary guidelines and performance standards.
• These “standards” are the basis for the CSSD’s certification scheme, which it shamelessly likens to the U.S. Green Building Council’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) program for recognizing green building design. For $30,000, applicants that meet certain standards are rubberstamped and the company can flaunt that it has met certain “sustainability” criteria.
• Launched in March 2013, the CSSD was formed by a group of 11 companies, foundations and nonprofits: Chevron, CONSOL Energy, EQT, Shell, PennFuture, Group Against Smog and Pollution, Pennsylvania Environmental Council, Clean Air Task Force, Environmental Defense Fund, The Heinz Endowments and William Penn Foundation.
• In reality, the CSSD is a portal for the oil and gas industry to exert its influence and help “scrub the image” of drilling and fracking.

Consumer Energy Alliance (CEA)

• CEA poses itself as a grassroots organization, claiming that it works as “the voice of the energy consumer” and that it “provide[s] consumers with sound, unbiased information on U.S. and global energy issues.”
• However, HBW Resources — an oil and gas lobbying firm — formed CEA in the late 2000s, and an IRS 990 form shows that CEA is run out of HBW Resources’ Houston office; many of the listed CEA staff are also employed at HBW Resources.
• CEA has been a staunch advocate of the Keystone XL Pipeline, of drilling offshore from Florida to Maine and of fracking.
• In 2011, CEA funded a public relations campaign that helped defeat a fracking ban ordinance in Peters Township, Pennsylvania.
• More than once, CEA president David Holt, also a managing partner at HBW Resources, has written articles attacking Food & Water Watch, alleging without support that we are misrepresenting the risks and harms from fracking. Science makes clear the significant risks and harms.
• However, CEA is misleading the public by claiming that it is a grassroots group. Its members consist of industry trade associations and oil and gas companies, while it receives funding from oil and gas industry groups, including the American Petroleum Institute.

Energy Citizens

• Energy Citizens is one of the American Petroleum Institute’s (API’s) front groups and has a presence in every congressional district in the United States.
• Energy Citizen’s mission is to “identify, recruit, educate, engage, and mobilize citizens to voice support, participate in the energy-policy debate, and affect change at all levels of government” in order to fulfill oil and gas industry interests.
• API describes its Energy Citizen membership base as mostly males with “nationalistic tendencies,” who consider themselves “eternal pragmatists,” “very religious” and “right of center,” and who “Love Sports — in particular Motorsports.”
• According to a 2012 presentation by API’s Director of External Mobilization, the target audience for Energy Citizens is “Voters without a direct connection to the oil and natural gas industry.”
  • A leaked memo, however, exposed that in 2009, Energy Citizens planned astroturf rallies against climate change legislation that year, rallies that were fully organized from the top down and paid for by API, other industry lobbyists and API member companies, so that employees of those companies would participate.
• The memo noted: “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.”
• Energy Citizens propagates its agenda by using the web to “educate, activate, and organize,” while also attending Vote4Energy rallies, holding roundtables and participating in hearings.

Energy In Depth (EID)

• EID acts as a PR arm for the oil and gas industry.
• EID uses pseudo-grassroots tactics to build opposition against fracking activists, and it aggressively attacks any group, person or media outlet that displays concerns about or objections to fracking, in order to discredit them.
  • Among its tactics, in 2011 EID bribed citizens into testifying at public hearings in Pennsylvania on the industry’s behalf by offering free Pittsburgh Pirates tickets, paid airfare or bus transportation, and meals, in an effort to fill the space with pro-industry members of the public.
• In response to “Gasland,”IPAA and EIDspearheaded the pro-fracking short documentary “Truthland.”
• EID’s “Contact Us” page on its website used to describe itself as, “… a project of America’s small, independent oil and natural gas producers…” Conversely, major fracking companies have heavily funded EID.
  • As an IPAA memo noted: “The ‘Energy In Depth’ project would not be possible without the early financial commitments of: El Paso Corporation, XTO Energy, Occidental Petroleum, BP, Anadarko, Marathon, EnCana, Chevron, Talisman, Shell, API, IPAA, Halliburton, Schlumberger and the Ohio Oil and Gas Association.”
• EID’s influence is extensive. For example, former EID spokesperson John Krohn is now employed with the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

Energy Nation

• Energy Nation, one of the American Petroleum Institute’s front groups, is a fleet of fracking advocates made up of current and former oil and gas industry employees, vendorsand their families.
• Although backed by major oil and gas interests, Energy Nation attempts to rally itself like a grassroots organization. As illustrated in this presentation, the group strongly fosters employee mobilization to get current and former employees to be active “brand ambassadors.”

Energy Tomorrow

• Energy Tomorrow is centralto the American Petroleum Institute’s misinformation projects.
• A key method of disseminating its propaganda is through TV advertisements, in which Energy Tomorrow spokesperson Brooke Alexander — a former soap opera actress — hypes the “benefits” of natural gas jobs.

Environmental Policy Alliance

• Environmental Policy Alliance — “EPA”! — is a project of the Center for Organizational Research & Education, formerly known as the Center for Consumer Freedom, and has the same registered address as Rick Berman’s PR firm Berman and Company.
• The Environmental Policy Alliance says it is “ … devoted to uncovering the funding and hidden agendas behind environmental activist groups and exploring the intersection between activists and government agencies.” In reality, the group is operating on its own financial interests, not the public interest:
  • In July 2014, the Environmental Policy Alliance launched a snarky and misleading advertisement in Colorado to counter fracking activists who have been campaigning to get anti-fracking ballot measures on the November ballot.
  • The ad spotmocks, insults and ridicules fracking activists, claiming that activists’ opposition to fracking is rooted in asinine assumptions, ignorant of science — even though science makes clear the significant risks and harms.
• In June 2014, Anastasia Swearingen, who works for Rick Berman and the Environmental Policy Alliance, published two pro-fracking newspaper op-eds attacking the Bureau of Land Management for not yet opening up federal lands to fracking and drilling.
  • Swearingen’s op-eds are based on findings from a University of Wyoming study authored by Timothy Considine, a notorious figure in the world of frackademia, who has led industry-skewed studies funded by the Marcellus Shale Coalition and American Petroleum Institute.
  • In March 2014, five days after Swearingen published an op-ed attacking LEED certification in USA Today, the paper added an editorial update stating that it found out that she was “… employed by public relations firm Berman and Co., not the Environmental Policy Alliance.”
  • The editorial update went on to say: “The Environmental Policy Alliance, a tax-exempt group, has no employees and is housed at the same address as Berman, which controls the recently created group, according to Berman spokeswoman Sarah Longwell.”

United Shale Advocates (USA)

• On March 20, 2014, the Marcellus Shale Coalition launched a new initiative in Pennsylvania, United Shale Advocates, “focused on ensuring that [they] advance common sense, predictable policies that encourage investment and job growth across the Commonwealth.”
• This group, with its noticeably patriotic abbreviation (USA) is billed by the MSC as “a movement to tie together those interested in Pennsylvania energy and it’s a platform for them to engage further.”
• As previously mentioned, the MSC is a consortium of major oil and gas industry players and their special brand of “grassroots” organizing, which should really be called “gasroots” organizing.
• On May 6, 2014, “USA” hosted a rally in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, to oppose any efforts to impose taxes on the oil and gas industry in the state, and in support of fracking jobs and further development of the Marcellus Shale in Harrisburg.

Vote4Energy

• Launched on January 1, 2012, Vote4Energy is another American Petroleum Institute astroturf campaign, which staged fake citizen support with commercials that highlight “real Americans” who are “energy voters.”
• Activists revealed, after responding to the Vote4Energy casting call sent out on behalf of API, that the campaign initiative was an election-related advertising package with CNN, tied to the network’s political coverage for maximum political influence.
• The casting call, sent on December 1, 2011, stated:
  • “We are writing to you because we need all ages and races to express their views in a Commercial Spot on American Made Energy!”
• The call listed five qualifications that they were seeking, including:
  • “You are willing to go on camera and state your beliefs” and;
  • “You are comfortable portraying YOURSELF! They want REAL PEOPLE not Actors!”
• Yet several people were kicked out if they didn’t agree to read API’s script verbatim.

Astroturf Propaganda

"Truthland"

• “Truthland” is a short film conceived by the oil and gas industry as a rebuttal to “Gasland.” Its name, however, is an oxymoron, as the film is rather misleading.
• The film, released in 2012, initially had its web domain registered to Chesapeake Energy Corporation.
  • It was eventually changed so that it was registered to MFL Holdings, ATTN TRUTHLANDMOVIE.COM, care of Network Solutions, but LittleSis (a project of Public Accountability Initiative) was able to save a cached screen shot of its domain when it was registered to Chesapeake.
• According to the movie’s website, it is a project of Energy In Depth and IPAA, and according to an EID document acquired by LittleSis, Fred Davis, a Republican media strategist, produced “Truthland.”
• Biased appearances were also made by: Marcellus Shale Advisory Commission member and fracking advocate, Terry Engelder; former Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) Secretary, John Hanger; and former Pennsylvania DEP Deputy Secretary for Mineral Resources Management, J. Scott Roberts.

“FrackNation”

• “FrackNation,” a pro-fracking documentary, was released in 2013 in response to “Gasland 2” — with its public debut at the same time as Matt Damon’s “Promised Land.”
• The people behind “FrackNation” claim that it is an independent, grassroots-funded film, free from financial backing from the industry. But that doesn’t mean it is without its biases.
• Once described as “stars of the Republican Party,” the producers/directors of “FrackNation” are climate change-denying couple Phelim McAleer and Ann McElhinney, who have significant ties to powerful right-wing entities.
  • McAleer and McElhinney’s first two films received money from Donors Trust/Donors Capital, a nonprofit that siphons money into the climate change denial agenda and has financial ties to the Koch Brothers.
  • In a 2012 Pittsburgh Post-Gazette article, McAleer referred to environmentalism as “outsiders coming in and treating people like children.”
  • McAleer and McElhinney are reportedly “proud” that film critics compared one of their early films, “Mine Your Own Business,” to “pornography” and “Nazi propaganda.”
• “FrackNation,” endorsed by countless oil and gas groups, also spotlights several industry persons, a former Big Tobacco champion, and climate change deniers, dubbed as “independent experts.”
• DeSmogBlog has described how “FrackNation” takes a page from the Big Tobacco playbook and tries to turn clear scientific concerns into a matter of opinion, or into a “he-said, she-said” debate.

https://www.ucsusa.org/sites/default/files/2021-10/Colorado-Targeted-by-Fossil-Fuel-Industry-Disinformation-Playbook.pdf

40 pp

Colorado Targeted by

Fossil Fuel Industry’s

Disinformation

Playbook

Climate Deception Harms Communities’ Health

and Safety

www.ucsusa.org/resources/colorado-fossil-fuel-industry-disinformation

https://doi.org/10.47923/2021.14291

CONTENTS

Chapter 1 Deceiving the Public: The Disinformation Playbook 4

The Disinformation Playbook and Colorado Oil and Gas Operations 5

Chapter 2 Disinformation Tactic: The Fix 7

Lobbying to Weaken Public Health and Safety Protections and Enhance Fossil Fuel Profits 8

Overwhelming Public Voices to Thwart Ballot Initiatives 9

Table 1. An Example of How Industry Spending Overwhelms Health and Safety 10

Pitting Local Leaders Against the Health and Safety of Their Constituents 11

Influencing Public Policy Positions from Inside and Out 11

Using Proxy Groups to Confuse the Public and Undermine Support for Climate

Accountability Lawsuits 12

Chapter 3 Disinformation Tactic: The Diversion 13

Elevating Industry Interests Above Community Voices 13

Fabricating the Appearance of Local Support 14

Figure 1. Colorado’s Climate Disinformation Complex 15

Greenwashing Your Screens 16

Chapter 4 Disinformation Tactic: The Screen 18

Building Credibility by Hiding Behind Trusted State Institutions 18

Burnishing Industry’s Reputation through Association with Respected Nonprofits 19

Chapter 5 Disinformation Tactic: The Fake 21

Chapter 6 A Litany of Harms: Health and Safety 23

Cancer-Causing and Other Dangerous Chemicals in the Air and Water 24

Poor Air Quality 24

New Research Identifies Even More Dangerous Ozone Problems 25

Figure 2. Fossil Fuel Industry Emissions are Higher in High Racial-Minority Census

Tracts 26

Dangerous Inactive Wells 26

Climate Change Impacts 27

Chapter 7 A Litany of Harms: Economic 28

Bogus Complaints about High Taxes 28

Inflated Jobs Claims 28

Union of Concerned Scientists | 3

Figure 3. Oil and Gas Extraction’s Boom-and-Bust Contribution to the Colorado

Economy 29

Other Harms, Some Difficult To Monetize 29

Chapter 8 Recommendations 31

Acknowledgments 32

...For more than a decade, Colorado oil and gas exploration and development have intensified, often putting dangerous and polluting industrial activities in close proximity to homes, schools, playgrounds, and other public spaces. This report exposes how the fossil fuel industry positions itself as the backbone of the state economy, often framing any community opposition to this industry’s dangerous operations as a fight against local interest in the form of tax revenue, school funding, and jobs. The industry largely glosses over evidence it causes health, economic, or environmental damage, and its clout enables oil and gas extraction and expansion to continue with little regard for those facing the adverse health and economic impacts. In Colorado, the oil and gas industry is comprised of powerful transnational corporations, including ExxonMobil and Chevron, along with companies such as Noble Energy (now owned by Chevron), Anadarko (now owned by Occidental Petroleum), and Suncor (a large Canadian tar-sands operation with close ties to ExxonMobil and Royal Dutch Shell).

The industry’s interests are represented by heavyweight national lobbying outfits like the American Petroleum Institute (API), as well as local trade associations, like the Colorado Oil and Gas Association (COGA). A proliferation of industry-created and backed front groups includes several with ties to the private multinational conglomerate Koch Industries.They often all work together to run the same Disinformation Playbook. Of course, the fossil fuel industry uses similar tactics and wields considerable political clout in other oil- and gas-producing states and at the federal level. Consider its success in stalling any meaningful climate action for more than two decades and its ability to despoil public and Native lands and waters with drilling and pipelines. Or consider the API’s nationwide TV and digital ad campaign, launched ahead of the 2020 elections and targeting not only Colorado, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, and other key oil- and gas-producing states but also Wisconsin, Michigan, and other political swing states (API 2020a; API 2020b)....

Lobbying to Weaken Public Health and Safety Protections and Enhance Fossil Fuel Profits

In the early years of fracking in Colorado, API and its local division, the Colorado Petroleum Council (CPC), pushed the state legislature to enact the little-known ad valorem tax credit, which allows oil and gas companies to deduct local property taxes from the severance tax that fossil fuel companies must pay to the state. As local property taxes have increased, particularly for oil and gas operations, the state’s pool of severance taxes, based on production and profits, has shrunk—even though severance-tax revenues are needed to remediate abandoned and orphaned wells. Such wells are often underground pathways through which toxic fluids and gases migrate upward into air, water, and homes. These wells are also a significant source of leaked methane, a heat-trapping pollutant that has 80 times the warming power of carbon dioxide during the first 20 years after it reaches the atmosphere (Bushkin-Bedient et al. 2020).

Thanks to the ad valorem tax credit, some oil and gas operations have paid nothing to the state in recent years, leaving old wells unremediated and dangerous to residents (Eason 2020; Legislative Council Staff, n.d.; Silbaugh 2020). In April 2017, a house in Firestone, Colorado blew up, killing two residents and seriously injuring a third. The explosion was traced to gas leaking from an old well that had not been disconnected from the wellhead or properly capped (Markus 2018; Osher 2017; Svaldi and Finley 2017).In direct response to the explosion, the legislature took up a science-based bill to require regulators to map oil and gas pipelines throughout the state; a filibuster in the Republican-controlled state Senate killed the proposal. Lobbying disclosure reports and campaign-finance records showed that Anadarko and Noble Energy, both of which opposed the bill, spent significantly in support of Senate Republican candidates in the 2016 election as well as to directly lobby against the bill (Osher 2017; Sirota 2017).

Also in April 2017, the legislature considered a bill mandating that new oil and gas facilities be set back a certain distance from school property. Such a policy is intended to reduce children’s exposure to toxic releases by keeping them a safer distance from potential explosions. By a one-vote margin along party lines, a Senate committee killed the bill to establish a buffer zone separating oil and gas wells and associated facilities from occupied buildings and property lines. COGA, CPC, and other industry representatives led the opposition, arguing that “energy is the cornerstone of [the state’s] prosperity” (Glick and Ray 2017)—overstating the industry’s economic importance while ignoring the value of keeping children safe. An investigative report put oil and gas industry clout into some perspective: “Most of the people who testified in favor of the school setback bill were residents. . . . Virtually all who opposed it were paid lobbyists, most from industry associations” (Glick and Ray 2017).

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With the passage of Senate Bill 181 in 2019, the state got serious about tightening health and safety controls on the oil and gas industry. The industry, which aggressively opposed the bill, lobbied successfully for a late language change that weakened the ability of local governments to protect public health and safety. At the behest of industry lobbyists, the terms “necessary Union of Concerned Scientists | 9 and reasonable” were added as qualifiers to the bill’s text, potentially limiting the ability of cities and counties to require new protective measures (Bloom 2019)....

Overwhelming Public Voices to Thwart Ballot Initiatives

In 2016, aggressive campaigns by Protect Colorado and Coloradans for Responsible Energy Development (CRED)—front groups funded by API, CPC, Noble Energy, and Occidental Petroleum—prevented two grassroots-driven ballot measures from getting in front of voters (Dyer 2016a). One measure would have increased local control over oil and gas expansion, with the aim of putting science at the forefront of decision-making on siting, reporting, and safety requirements designed to protect the communities.

The other measure would have improved community health and safety by requiring fracking operations be set back 2,500 feet from any occupied structure (homes, schools, businesses) or “areas of concern” (drinking water sources, lakes, parks). The current scientific consensus is that a setback of 2,000 to 2,500 feet is needed to protect health and safety, especially that of children (Lewis, Greiner, and Union of Concerned Scientists | 10 Brown 2018; Milton et al. 2014; McKenzie et al. 2012). The setback would have reduced exposure to air and water pollution, lessened noise pollution, and kept children further from potential explosions. Opponents outraised proponents by a ratio of 24–1, with 99.9 percent of the opponents’ nearly $17 million total coming from energy industry companies or front groups; their campaign drowned out the public health and safety arguments at the heart of initiative (Table 1) (Blake 2016; Claypool 2016)....

,,,Protect Colorado repeated the play again two years later, in 2018, spending almost $40 million to oppose Proposition 112 (Sirota and Woodruff 2018b), which would have required new oil and gas development projects to be set back 2,500 feet from occupied buildings and other areas of concern. In addition to donating millions of dollars to Protect Colorado PAC to oppose Proposition 112, Noble Energy directly funded spots on at least 12 TV stations in the month before the election (Sirota and Woodruff 2018b). One ad explicitly told voters: “When you vote, we need your support to stop Proposition 112, so we can continue producing the natural gas and oil that power our daily lives.”

This ad ignored the initiative’s health and safety intent, instead advancing a bogus economic argument that stronger protective measures would put the industry out of business (Sirota and Woodruff 2018a). In 2020, the industry poured money into ad campaigns even with no initiatives on the ballot or legislation in the works. Protect Colorado spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on a statewide online and TV ad campaign aimed at Governor Polis and the COGCC, threatening to challenge any new regulations, particularly on siting setbacks, that the industry deemed unreasonable(Bunch 2020). The industry promoted 500-foot setbacks—about one-fourth the distance that scientists say is best to protect communities, especially vulnerable populations (Lewis, Greiner, and Brown 2018; Milton et al. 2014)....

[rev dr]

Using Proxy Groups to Confuse the Public and Undermine Support for Climate Accountability Lawsuits

In 2018, Boulder and San Miguel counties and the city of Boulder sued ExxonMobil and Suncor, arguing that the companies violated state law by deceiving the public about the dangers of their fossil fuel products. These local governments are demanding that the companies pay their fair share of remediating climate damages accruing in their communities (Boulder County, n.d.; City of Boulder, n.d.; EarthRights International, n.d.; San Miguel County, n.d.).

Almost immediately, ExxonMobil and Suncor launched a counteroffensive, using proxy groups to distort the public’s understanding of the case.The defendants, falsely suggesting that the local governments were seeking a back-door path to achieve legislative goals, attempted to redirect attention away from the on-the-ground reality that communities face budget-busting expenses due to climate change-related fires, flooding, bad air quality, and extreme heat.Industry PR companies, particularly Western Wire (an ExxonMobil executive serves on its board of directors) and Energy In Depth (a project of the Independent Petroleum Association of America), ramped up their substantial media buys to discredit the legal strategy (EarthRights International 2018).

Industry groups also attacked and attempted to discredit a public forum at the University of Colorado Law School on holding fossil fuel companies liable for climate change harms in the state (MAP 2019; University of Colorado Law School 2019). Further, their representatives posed as journalists to try to interview plaintiff’s attorneys outside of appropriate court channels (EarthRights International 2018; EarthRights International 2019). For more than three years, the defendants have used procedural tactics to keep this case—like other recent climate accountability complaints against fossil fuel companies—from being considered on its merits....

Chapter 3 Disinformation Tactic:

The Diversion Manufacture uncertainty about science (including economics) and facts where little or no uncertainty exists

In an infamous 1969 memorandum, a tobacco executive captured the Diversion tactic well: “Doubt is our product, since it is the best means of competing with the ‘body of fact’ that exists in the minds of the general public” (Mulvey and Shulman 2015).

To create doubt, undermine science, influence public opinion, and gain access to policymakers while maintaining the illusion of independence, fossil fuel companies in Colorado have deployed trade associations, front groups with innocuous-sounding names, and “greenwashing” advertising campaigns that paint oil and gas as sources of clean energy and central to climate solutions. Corporate interests even create, fund, and control so-called “astroturf” groups that falsely portray themselves as grassroots.

 To rig the system in its favor, Colorado’s fossil fuel industry uses “The Diversion” to exert political power over crucial legislative, regulatory, and grassroots-led initiatives, commonly engaging in a variety of activities, including: • Elevating industry interests above community voices; • Fabricating the appearance of local support; and • Greenwashing your screens. Elevating Industry Interests Above Community Voices

At least three oil and gas industry trade associations operate aggressively in Colorado: the American Petroleum Institute, the Colorado Petroleum Council (the API’s local affiliate), and the Colorado Oil and Gas Association. Also active are the Colorado Petroleum Association, the Western Energy Alliance, the Independent Petroleum Association of America (IPAA), and the CO-WYO Petroleum Marketers Association.

Wielding its wealth and political power, the industry is able to supercharge its advocacy and drown out community voices. Sometimes visibly and sometimes behind the scenes, these trade associations engage in extensive Union of Concerned Scientists | 14 legislative and regulatory lobbying and pour hundreds of thousands of dollars into campaigns to sway public opinion, especially investing in large-scale TV, radio, and social-media advertising. Fossil fuel trade associations use their clout to spread disinformation. For example, their lobbyists routinely exaggerate the industry’s economic benefits while downplaying the health and safety risks to community members. In 2017 testimony to a state Senate committee hearing on the proposed legislation on setbacks from school properties, COGA’s president claimed that protective setback extensions would undermine oil and gas as “the cornerstone of prosperity” in the state (Glick and Ray 2017).

The industry has peddled that exaggeration for years, even though the oil and gas sector is a notoriously unstable, “boom and bust” enterprise that accounts for roughly 1 percent of Colorado jobs. At the same time, it offloads onto the state and its communities innumerable externalities, such as air pollution, fouled waters, and abandoned mines (PwC 2017; API 2017; BEA, n.d.b). The industry also downplays, even denies, the health risks from contaminants released during oil and gas exploration and extraction. During the 2017 setback hearing, CPC’s executive director told the press that the idea of protecting school children “was based on the presumption that being near oil and gas facilities is dangerous,” adding that CPC “absolutely rejects that notion” (Glick and Ray 2017).

Yet current oil and gas production releases a host of dangerous chemicals into the air and water—including those that cause cancer and disrupt the endocrine system—and it creates significant noise and light pollution. Science shows that children are particularly sensitive to those dangerous chemicals (Bushkin-Bedient et al. 2020, 60, 86; Glick and Ray 2017, McKenzie et al. 2017). An API TV ad opposing a 2019 package of oil and gas reforms in the legislature is another example of how industry advertising spreads falsehoods and misrepresentations. The ad claimed that the measures would “shut down energy production in Colorado”—a claim with no economic basis (API 2019). The ad suggested that lawmakers, acting in bad faith, had snuck the bill out of committee “in the middle of the night.”

In reality, the relevant committee voted at 2:00 a.m. only after hearing more than 12 hours of testimony from both supporters and opponents (Woodruff 2019).

Fabricating the Appearance of Local Support

A plethora of oil and gas industry front groups litters the political landscape in Colorado, often with ambiguous or purposely confusing names, sometimes using dirty-trick tactics, and rarely disclosing ties to the industry (Yowell 2018). To conceal its lobbying activities, the industry hides behind astroturf organizations, created to falsely appear as grassroots in their opposition to forward-looking climate and energy policy ( see Figure 1)....

In 2019, the industry ran an aggressive and misleading campaign in opposition to Senate Bill 181. In addition to TV and radio ads, it invested in social-media advertising. Using the Facebook Ad Library, an investigative reporter identified “dozens of sponsored posts from astroturf groups like ‘Energy Citizens’ and ‘Energy Nation’ opposing SB181,” paid for with tens of thousands of dollars from the API. The ads recorded millions of impressions (Woodruff 2019; Davies 2011).

Perhaps the most ubiquitous of the front groups is Coloradoans for Responsible Energy Development. Created and generously funded by Anadarko Petroleum and Noble Energy, CRED describes itself as an educational organization, yet it engages deeply in overt political activities. Mark Truax,in his presentation to the Interstate Oil and Gas Compact Commission in 2015, described these activities. As CRED’s director of operations and coalitions, he also boasted about the vast amount of money the organization invested in those activities (Dyer 2016a; Glick and Ray 2016).

The trade associations and front groups create astroturf groups that are industry-funded and led by industry representatives and political operatives. CRED created its political arm, Protect Colorado, for the purpose of defeating grassroots-led anti-fracking ballot initiatives Union of Concerned Scientists | 16 (Protect Colorado, n.d.). For example, to defeat the 2016 setback and local control initiatives, Protect Colorado initiated a “decline to sign” campaign, discouraging Coloradans from signing a petition to get the initiatives on the ballot; it used various grassroots organizing techniques funded with nearly $17 million by CRED, Anadarko Petroleum,Noble Energy, and several other oil and gas companies (Blake 2016; Claypool 2016).

As tracked byPublic Citizen,“The widest disparity between spending by corporate-backed groups and their mostly noncorporate opposition was found in the race for Colorado’s Mandatory Setback from Oil and Gas Development Amendment” (Claypool 2016). Also as part of 2016 efforts to keep setback and local-control initiatives off the statewide ballot, Protect Colorado hired people to carry signs saying “decline to sign #75 and #78” (Evans 2016; Glick and Ray 2016; KGNU 2016).

Protect Colorado was similarly behind efforts to harass signature gatherers and petition signers. Protesters followed a Denver mom out gathering signatures, screaming in her face, “You’re taking our jobs!” No one answered when she asked her harassers questions about the “jobs” they had in the industry (Glick and Ray 2016). These dirty tricks continued and even expanded in 2018. The industry again hired protesters who followed petition-signature gatherers, sometimes harassing and threatening them, in an effort to keep the setback initiative off the ballot(Yowell, 2018). An undisclosed pro-industry group paid a signature-gathering firm to stop its work on the initiative; the contractor admitted on tape to initiative organizers: “Nobody threatened me. You know what they’re doing. They’re going around and buying people” (Olabi 2018). The industry also created new astroturf organizations with names strikingly similar to those of initiative supporters, apparently attempting to confuse voters about who was behind the campaigns (Yowell 2018).

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astroturf

https://www.desmogblog.com/2019/06/06/enbridge-minnesotans-line-3-front-group-oil-pipeline

Minnesotans for Line 3, a group established last year to advocate for an Enbridge oil pipeline project, presents itself as a grassroots organization consisting of “thousands of members.”

But a DeSmog investigation has found that behind the scenes, the Calgary-based energy giant is pulling the strings. Enbridge has provided the group with funding, public relations, and a variety of advocacy tactics.

The investigation has also found that a public relations firm behind the operation recently tried to erase its ties to Enbridge.

Facebook Splurge and Secret Tactics

Minnesotans for Line 3 first appeared in the battle over Enbridge’s Line 3 Replacement Project early last year.

Opponents, who this week employed direct action tactics to block initial work on the project and delivered a petition to Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, include several Native communities — among them the White Earth and Mille Lacs Bands of Ojibwe and the Red Lake Band of Chippewa. Of their main concerns, these groups cite violation of Indigenous rights, risks associated with oil spills, and climate change impacts.

Through a series of TV ads and op-eds, along with a social media campaign and a petition delivered to state authorities, Minnesotans for Line 3 called for approving Enbridge’s multi-billion dollar plan to replace and reroute its aging pipeline that transports Canadian tar sands oil through North Dakota and Minnesota to Superior, Wisconsin.

The group spent considerable funds on Facebook advertising, making it the tenth largest digital ad purchaser among interest groups between November 2018 and April 2019. And it allegedly engaged in more stealthy tactics as well: Dozens of young people wearing Minnesotans for Line 3 shirts occupied spots in a line at a state Public Utilities Commission (PUC) hearing on the project at the expense of the project’s opponents – only to disappear shortly after receiving the tickets.

The PUC’s eventual approval of the project suffered a partial reversal this week, after the Minnesota Court of Appeals ruledthat the pipeline’s environmental impact statement did not adequately address the potential impact of an oil spill in the Lake Superior watershed. That review will likely be sent back to the PUC to determine how to proceed.

Enbridge Behind TV Ads

Formally, Minnesotans for Line 3 says it was established by Bob Schoneberger, the former founder and CEO of United Piping, an Enbridge construction contractor. Schoneberger, who died unexpectedly from a heart attack last November, worked previously for Lakehead Pipeline, Enbridge’s early incarnation.

Minnesotans for Line 3’s website makes no mention of any affiliation with Enbridge, and other than United Piping, lists two other construction companies — JR Jensen Construction and Gordon Construction — on its advisory cou

...

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https://www.desmogblog.com/2019/02/15/propaganda-pipeline-front-group-gain-grow-america-infrastructure-now

Although pipelines have been facing a number of setbacks recently, pro-pipeline groups aren’t giving up. One of those is Grow America’s Infrastructure Now (GAIN), which came to our attention because it’s recently begun sponsoring the Washington Examiner’s daily energy newsletter.

GAIN’s website simply describes the group as supporting strengthening infrastructure development and only mentions pipelines as one aspect of its focus, which also includes bridges, roads, etc. But the group’s blog, Twitter, and coverage in the media are pretty exclusively dedicated to pro-pipeline messaging. Hmmm, almost like it isn’t an all-around infrastructure group, and perhaps may have some ulterior motive …

Which, of course, it does. GAIN was formerly known as the Midwest Alliance for Infrastructure Now (MAIN), which Steve Horn at DeSmog reported was acting as a front group for DCI. You may remember DCI as the PR firm tied to the GOP: It’s got experience in creating front groups on behalf of Big Tobacco, it’s known for its role spearheading the modern Tea Party movement, and it’s also worked to discredit Dakota Access pipeline protesters.

And although it seems to have changed names, GAIN is still up to the same tricks.

Back in July of 2017, Eric Hananoki at Media Matters wrote a piece exposing how CNN Commentator James “Spider” Marks was writing op-eds attacking pipeline protestors without disclosing he was on the advisory board of TigerSwan, a company that was hired to provide security for the Dakota Access pipeline. This led to numerous papers updating Marks’ pieces to reflect this. PennLive actually stated “his work will not appear on the website again” due to this failure to disclose.

What’s Marks been up to lately? Well as it turns out, in the past year, he’s been writing more pro-pipeline op-eds, in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the Washington Times, and RealClearPolitics. All, of course, without mentioning his position as a Strategic Advisor at GAIN.

GAIN’s latest project is a “fact-checker” tool, designed, as the website says, to push back against the so-called “coordinated disinformation campaigns” that have been leveraged against pipelines like Dakota Access and Keystone XL.

However, GAIN seems unaware of how fact-checkers generally work: The website often just repeats a claim without offering any further evidence and then deems it true.

A recent fact-check from earlier this week has the appearance of offering more evidence, but that disappears once you dig in. The check gives a “False” rating to a claim that a pipeline would negatively impact property values, using evidence in a 2016 study by the Interstate Natural Gas Association of America (INGAA), a trade organization that advocates for the natural gas pipeline industry, which concluded that proximity to a natural gas pipeline has no impact on property value.

Beyond the inherent bias of having a natural gas pipeline advocacy group do this study, some have also pointed out that the study compared houses next to the pipeline with houses in the same development, a few hundred feet from the pipeline, rather than with the broader market. This means the research may not be accurately portraying the influence of pipelines on property value. After all, if the pipeline depresses value for the whole neighborhood, this methodology wouldn’t notice.

Personal and local accounts suggest that’s exactly what’s happening. One property owner in the path of that Kinder Morgan pipeline — a self-described conservative who supports pipelines — says he’s been trying to sell his property and interest has dropped since the project was announced.

Meaning that unless you own the pipeline or get paid by the people who do, buying into the industry‘s propaganda will be all pain, no GAIN.

On February 21, the New Orleans City Council unanimously voted to uphold approval of Entergy's proposed natural gas power plant, which faces a growing number of lawsuits, and passed a resolution to impose a $5 million fine on the company for its role in a paid-actors scandal.

https://www.desmogblog.com/2018/05/10/entergy-natural-gas-power-plant-new-orleans-astroturfing-campaign

Before the vote, in nearly three hours of often emotional testimony mostly against the plant, many contended that the $5 million fine was not a sufficient punishment. This was in light of the council's commissioned investigation, which concluded the company "knew or should have known" that a subcontractor was paying actors to support its proposed power plant at council meetings.

==

Entergy New Orleans, the company that recently won approval to build a controversial $210 million natural gas power plant in the city, confirmed that actors were paid to show support for this project at public meetings. Though Entergy claims it was unaware of the situation, a public relations firm it hired had paid freelance actors to testify in favor of the project at public meetings.

On May 10, Entergy released its finding from an internal investigation revealing that the public affairs firm The Hawthorn Group, which it hired to organize “grassroots support” for the natural gas power plant, in fact paid actors to voice and show support for the plant. The Hawthorn Group in turn hired a company called Crowds on Demand to “pay individuals that it recruited to appear and/or speak at those two meetings.”

“This activity was undertaken without our knowledge or approval, and I can say unequivocally that it would not have been approved had we known,” Entergy General Counsel Marcus Brown said in a statement. “We do, however, recognize that we ultimately are responsible for the actions of those who act on our behalf, and we are taking immediate steps to prevent a similar situation from happening again.”

Earlier this week, The Lens, an investigative journalism site, reported that actors were paid $60 to show up at the meetings, and up to $200 to read a statement at two recent public meetings when critical votes regarding the plant were held.

At one meeting in October last year, 50 people wearing orange shirts that read “Clean Energy. Good Jobs. Reliable Power” filled seats in an auditorium, preventing many residents who oppose the project from getting into the room. Entergy plans to build the natural gas power plant in New Orleans East, which is home to majority African-American and Vietnamese communities, raising concerns of environmental racism. Proponents claim the plant would address New Orleans’ energy outage issues, while critics say they could be solved for less money by fixing the city’s ailing transmission system.

The Lens reported that the actors had to sign a non-disclosure agreement and were instructed not to speak to the media or tell anyone they were being paid to attend.

Before the admission, Earthjustice filed a lawsuit on behalf of opponents of the power plant, including members of the Alliance for Affordable Energy, the Sierra Club, the Deep South Center for Environmental Justice, and 350 New Orleans, in order to void the actions taken at the two meetings, one a city council meeting and another a utility commission meeting.

The opponents also sent a letter to the Louisiana Attorney General, Buddy Landry, calling for an investigation into who paid for the fake participants, and possible legal and ethical violations.

Renate Heurich of 350 New Orleans testifying against the gas power plant on March 8, 2018.]

Renate Heurich of 350 New Orleans doesn’t believe Entergy didn’t know the company’s money was going to paid actors at the public meetings. “I think the corruption goes much deeper than that,” she told me. “Why else would anyone on the council vote ‘yes’ on a project that has no value for the residents of New Orleans?”

At the March council meeting before the vote for the plant was held, Heurich pleaded with the council not to invest in a fossil fuel infrastructure project in a city already plagued by the effects of climate change. “The vote for the plant, clearly wasn’t based on logic,” Heurich said. “The only one who benefits is Entergy.

Astroturfing — secretly paying for efforts to create the illusion of grassroots support — is nothing new, but proving a company like Entergy may be involved can be challenging.

Hawthorn, however, has a history of astroturf campaigns on behalf of the energy industry, as pointed out by the Energy and Policy Institute. In 2009, the company, paid by the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity, hired a subcontractor to create the illusion of grassroots support against climate change legislation, which involved forging letters from minority groups such as NAACP’s Charlottesville chapter. And sometimes paid support can take another form — such as the fact that Entergy's foundation donated more than a million dollars to at least nine charitable organizations that testified on the plant's behalf, without always disclosing those donations, at the same public meetings now under scrutiny.*

Brendan DeMelle, DeSmog’s executive director, wrote about a 2014 astroturf effort made by communications firm Edelman on behalf of TransCanada for the Energy East tar sands export pipeline (a project ultimately killed in 2017). Documents obtained by Greenpeace outline a “grassroots advocacy” campaign plan to build support for TransCanada’s Energy East pipeline, as well as to undermine public opposition to oil and pipelines generally.

Entergy’s claim that it didn’t know about the astroturfing effort made on its behalf sounded disingenuous to members of the coalition against the plant whom I spoke with after Entergy released its findings.

Happy Johnson testifying at a New Orleans City Council Meeting against Entergy’s proposed natural gas power plant. FLAnked by 2 cops about to pull him out?!

Happy Johnson, author and humanitarian and an outspoken opponent to the gas plant, hopes in light of Entergy’s admission the permit will be reconsidered. According to Johnson, at the next council meeting on May 24, opponents plan to make their case to the newly seated city council that the permit needs to be revoked. “With this kind of trickery, I hope the new council will do the right thing and take another look,” Johnson said.

==

N Mining A NMA

http://www.countoncoal.org/about-us/

astroturf swamp thing

Doug Matheney now works as a top assistant to Perry after previously serving as the state coordinator for the Count on Coal initiative. He also worked as a coordinator for the Koch-funded Americans for Prosperity.

==

astroturf:

The Palm Beach Post‘s Christine Stapleton reports that the “Tea Party” protesters outside of the South Florida Water Management District on Thursday were, by and large, actors hired by the Tea Party of Miami and U.S. Sugar.  http://www.mypalmbeachpost.com/news/news/state-regional-govt-politics/actors-hired-to-protest-at-water-district-know-lit/nkkkb/

The district is currently considering buying land owned by U.S. Sugar, which it would use for the treatment and storage of lake flood water. Environmentalist believe that using the land in this way will allow them to divert more water into the Everglades without harming coastal estuaries. The water would not only help replenish the Everglades, it would also provide an emergency reserve drinking supply for South Florida.

But U.S. Sugar wants to keep the land, arguing that as one of the area’s largest employers, it is in the district’s best interests not to exercise the $350 million buy-out option in its contract. Tea Party Miami:

STOP THE LAND GRAB PROTEST - WEST PALM BEACH - BE THERE APRIL 2

Radical Environmentalists want the State to divert $500 M from Everglades Restoration programs to buy 46,000 acres that will have little or no impact on Everglades clean-up. A shady Liberal New York Hedge Fund billionaire with a murky past as a polluter is paying top aides to Obama and Charlie Cris to wage a multimillion dollar TV campaign of disinformation to fool Florida Voters. Court mandated water tests show...

See More

...

http://www.alternet.org/environment/tea-party-protesters-opposed-florida-land-deal-were-mostly-actors-hired-big-sugar

==

art'l : More than 50 actors from a Broward County acting group were paid $75 each to protest outside the South Florida Water Management District on Thursday about a controversial land deal they knew little about.

The protest was called by the Tea Party of Miami and Florida Citizens Against Waste, a recently formed group that has no contact information on its website and is not registered to do business in Florida.

==

rentamob  http://grist.org/news/cool-job-posting-earn-20-pretending-to-hate-wind-energy/

The Nicotine Network

How Big Tobacco and Republican congressional leaders help each other gain power.

By Peter H. Stone | Tue Apr. 30, 1996 11:00 PM PDT

Just four blocks from the headquarters of RJR Nabisco in Winston-Salem, N.C., is a small company called the Ramhurst Corp., which has been playing an instrumental role in the beleaguered tobacco behemoth's political fortunes. Its key mission: to quash the biggest political and financial challenges the tobacco industry has ever faced--from federal efforts to regulate tobacco at the Food and Drug Administration to state attempts to impose excise taxes and smoking restrictions.

Launched in 1993 with the support of RJR, Ramhurst--which coordinates many of its activities closely with RJR--combines "grassroots" lobbying with inside-the-Beltway influence-peddling. "Grassroots" coalitions have become a vital tool for tobacco's survival because of the industry's increasingly negative public image. By forming coalitions with business groups, conservative activist organizations, and other industries, tobacco companies like RJR obtain useful cover and, in effect, go from being a "black hat" to a "white hat" in the political world.

Ramhurst occupies a special niche among grassroots organizers for tobacco, however: Its operatives have also forged ties with some of the most powerful GOP leaders in Washington, including Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole, House Majority Leader Dick Armey, and Arizona Rep. John Shadegg, Newt Gingrich's hand-picked choice to succeed him as director of the powerful political action committee GOPAC.

Most significantly, a key Ramhurst operative has been tapped to head House Majority Whip Tom DeLay's leadership PAC, considered by many the pre-eminent fundraising vehicle in the GOP, after Newt Gingrich's money machine.

Source URL: http://www.motherjones.com/politics/1996/05/nicotine-network

NW coal fronts/PR firms

Look Who’s Taking Coal Money

The face of the coal industry in the Northwest.

Eric de Place and Nick Abraham on December 13, 2012 at 1:00 am

This post is part of the research project: Northwest Coal Exports

This is great: the redoubtable Joel Connelly, over at the Seattle P-I, is on the case. Take a look at his story: Seattle PR firms are doing “coal’s dirty work.”

If ever an industry needed good PR, it’s coal.

The industry can’t hope to promote its own coal export schemes in the Northwest so instead it buys support from local consulting and PR firms willing to do coal’s dirty work. By taking money from Big Coal, these firms—many of which have carefully groomed reputations for sustainability and public-interest work—have themselves become a part of the coal industry.

Most of these firms might rather not have the public know about the work they do, with the blinds pulled down, on behalf of out-of-state coal giants. After all, their livelihoods depend on appealing to green-minded governments, nonprofits, and businesses in the Northwest. So as an exercise in letting in the sunlight—and as a sort of caveat emptor for clients—here is a look at the Northwest’s homegrown coal industry.

Edelman

The world’s largest independent PR firm, Edelman operates with a dizzying hypocrisy that is on bold display in its Seattle office. Although CEO Richard Edelman says publicly: “I do not subscribe to the use of front groups to cover up the true intent of a client,” the firm is in fact the shadowy force behind the newly constituted front group Alliance for Northwest Jobs & Exports (ANJE). The Seattlepi.com calls ANJE an “astroturf” group for its work supporting the proposal to ship 48 million tons of coal each year from Cherry Point.

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Edelman has a well-documented history of astroturf activities and although its name is mentioned nowhere on ANJE’s glossy website, multiple news agencies (here and here) report that the firm manages the group. In fact, Edelman vice-president Lauri Hennessey identifies herself in public—and is routinely cited in the media—as a spokesperson for ANJE (here, here, here, and here). (Hennessey also runs her own PR firm—Hennessey Communications—where she touts her environmental values.)

Berk Consulting

Seattle-based Berk Consulting takes coal money. The firm produced a economic analysis for Millennium Bulk Terminals, the company that wants to ship 44 million tons of coal annually from a site on the Columbia River. Opponents have disputed the Berk study, arguing that it fails to consider traffic impacts and economic costs, both public and private.

Nyhus Communications

With offices in Seattle and Washington, DC, Nyhus Communications features a website with rotating photos of renewable energy projects and green hero Van Jones. Yet Nyhus also carries water for coal interests, working with Arch Coal (p73) to promote coal shipments from Longview. Nyhus is also actively involved with Move Forward Washington, a newly minted group that emphasizes coal among other exports. (One founding member of the group is Millennium Bulk Terminals.)

Gallatin Public Affairs

Gallatin is a natural fit with the coal industry. The firm has a history of pushing through controversial projects, including Monsanto’s Blackfoot Bridge phosphate mine and Formation Metals’ Cobalt Mine proposal. So it’s no surprise that Gallatin has gone to work for Millenium Bulk Terminals’ coal project in Longview, Washington.

The most troubling dimension to Gallatin’s role may be partner Bruce Gryniewiski. He’s the former head of Washington Conservation Voters and a current board member of the Mountains to Sound Greenway. He says that he joined Gallatin to “win support for even the most controversial projects.”

He’s trying to do just that. Gryniewiski is the prime mover in Gallatin’s efforts to put 44 million tons of coal on the Columbia River each year to be burned at power plants in Asia. He is listed as lobbyist and also as a spokesperson for the coal company.

ECONorthwest

A Portland-based economic consulting firm, ECONorthwest has a long history of work supporting conservation, so many were surprised to learn the firm took money from Ambre Energy to produce an economic impact analysis. ECONorthwest’s analysis has become a key piece of support for the Morrow Pacific Project, a complicated scheme to move as much as 8 million tons of coal annually in barges on the Columbia River for onward shipment to coal plants in Asia.

Gard Communications

Headquartered in Portland, Gard Communications is the public face for Ambre Energy’s Morrow Pacific Project. The firm produces a range of publicity materials and president Brian Gard himself appears to be acting as Ambre’s press flak for the project. Gard has the distinction of being the only Northwest consulting firm so far to attract attention for its coal work when several Portland groups protested it.

Strategies 360

Headquartered in Seattle, the Strategies 360 consulting group has done some worthy environmental work in the past, even sponsoring Ecotrust‘s annual leadership award in 2011. Less well known is the firm’s work in the coal industry. Matt Steuerwalt, former climate and energy adviser to Gov. Gregoire, was the lead lobbyist for RailAmerica’s plan to ship 5 million tons of coal from Gray’s Harbor to Asian power plants. After months of delay and confusion, the plan collapsed.

Drawing a line in the sky.

Climate activist Bill McKibben makes a forceful case for divestment—removing fossil fuel companies from big institutional portfolios, helping to starve them of the cash they require to continue damaging the global climate.

Yet divestment need not be all about multinational fossil fuel corporations. It could take the form of withholding support from the consultants and publicists who act as the Northwest front for coal exports. What if Portland State University stopped working with Gard Communications? What if Forterra backed away from Nyhus? What if the Seattle Parks Department severed ties with Berk, and King County fired ECONorthwest?

Imagine a Northwest where local governments, nonprofits, and farsighted corporations drew a sort of line in the sky, refusing to do business with the coal industry—including its local agents. Losing even a client or two might be enough to induce more local firms to refuse coal money. Denied Northwest connections and credible local advocates, the hugely destructive export plans would have more difficulty gaining traction in a region that has long prided itself on its growing clean-energy economy. Perhaps this form of divestment could speed the day when all of Cascadia says “no” to a dirty, climate-wrecking fuel whose highest and best use is to hold up the ground in Wyoming’s Powder River Basin.

==

TPMmuckracker is also tracking this group.

http://www.patriotproject.com/

oppose restrictions on smoking in public places, through a front group called National Smokers Alliance, which was created by Burson-Marsteller

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Bonner_%26_Associates

tea party

Tea Party Express is the name for a public relations blitz in 2009 via a cross-country caravan of buses and cars making 35 stops for rallies featured on conservative media. Tea Party Patriots (TPP) is a conservative group initially organized by Freedomworks, which was responsible for organizing the anti-healthcare reform town hall mobs that occurred during the congressional recess period in August, 2009.

This is one tour among several recent, simultaneous, or future scheduled tours. There are several astroturf organizations sending buses around in their own names. See also Americans For Prosperity's Hot Air Balloon Tour[1]; Americans For Prosperity's Patients First Bus Tour[2]; and the American Energy Alliance's American Energy Express.[3]

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/13/opinion/13krugman.html

www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2009/04...

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=4&ved=0CCUQFjAD&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.theatlantic.com%2Fpolitics%2Farchive%2F2009%2F04%2Fthe-tea-party-movement-whos-in-charge%2F13041%2F&ei=5zlUTNONLo-ksQPzjrHaAg&usg=AFQjCNFHdd9bEb1-ZaYMSIRhPuFBNHq6Rw

http://www.campusprogress.org/know5things/3909/astroturf-tea-parties

Know Five Things

1. The tea parties are organized by two large, well-funded, lobbyist-run think tanks.[Think Progress]

Americans for Prosperity: This group, run by Ralph Reed’s former lobbying partner Tim Phillips, is handling the PR and planning the events in the following states: New Jersey, Arizona, New Hampshire, Missouri, Kansas

Freedom Works: This group is run by former GOP Majority Leader Dick Armey. They have a) set up Web sites to promote the events that are supposed to look as if they’ve been set up by amateurs; b) written how-to guides and talking points for the events; c) coordinated conference calls among protesters and activists to give them “sign ideas, sample press releases, and a map of events around the country.”

2. Free Publicity and Hype on Fox News

Media Matters has documented the aggressive promotion of the anti-tax protests on Fox News: “Fox News has in dozens of instances provided attendance and organizing information for future protests, such as protest dates, locations and website URLs. Fox News websites have also posted information and publicity material for protests. Fox News hosts have repeatedly encouraged viewers to join them at several April 15 protests that they are attending and covering.” [Media Matters]

Promising “fair and balanced” coverage, hosts such as Glenn Beck, Neil Cavuto, and Sean Hannity are all planning to broadcast live from the events. Fox News commentator Neil Cavuto defends the network’s coverage, saying Fox News covered the Million Man March, so it should be able to cover the tea parties. News Hounds, however, points out that the Million Man March took place on Oct. 16, 1995, while Fox News wasn’t created until Oct. 7, 1996. [Think Progress] [News Hounds]

3. Heavy Involvement From GOP Leaders

To stress the grassroots nature of the anti-tax protests, Fox News has stressed the event has no partisan agenda.

The Hill reports that the NRCC is using the event to raise money. The group sent an e-mail to supporters with a link to show them any local tea parties, then asked, “You cannot afford to allow the Democrats to continue their fiscally insanity. Please consider contributing $15, $25, $50 or more as we fight for you.” [The Hill]

An article on their Web site claimed “only two members of Congress — both Republicans — who have committed to attending the demonstrations on the day income taxes are due.” [Fox News]

On Fox’s show America’s Newsroom, host Megyn Kelly repeated the claim that “only two members of Congress have agreed to join in, in these events, one of them is South Carolina Senator Jim DeMint.” [Think Progress]

Progressive blogs quickly found at least 12 GOP lawmakers involved in the protests.

Fox News then “corrected” its story, saying, “Editor’s Note: Following this FOXNews.com report, the Republican Study Committee surveyed 110 members and found 38 lawmakers who say they will participate in tea party activities on tax day.” [Fox News]

4. What Do The Protesters Want?

Anti-TARP bailout. According to the Web site, the biggest complaint is about the $700 billion TARP bailout of the banks (which happened more than 6 months ago at the behest of George W. Bush.)

Anti-Obama. From Paul Krugman: “Thus, President Obama is being called a ’socialist’ who seeks to destroy capitalism. Why? Because he wants to raise the tax rate on the highest-income Americans back to, um, about 10 percentage points less than it was for most of the Reagan administration. Bizarre.”

Anti-Stimulus. Another complaint is against the package designed to create 3.5 million jobs in the U.S.

Pro-Tax Cuts. Following a link from the Tea Party web site takes you to a “Tool Kit For Tea Parties,” on a site hosted by Newt Gingrich’s group “American Solutions.” Their solutions include: Tax cuts. Getting rid of the Capital Gains tax. Killing the Employee Free Choice Act. More drilling. Getting rid of Sarbanes-Oxley, the 2002 law created in the wake of the Enron scandals to provide oversight of large public corporations. [American Solutions]

5. Polls show “regular people” aren’t as interested in the protests.

A Fox News poll released on April 2 found only 36 percent of Americans said they would “be willing to join” a “tea party” protest. [Fox News]

Also:

Think Progress compiled a list of involved lawmakers and their venues. Also, “the Fort Worth Star-Telegram reported yesterday that Texas Gov. Rick Perry and Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) will be appearing at tea party protests as well. Rep. Denny Rehberg (R-MT), Rep. Jack Kingston (R-GA), and Rep. Tom Rooney (R-FL) have also been urging their constituents to attend tea party protests while Sen. David Vitter (R-LA) is sponsoring a bill in Congress to honor the protests.” [http://thinkprogress.org/2009/04/13/kelly-fox-tea-party/]

Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-UT) and Rep. Rob Bishop (R-UT), Salt Lake City.

Rep. Todd Tiahrt (R-KS) and a representative from Rep. Sam Graves’ (R-MO) office, Overland Park

Rep. John Fleming (R-LA), Shreveport

Rep. Ander Crenshaw (R-FL), Jacksonville

Rep. Bob Latta (R-OH), Wauseon

Rep. John Shadegg (R-AZ) and former Rep. J.D. Hayworth (R-AZ), Phoenix

Rep. Sue Myrick (R-NC), Charlotte

Rep. Bill Posey (R-FL), Brevard

Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX), Longview

Gov. Mark Sanford (R-SC), Columbia.

flacks http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Woodward_%26_McDowell

Woodward & McDowell is a political public relations firm that works on behalf of the nation's top corporations to help them do "grassroots" organizing and push through ballot measures. Clients include the California Chamber of Commerce, ExxonMobil, Dow Chemical, Monsanto, ConocoPhillips, the Western States Petroleum Association. It promotes itself as a "ballot measure and issue advocacy" firm.[1][2]

Woodward & McDowell has assisted the tobacco industry in defeating measures designed to safeguard public health.

ANTI-GREEN

Wingnuts in Sheep's Clothing

Meet the kooks and corporations behind the astroturf group called ECO.

— By Keith Hammond

Thu Dec. 4, 1997 12:00 AM PST

It's not easy being green -- the brown opposition is well-funded and sneaky, with fake populist tactics that make it hard to spot the wolf in sheep's clothing. To learn more about the astroturf groups who are lobbying against the Kyoto global warming treaty, we contacted the Clearinghouse on Environmental Advocacy and Research (CLEAR). A project of the Environmental Working Group in Washington, D.C., CLEAR ferrets out anti-environmental groups and their funders: the mining, logging, petrochemical, and land-developing industries who profit from pollution and wilderness destruction. Starting with Henry Lamb's perversely named Environmental Conservation Organization, we trace here the interlocking directorates -- and corporate sponsors -- of some of the extremist groups who'll give up their carbon-spewing smokestack when you pry it out of their cold, dead hands:

CHART COMPILED BY DAN BARRY, CLEARINGHOUSE FOR ENVIRONMENTAL ADVOCACY AND RESEARCH (CLEAR)

Environmental Conservation Organization (ECO) The brainchild of property-rights firebrand Henry Lamb, ECO is an anti-environmental umbrella outfit counting more than 300 Wise Use groups as members, with a phone and fax network and a monthly newsletter called Eco-logic, which promotes Wise Use efforts to stop the global warming treaty, and Lamb's conspiracy theories of a United Nations New World Order. Funded by: Allnet Telecommunications, Land Improvement Contractors of America, American Farm Bureau Federation.

Henry Lamb A former executive with the Land Improvement Contractors of America, Lamb co-founded Environmental Conservation Organization (ECO) in 1990 as a front group for land developers to fight Clean Water Act protections for wetlands, then turned it into a network for Wise Use groups nationwide. He recently co-founded Sovereignty International Inc., an anti-United Nations property-rights group. Prominent in the anti-environmental and property-rights movements, Lamb publishes newsletters and gives radio interviews attacking the U.N.'s Man and the Biosphere Program, World Heritage Treaty, Convention on Biological Diversity, and Convention on Climate Change.

Staff Member of:

Environmental Conservation Organization (ECO), Executive Vice President

Board Member of:

Environmental Conservation Organization (ECO), Board of Directors

National Wilderness Institute, National Advisory Board

Sovereignty International, Chairman of the Board

Steve Symms The former U.S. senator from Idaho, elected in the 1980 "Reagan Revolution," was the voice of the anti-environmental movement on Capitol Hill and the champion of various failed "takings" bills. His signal achievement was a bill that built new off-road vehicle (ORV) trails in the national forests. Retired in 1992, today he sits on the boards of a half-dozen of the most arch-conservative, anti-environmental groups in the country. Symms' specialty is defending individual property rights at any cost.

Staff Member of:

Freedom Alliance, President

Board Member of:

Defenders of Property Rights, National Advisory Board

Environmental Conservation Organization (ECO), Board of Advisors

National Wilderness Institute, National Advisory Board

Freedom Alliance, Board

American Conservative Union, Board of Directors

American Policy Center, Chair of the Board

Nancie Marzulla A Justice Department attorney in the Reagan administration and a veteran of the Wise Use litigators the Mountain States Legal Foundation, Nancie Marzulla co-founded the Defenders of Property Rights (DPR) in 1991 with her husband Roger, who served as assistant attorney general under Ed Meese.

Staff Member of:

Defenders of Property Rights, President and Chief Legal Counsel

Board Member of:

Environmental Conservation Organization (ECO), Board of Advisors

American Land Foundation, Property Rights Task Force Member

Fred Singer A former University of Virginia professor and former chief scientist for the U.S. Department of Transportation, Dr. S. Fred Singer is one of a half-dozen preeminent doubters of ozone depletion and global warming science. Singer claims science skeptics like him are being silenced by a conspiracy of feds, enviros, and liberal journalists. Today he heads the Science and Environmental Policy Project, advises several corporate-funded science mills, and rails against global warming science. For this he's amply rewarded: In 1994 Nightline revealed that Singer has accepted consulting fees from Exxon, Shell, Arco, Unocal, and Sun Oil.

Staff Member of:

Science and Environmental Policy Project, Director

Board Member of:

American Council on Science and Health, Board of Scientific and Policy Advisors

The Advancement of Sound Science Coalition, Scientist Advisor

Cato Institute, Editorial Advisory Board

Environmental Conservation Organization (ECO), Board of Advisors

National Policy Forum, Member of Environment Committee

Science and Environmental Policy Project, Board of Directors

Hugh Ellsaesser A meteorologist and guest scientist at California's Lawrence Livermore nuclear laboratory, Dr. Hugh Ellsaesser is another widely quoted global warming skeptic. He doesn't deny that CO2 buildup causes global warming -- he argues that we should just sit back and enjoy it. He's also a scientific advisor to the Lyndon LaRouche group 21st Century Science Associates, which publishes an anti-environmental magazine promoting LaRouche's wacky Neo-Nazi cult.

Board Member of:

21st Century Science Associates, Scientific Advisory Board

Consumer Alert, Advisory Board

Environmental Conservation Organization (ECO), Board of Advisors

George C. Marshall Institute, Science Advisory Board

The Advancement of Sound Science Coalition, Advisor

Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow, Scientific Advisor

Sovereignty International Inc.

Property-rights group Sovereignty International Inc. (SII) is a leading promoter of United Nations paranoia, claiming that environmental regulations are part of a plot to establish a "one world government" -- a theme echoed by militia groups nationwide. SII was founded by ECO's Henry Lamb; the American Sheep Industry Association's Tom McDonnell, who has collaborated with LaRouche propagandist Rogelio Maduro to attack U.N. biodiversity programs; and Dr. Michael Coffman, who did a speaking tour this summer sponsored by the John Birch Society. His topic: The U.N.-corporate-environmentalist conspiracy to seize control of private land in America, hand it over to wild animals, and herd all the humans into crowded communities. SII's Web site consists of a single malfunctioning page on the server of Liberty Matters, a property-rights project. Funded by: Unknown.

National Wilderness Institute

Dedicated to wilderness destruction, NWI boasts a board of heavy hitters including Sen. Larry Craig (R-Idaho), Reps. Dick Armey (R-Texas) and Richard Pombo (R-Calif.), and former Bureau of Land Management honcho Don Hodel, architect of the famed Hodel policy which allowed county governments to bulldoze new roads across federal wilderness lands. Today NWI attacks the Endangered Species Act and the U.N. Biodiversity Convention, defends the petroleum economy, and publishes NWI Resource magazine, with articles like "The Magic of Property Rights" and "Ecosystems: Where Do They End?" Funded by: Hardwood Manufacturers Association.

American Conservative Union

With board members like Ralph Reed, Becky Norton Dunlop, Tom Clancy, Jesse Helms, and Newt mentor Grover Norquist, you pretty much know where the ACU is coming from, but on global warming they've staked out a unique position: "I can just see it now -- some guy in the Pentagon says, 'I'm sorry, Mr. President. If you want to send that extra carrier battle group into the area, we'll have to shut down the electric power grid to California for two weeks to stay under our emission caps.'" Funded by: Unknown.

American Policy Center

Chaired by another extreme-right demagogue, Thomas DeWeese, this property-rights propaganda mill makes no bones about it: There is no global warming, there's a global leftist conspiracy to deceive the American people and wreck our economy -- for reasons that remain unclear. To protest the treaty negotiations in Kyoto, APC has called a nationwide "Strike for Liberty" on Dec. 6; patriotic citizens "can participate simply by wearing red, white and blue arm bands, or driving their cars with the lights on, blowing the horn." Web site bonus: An amazing screed accusing Al Gore of genocide. APC also publishes EPA Watch, a survey of environmental regulatory activities, and Foreign Policy Focus,an anti-U.N. nativist newsletter. Funded by: Unknown.

Freedom Alliance

Founded by Oliver North, the Freedom Alliance passes as a right-wing think-tank and citizens group, but mostly it's the direct-mail fundraising machine that grew out of Ollie North's legal defense mailings in the Iran-contra affair. Its newsletter, The Free American, promotes North's political ambitions and attacks gays and other unholy types. In one issue, Freedom Alliance president and former Senator Steve Symms attacked the Supreme Court for overturning Colorado's anti-gay Amendment 2 ballot measure: "Now, because of their perverted lifestyle, a minority of citizens is granted special treatment in soliciting state contracts. Does this make sense?" Funded by: Unknown.

Defenders of Property Rights

Founded by Reagan Justice Department lawyers Roger and Nancie Marzulla in 1991, Defenders of Property Rights is part of a national network of right-wing law firms and legal foundations that serve as a pro bono Wise Use legal defense fund. DPR pursues anti-environmental lawsuits through the U.S. Court of Federal Claims, a conservative court whose 16 judges were all appointed by Reagan and Bush; DPR's directors reportedly plan strategy at an annual meeting sponsored by the Heritage Foundation. Funded by: Carthage Foundation, Hardwood Manufacturers Association.

American Land Foundation

Founded by property rights leader Dan Byfield, ALF (formerly the Farm Credit Property Rights Foundation) underwrites anti-environmental research and boasts a who's who of the movement on its property rights task force. Last year ALF teamed with two other Wise Use groups to form Liberty Matters Inc., yet another Wise Use networking effort, with a fax news service and a focus on feeding stories to small-town and conservative media about the evils of environmentalism, especially when it bears the taint of the U.N. Today Liberty Matters sponsors two segments -- and chooses the guests -- on the program "Morning View" on Paul Weyrich's conservative NET cable channel. Appearing this Friday: Dr. Michael Coffman of Sovereignty International. Funded by: Unknown

American Council on Science and Health

Led by Dr. Elizabeth Whelan, this corporate-funded science mill stoutly defends silicone breast implants, DDT, and of course, the polluting technologies that cause global warming. In a new report, ACSH scientists accept global warming as real, but argue that we should just "adapt" to climate change and learn to live with any increase in catastrophic weather and infectious diseases -- for the sake of the "global economic system." Incredibly, one of the authors is an M.D. Funded by: Scores of major corporations and conservative foundations, including Exxon, Mobil, Ford, and the Olin and Scaife foundations.

Cato Institute

This libertarian think-tank is well-known for defending private property and the unmitigated free market. It's also home to Dr. Patrick Michaels, a leading skeptic who argues that global warming models are fatally flawed, and that we should take no action because new technologies will soon replace those that emit greenhouse gases. Funded by: Scores of major corporations and conservative foundations, including Amoco, ARCO, Dow Chemical, and the Koch family foundation.

Science and Environmental Policy Project

This corporate science mill began in 1990 as an offshoot of the Moonie-funded think-tank Washington Institute for Values in Public Policy. Its goal is to discredit global warming, ozone depletion, and acid rain. Its director, physicist Dr. S. Fred Singer, is a former chief scientist for the Department of Transportation who has received thousands of dollars in "consulting fees" from Exxon, Shell, Arco, Unocal, and Sunoco. Singer lambastes global warming science in regular editorials in the Wall Street Journal and Washington Times. Funded by: Monsanto, Texaco, Philip Morris, and the Bradley, Forbes, and Smith Richardson foundations.

The Advancement of Sound Science Coalition

TASCC director Steven Milloy, a cheerleader for rolling back environmental regulations in the 104th Congress, calls himself "The Junkman," and his Web site "Junk Science" sounds that familiar refrain: Thousands of scientists are wrong about global warming, and a handful of polluter-funded scientists have it all figured out. Funded by: 3M, Amoco, Chevron, Dow, Exxon, General Motors, Philip Morris and other big corporations.

21st Century Science Associates

This Lyndon LaRouche group publishes the anti-environmental magazine 21st Century Science & Technology, which in addition to promoting LaRouche's wacky Neo-Nazi cult and global conspiracy theories, is home to associate editor Rogelio Maduro, author of The Holes in the Ozone Scare. That book became Rush Limbaugh's ozone bible. Funded by: Unknown.

Consumer Alert

This astroturf group calls global warming science "scare stories" and funds the Web site Globalwarming.org, with a bi-weekly update called "May Cooler Heads Prevail." Consumer Alert's networking project, the National Consumer Coalition, formed the so-called Cooler Heads Coalition in May, "to dispel the myths of global warming." Cooler Heads is run by a vice president from the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a longtime sponsor of the Wise Use movement. Funded by: American Cyanamid, Chemical Manufacturers Association, Chevron, Monsanto, Philip Morris, and other big corporations.

George C. Marshall Institute

As David Helvarg reported in last week's MoJo Wire, the George C. Marshall Institute is another conservative think-tank, a long-time "Star Wars" promoter and the first player to attack the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's 1995 finding that human activity is probably changing the climate already. Funded by: Scaife and Bradley foundations.

Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow

A pseudoscience think-tank funded in part by the nuclear industry, CFACT says the real disaster would be the Climate Change Treaty, because "any proposed cuts in greenhouse gases...would have a major, indeed catastrophic, negative impact on people worldwide." CFACT's president David Rothbard defends organochlorine pesticides, champions the bovine growth hormone BST, and calls environmentalists "green locusts." Funded by: Carthage Foundation, U.S. Council on Energy Awareness.

ALSO AMONG THE LEADING OPPONENTS TO THE GLOBAL WARMING TREATY:

Coalition for Vehicle Choice

Competitive Enterprise Institute

Frontiers of Freedom Institute

National Center for Public Policy Research

People for the West!

Robert Balling, Jr.

Dr. Patrick Michaels

The Environmental Working Group's CLEAR site tracks hundreds of anti-environmental groups and their funders, complete with a searchable database. EPA's global warming Web site explains the science of global warming and the international effort to control it. Corporate Watch's Kyoto site tracks big-business influence on the treaty negotiations.

http://www.prwatch.org/prwissues/1998Q2/clear.html

alternet

In addition to Glenn Beck and Americans for Prosperity, a less-noticed player in the health-care drama is Grassfire, another astroturfing outfit, which, as AlterNet reported, organized town-hall disrupters through its ResisNet site. Grassfire is endosed by Rep. Mike Pence of Indiana, who on September 4, called upon Van Jones to resign, citing Jones' "extremist views".

ResistNet is a social-networking hub for the armed patriot movement, as well as racists and paranoids of all stripes. (On the day we visited, we found one video comparing Obama to Hitler, and another featuring a preacher who called him "a half-breed MacDaddy" and called upon "white folks"; to "riot in the streets.") Grassfire is also organizing its members for a ground assault on cap-and-trade.