united4jobs

=<div>see main, different spelling For
<div>
</div><div>=</div><div>mccain obit:
Kert Davies, originally published on <a href="http://climateinvestigations.org/covert-attack-john-mccain-climate-change-exxonmobil-koch-brothers/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">ClimateInvestigations.org</a> 
 <a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/news/26082018/john-mccain-climate-change-leadership-senate-cap-trade-bipartisan-lieberman-republican-campaign" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">InsideClimate News</a>’  Marianne Lavelle published a long piece this weekend, chronicling Senator John McCain’s rise and fall as a climate leader.  The story highlights a campaign I worked on in 2000, where we asked all the presidential candidates the simple and still pertinent question, “What’s Your Plan?” on global warming.McCain was one of the only candidates that took it on. He went back to Washington in the middle of 2000, having been defeated by George W. Bush in the primaries, and immediately started holding hearings on climate change science.As always, there is more to the story.  When McCain emerged as <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20040402004205/http://www.nrdc.org/onearth/04spr/mccain1.asp" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">“Captain Climate” </a>in the early 2000s, and introduced the first serious bipartisan legislation to cut emissions, he became the target of a multifaceted attack by anti-regulatory free market organizations.  It turns out, many of these organizations and front groups were quietly being funded by ExxonMobil and the Koch brothers.This pressure may partly explain why McCain <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2010/10/11/as-the-world-burns" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">later abandoned climate change</a> when he ran for President in 2008 and <a href="https://www.politico.com/story/2009/11/mccain-slams-horrendous-climate-bill-029747" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">attacked his colleagues’ efforts</a> during the 2009 push for climate legislation.  By that point McCain had succumbed to the now standard Republican talking points on climate.  Oh, and lest we forget, he also picked Sarah Palin as a running mate and starting down the “<a href="http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/90075-mccain-palin-revive-drill-baby-drill-slogan-from-08-campaign" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">Drill, Baby, Drill</a>” path (the opposite of sane climate policy) and the rest is history.  No one has really explained how this turn away from climate leadership really happened. Most commentators attribute it to political choices McCain himself made, without really analyzing the outside pressure that closed in on McCain from 2000 to 2008.  <a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/news/26082018/john-mccain-climate-change-leadership-senate-cap-trade-bipartisan-lieberman-republican-campaign" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">InsideClimate News</a> notes briefly that there was a coordinated effort to oppose McCain’s efforts run by corporate-funded entities.  Climate Investigations Center went back and looked at our records for documentation of the campaign to the kill the <a href="https://www.mccain.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/2001/8/post-4be0be1b-0295-42bf-a9e8-f0ed44f1a8aa" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">McCain-Lieberman climate legislation</a> as it gained momentum. First introduced in 2001 by the two Senators, The Climate Stewardship Act (S.139) was the first national, bipartisan legislation aimed at reducing greenhouse gas pollution. This bill eventually became the ground-zero target for climate deniers and corporate interests.Unfortunately, a month after the first McCain-Lieberman bill was introduced, the attacks on September 11th changed everything. <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/nation/specials/attacked/transcripts/nbctext_102101.html" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">McCain and Lieberman</a>, a neo-con Democrat at the time, <a href="https://thinkprogress.org/on-morning-of-9-11-attacks-mccain-immediately-began-making-the-case-for-iraq-war-4042b28b5f9b/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">were among the first to lead</a> the charge to war in Iraq and Afghanistan, well ahead of the Bush Administration according to many accounts from that time.By 2003, McCain and Lieberman got back to thinking about climate change together and leveraged the first full Senate vote on their bill by <a href="https://theconversation.com/will-john-mccain-be-the-last-republican-leader-in-the-senate-to-address-climate-change-102221" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">forcing Majority Leader Bill Frist’s hand </a>on an energy bill he was trying to pass.The McCain-Lieberman bill garnered surprising support but lost 43-55, well short of the 60 votes needed to avoid an override under Senate rule.  Corporations saw this as a close call and began a concerted effort to kill the momentum in 2004 (see below). In 2005, the bill was renamed The Climate Stewardship and Innovation Act, and in McCain style, stubbornly brought up for another vote where it lost by a bigger margin, 38 Yea to 60 Nay votes.I know for a fact that they got blindsided on this.  They thought they had paved the way for success. In a meeting with a McCain staffer after the second vote, I showed them an ExxonSecrets map (similar to the one below) of the organizations and individuals that worked to kill the bill.  The staffer knew there were various organizations and companies lobbying against the bill, but had no idea the level of coordination, nor the ExxonMobil funding channels.[secrets chart]<h3 style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 1.28205em; margin-top: 1.28205em; margin-bottom: 1.28205em;">Was the Exxon Denial Machine built to fight Sen. McCain?</h3>It has always been interesting that our database of ExxonMobil climate denial funding shows a dramatic increase in spending after 2000, which coincides with McCain emerging as a climate champion.<img alt="" src="https://www.desmogblog.com/sites/beta.desmogblog.com/files/exxon%20grants.png" style="border: 0px; max-width: 100%; height: 411px; width: 683px;" />The graph above shows the yearly totals of ExxonMobil’s grants to climate denying non-profit organizations and breaks out the total grants specifically earmarked for climate change between the years of 1997-2006.Conventional wisdom would suggest that corporate polluters thought they were off the hook with the Bush-Cheney victory over Gore-Lieberman.  Yet ExxonMobil’s funding of climate denial organizations ballooned to its highest levels between 2000 and 2005 as the McCain-Lieberman legislation gained momentum. Between 2003-2005, Exxon wrote grants totaling more than $3.3 million dollars each year to climate-denying organizations.The Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI), the leader of the <a href="http://climateinvestigations.org/climate-deniers/cooler-heads-coalition/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">Cooler Heads Coalition </a>(CHC) and recipient of over $2 million dollars total from ExxonMobil between 1997-2005, aggressively fought Sen. McCain’s climate leadership in the early 2000s. A<a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/4793357-2004-July-CEI-Myron-Ebell-leaked-email-targeting.html" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;"> leaked 2003 email from Myron Ebell</a>, Director of Global Warming Policy at CEI, lays out a target list for lobbying against the “McLieberman” bill. <a href="http://www.climatefiles.com/denial-groups/cei/cei-white-house-congress-energy-policy/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">FOIAed documents</a> show communications in 2003 between Myron Ebell and the Bush White HouseCouncil on Environmental Quality, where Ebell details the campaign against McCain.  CEI also put out <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/3877869-Cei-Email-103003-1-728.html" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">press releases</a> against the legislation, held <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/3877863-Cei-Email-102303-1-728.html" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">events </a>to debate it, and used the CHC network of climate deniers to <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/3877746-Cei-Email-6904-1-728-1-Not-Duplicative.html" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">wage their campaign</a>.The Exxon-funded groups were also being funded by the Koch brothers and their foundations.  In January 2003, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20031207033457/http://www.cse.org:80/informed/issues_template.php/1238.htm" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">CEI co-authored a letter with the Koch-funded Citizen’s for Sound Economy</a> to the Bush Whitehouse decrying the McCain-Lieberman legislation.  <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/1019876-2003-exxon-giving-report.html#document/p41/a289372" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">ExxonMobil gave CEI $465,000 that year</a> according to Exxon documents, the largest Exxon haul by CEI in any year.  <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/4797409-Competitive-Enterprise-Institute-CEI-2003-IRS.html#document/p14/a450857" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">An unredacted CEI IRS 990</a> for 2003 lists a <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/4797409-Competitive-Enterprise-Institute-CEI-2003-IRS.html#document/p14/a450858" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">$100,000 donation from David Koch himself</a> and only $180,000 from ExxonMobil (probably an accounting anomaly).<h3 style="line-height: 1.28205em; margin-top: 1.28205em; margin-bottom: 1.28205em;">United 4 Jobs, DCI Group and Exxon cash</h3><h3 style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 1.28205em; margin-top: 1.28205em; margin-bottom: 1.28205em;">[banner] patriotic hard hat</h3>Following the 2003 vote on McCain Lieberman bill, the corporate forces got their act together.  In 2004, a front group coalition was set up called United4Jobs.org, complete with an American Flag and a hard hat.  Here’s some of what we know:<a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20061006080826/http://www.united4jobs.org/about/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">The United for Jobs website in 2004 said it was “a project of”</a> the National Black Chamber of Commerce (NBCC), which received $50,000 from ExxonMobil in 2004, and the National Association of Neighborhoods, which also received $50,000 from ExxonMobil Foundation in 2004 (<a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/1019878-2004-exxon-giving-report.html#document/p6/a260594" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">including $25,000 earmarked for “Climate Change Issues.”</a>) along with the Small Business & Entrepreneurship Council (SBE Council).[bs about]<ul style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 1.5em 0px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 30px;"><li>The United4Jobs project was maintained by DCI Group, a public relations company based in Washington, DC.  DCI Group is a long time ExxonMobil contractor and has a <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2017-alford-national-black-chamber-commerce/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">history</a> of setting up front groups for corporate clients, including the <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-11-16/fossil-fuels-fishy-new-friends" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">fossil fuel industry</a>, even today.  (Bloomberg News’ Zach Mider and Ben Elgin’s recent expose series on DCI Group is worth reading.)
 </li><li>Proof of the DCI Group’s work on the United4Jobs campaign can be found on the Internet archive WayBack Machine. The contact information of <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20060502132955/http://www.courierpress.com:80/ecp/ebj_bn_nr_in/article/0,2578,ECP_19931_4591597,00.html" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">Andrea Saul</a> and other employees at DCI group at the time, can be found on United4Jobs’ <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20060502132955/http://www.courierpress.com:80/ecp/ebj_bn_nr_in/article/0,2578,ECP_19931_4591597,00.html" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">press releases</a>, webpages, and reports.
 </li><li><a href="http://climateinvestigations.org/dci_group_subpoena_exxon_climate_fraud/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">Tech Central Station</a> (TCS), was another DCI Group project, built as a corporate op-ed page, funded by a number of companies to get third party voices published on issues they cared about. TCS prominently featured climate change denial content. In 2003, the year Tech Central was launched, ExxonMobil gave a <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/1019876-2003-exxon-giving-report.html#document/p44/a258254" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">$95,000 grant to an organization called “Tech Central Science Foundation</a>” which we presume served as the fiscal agent behind Tech Central Station, though no such Foundation ever registered with the IRS, as far as we know.
 </li><li>From 2003 to 2005, these two DCI Group’s creations, Tech Central and United4Jobs, were used together to fight the McCain-Lieberman legislation.  <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/4792633-2003-Charles-River-Associates-Tech-Central.html" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">Tech Central Science Foundation</a>, the ExxonMobil funded org, paid Charles River and Associates to produce <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/4792633-2003-Charles-River-Associates-Tech-Central.html" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">a report published in October 2003</a> on the theoretical economic impact of the McCain-Lieberman bill. <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20040617064632/http://www.unitedforjobs2004.org:80/ufj/wrapper.jsp?PID=8040-5&CID=8040-060704A" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">United4Jobs pushed that report </a>throughout <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20040617064632/http://www.unitedforjobs2004.org:80/ufj/wrapper.jsp?PID=8040-5&CID=8040-060704A" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">2004 </a>and <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20061006080619/http://www.united4jobs.org/studies/report.aspx?id=7" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">2005</a> claiming repeatedly that one million jobs would be lost if the McCain-Lieberman climate bill was passed and implemented.
 </li><li>The Exxon-funded <a href="http://climateinvestigations.org/climate-deniers/cooler-heads-coalition/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">Cooler Heads Coalition</a> also pushed the TCS report on McCain-Lieberman in its June 2004 <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/3877746-Cei-Email-6904-1-728-1-Not-Duplicative.html" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">newsletter</a>. Published by CEI, the newsletter cites United for Jobs and the American Council for Capital Formation (another Exxon funded organization) as co-releasing the report. ACCF received a large ExxonMobil grant ($255,000) that year including <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/1019878-2004-exxon-giving-report.html#document/p1/a258280" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">$180,000 earmarked for “climate change”</a>.
 </li><li>Tech Central Station served as a hub for climate science and policy misinformation during this period, much of which was aimed at McCain-Lieberman. TCS’s <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20060317152414/http:/www.tcsdaily.com/sections/science_roundtable.aspx" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">Daily Science Roundtable</a> included a slew of climate change deniers such as <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/sallie-baliunas" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">Willie Soon, Sallie Baliunas</a>, <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/timothy-f-ball-tim-ball" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">Tim Ball</a>, <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/robert-c-balling-jr" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">Robert C. Balling, Jr</a>., <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/david-legates" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">David Legates</a>,<a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/patrick-michaels" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;"> Patrick Michaels</a>, Roy Spencer, and others, according to an archived version of their website.
 </li><li>As CIC has <a href="http://climateinvestigations.org/dci_group_subpoena_exxon_climate_fraud/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">previously written</a>, Tech Central and DCI Group ran multiple climate change denial campaigns for ExxonMobil during this period, <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB115457177198425388" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">attacking Al Gore’s film, “An Inconvenient Truth”</a> and in June 2006, less than a year after Hurricane Katrina, DCI and Tech Central produced and distributed a canned <a href="https://youtu.be/DXBqe7ngp24" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">Video News Release (VNR) </a>declaring that there was no scientific evidence <a href="https://www.prwatch.org/fakenews2/vnr40" target="_blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">linking dangerous hurricanes with climate change</a>. The VNR listed “TCS Daily Science Roundtable” as the producer.  VNRs are pre-produced segments designed to look like a news story, contracted generally by corporations, sent out to news stations in hopes of getting them aired as if they were news.  This one was aired on at least one TV station along the Gulf Coast.</li></ul><h3 style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 1.28205em; margin-top: 1.28205em; margin-bottom: 1.28205em;">Kochtopus Tentacles Ensnare McCain</h3><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">...</div></div><div>===</div></div>