Hawthorn Group

Perriello found forged ltr, then other bogus from Bonner, hawthorn

employee claimed accce was green group 409

===

cli obstr robts

PR firms enable corporate efforts to obstruct climate action

Public relations and strategic communications firms help companies and trade

associations conduct their climate obstruction efforts.57,58,59 These companies

and allied firms collect intelligence on opponents (such as environmental non-

governmental organizations, or NGOs), conduct industry-friendly research,

design advertising campaigns, launch front groups, and undertake opinion

polling, among other activities (Chapter 6). In the United States, PR firms such

as Edelman, the DCI Group, and the Hawthorn Group have run campaigns

such as “Advanced Energy for Life” in support of the coal industry (Chapter 3).

In Ireland, the PR firm Red Flag Consulting worked for the meat and dairy

industry to promote positive messages about animal products (Chapter 4).

The growing role of PR firms in blocking climate action has led to their

being named in public-interest lawsuits (Chapter 12),60 being criticized by the

United Nations secretary-general,61 and to the passage of new laws banning

advertisements promoting fossil fuels.62

PR firms’ climate obstruction efforts are facilitated by the characteristics

of the global media system. For example, many media companies rely on an

advertiser-based business model, which includes revenue streams from cor-

:{:{porations that obstruct climate action}: (Chapter 6).

Between 2020 and 2022,}:

Google reportedly received more than $23.7 million from oil majors such

as ExxonMobil and BP to purchase online advertising.63 Meta, the owner of

Facebook and Instagram, permitted fossil fuel companies to purchase mis-

leading advertisements despite the assessments of independent fact-checkers

that the spots were inaccurate (Chapter 6).64 PR firms design and place such

ads for their clients as part of complex information and influence campaigns

:{to burnish the companies’ image.65

In addition, advertising revenue may}:

also inhibit negative coverage of fossil fuel advertisers. Workers in the PR

industry have begun to organize against these practices, targeting the PR

firms that have run obstructive campaigns for the highest-polluting clients

(Chapters 6 and 13).

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 toimpose 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 Orleansdoesn’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 involvedforging 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.

http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/10/coal_lobby_paid_7_million_to_pr_firm_that_hired_bo.php

A coal industry group paid over $7 million last fiscal year to the company that hired Bonner & Associates, the astroturf lobbying firm behind those forged letters to Congress.That’s according to internal documents obtained by congressional investigators and examined by TPMmuckraker.

Jack Bonner, the founder of the firm that bears his name, will go before a Congressional committee this morning to explain how those letters — which purported to come from local community groups, and urged lawmakers to oppose climate change legislation — got sent.

Bonner has blamed the letters on a temporary employee, since fired, and claimed that it was a “victim of fraud” itself.

Bonner’s company had been hired by the Hawthorn Group, a public relations firm that in turn was working for the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity, a coal-industry lobbying group. The massive sum paid last year by ACCCE to Hawthorn— a PR firm which it has worked with since 2000, and to which it has close ties — raises questions about the nature of the other work done on behalf of the coal industry, which has been a staunch opponent of efforts to address global warming.

The letters were sent on the letterhead of a local NAACP group, as well as Hispanic, seniors, women, and veterans groups.

The internal documents — obtained by the House Select Committee for Energy Independence and Global Warming — also confirm the ways in which Bonner routinely cuts corners in its campaigns to create the impression of grassroots support for its clients positions.They show that it’s Bonner’s standard practice, especially on campaigns with tight schedules like the coal-lobby effort — to pull logos from the websites of community groups that have nominally agreed to send letters, then create “letterhead” for the pre-written letters.

The documents also describe a process in which Bonner hires temporary workers, trains them quickly and pushes them to one goal — getting as many letters signed and returned as possible. Phone-bankers read a quick script, then send targets pre-written letters on stationary created by using the group’s logo from its website. The groups are asked to sign the letters and return them in a pre-paid FedEx envelope.

In the ACCCE campaign, the script — which you can see here — made no mention of the coal industry or of climate change.

We laid out some of Bonner’s other dubious tricks of the trade here and here.

The documents also confirm, as has previously been reported, that Bonner discovered the fake letters on June 22, before the House vote on the climate change bill, but did not notify the lawmakers who received the letters until July 1 or later — after the vote. Two of those lawmakers, Rep. Chris Carney and Rep. Kathy Dahlkemper, voted against the bill, which narrowly passed.

In addition, the documents reveal that, according to Bonner, the temporary employee blamed for the forged letters created the first ones “within hours” of his arrival. And that he had been hired and fired by Bonner back in 2003, but according to an internal company probe, he changed his first name when he applying to work on the ACCCE campaign on June 3, after seeing an ad in Roll Call.

Also testifying this morning before the committee, chaired by Rep. Ed Markey, will be Rep. Tom Perriello, who along with Dahlkemper and Carney received the forged letters, and officials with the community groups on whose letterhead the letters were sent.

Grab the popcorn.

The Hawthorn Group

From SourceWatch

Jump to: navigation, search

The Hawthorn Group is an international public affairs firm that applies a grassroots, campaign oriented approach to corporate public relations.

Contents[hide]

Clients

The Hawthorn Group's clients include the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity (ACCCE). "During the campaign a subcontracted PR firm, Bonner and Associates, forged letters from minority groups and sent them to Representative Tom Perriello (D-VA), asking him to oppose climate legislation. ACCCE members include American Electric Power , Caterpillar, GE and Union Pacific Railroad." ^{[1]^}(http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=The_Hawthorn_Group#cite_note-0)

Controversies

For the ACCCE effort, in 2009 the Hawthorn Group's subcontractor Bonner and Associates sent forged emails aimed at influencing U.S. climate legislation.^[2]

Partners

Associates

Former

^[3 ^{]^}(http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=The_Hawthorn_Group#cite_note-2)

Contact info

Suite 100

625 Slaters Lane

Alexandria, Virginia 22314

Tel: 703.299.4499 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting 703.299.4499 end_of_the_skype_highlighting

Fax: 703.299.4488

http://www.hawthorngroup.com

References

↑ "The Politics of Climate Change", O'Dwyer's Magazine, Feb. 2010.
↑ Markey Expands ACCCE Investigation From Forged Letters to Lobbying Disclosures. New York Times (2009-10-26). Retrieved on 2009-12-12.
↑ Our People, The Hawthorn Group, accessed February 2008.

This article is a stub. You can help by expanding it.