webodec3ARCHIVEPreview
Open in TheBrain

AEA2 am engy all

several duplicates below:

main ggl doc capt 816

MERRI OK

see also bak

SEE IER ARM

Pyle swamp thing ret to mofo ship

aearcr718

oddly text invisible in webbrain?

AmEnergyalliance615

also tried html 816 --> screenshot fail

capt

---

---

mma 1 23

In an embarrassing attempt to undermine renewable energy, Fox host Jesse Watters platformed a fossil fuel industry-funded envoy flimsily disguised as an “ocean advocate” for Protect Our Coast NJ. Watters hosted self-described “Jersey Shore Lifer” Mike Dean, although he was misidentified on-screen as Mike Davis. Dean’s Twitter account demonstrates opposition to climate science, frequently retweeting Big Oil shill Steve Milloy and “#climatescam” posts.

dean – without evidence – blamed recent whale deaths in New Jersey on wind development and claimed, “The harms with these projects and the costs are limitless, and it’s really hard to find any benefits at all.” (While the cause of the deaths are not known yet, factors including oceanic plastic pollution, the presence of an anomalously large whale population in the area for this time of year due to warmer waters, and underwater sonar use by the military could all lead to these “unusual mortality events.”)

While Protect Our Coast NJ’s website boasts the group as “residents, homeowners, business owners, fishermen and visitors of the New Jersey coastal communities,” reporting has indicated that other interests are playing a part in the group’s activities. Popular Information’s Michael Thomas reported that the donation page redirects to a PayPal page for the Caesar Rodney Institute. The website also links to content from right-wing media’s favorite climate contrarian Michael Shellenberger. The Caesar Rodney Institute is a part of the State Policy Network, a network of conservative and libertarian think tanks.

The Caesar Rodney Institute has a history of hostility toward government environmental regulation and climate change mitigation policies. In 2021, the Caesar Rodney Institute’s Energy and Environment director, David Stevenson, a former member of the Trump EPA transition team, established the American Coalition for Ocean Protection (ACOP), a legal defense fund for groups to file lawsuits to fight offshore wind developments on the Eastern Seaboard. In 2022, the ACOP announced a partnership with Marc Morano’s Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow and the Heartland Institute to fend off a coastal Virginia offshore wind project.

As reported by The Intercept’s Lee Fang, the Caesar Rodney Institute has received funding from the American Energy Alliance, which in return was funded by fossil fuel insiders like the American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers and Stand Together Chamber Commerce, a Koch Industries business trade group.

---

---

3 22 oilman mag

"dishonesty"

AMERICAN ENERGY ALLIANCE’S STATEMENT ON PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN’S PROPOSAL TO RELEASE MORE OIL FROM THE STRATEGIC PETROLEUM RESERVE.

WASHINGTON DC – Today the Biden administration announced it would release 1 million barrels a day for the next six months from the nation’s Strategic Petroleum Reserve.

Thomas Pyle, president of the American Energy Alliance, issued the following statement.

The Biden administration has done everything it possibly can to strangle domestic energy production, and this release from the SPR is not a sustainable plan to reduce prices. The SPR is not a Strategic Price Reserve. The President is trying to use it to bail out his failed policies. Over the past 10 years, no country in the world put more new oil on the market than the United States. More domestic production from the largest producer in the world–the US—is the only sustainable path toward bringing down prices.

while the Biden administration can change course, this would require a 180-degree change from their current approach. The Biden administration claims that “The fact is that there is nothing standing in the way of domestic oil production.” This is not true. According to the latest numbers from the Department of Interior, there are currently:

Less than 1.9 percent of federal areas are lands are leased for oil and gas developmen[t]

Not allowing oil production on over 98 percent of federal lands, when the federal government is the largest land manager is a serious impediment to domestic oil production.  Not only that, but just this week the Biden administration released a budget with no money to carry out offshore leasing. This would be the third year in a row without offshore leasing.

Additional Resources:

Instead of Allowing More Domestic Oil Production, Biden Is Tapping into Strategic Reserves Again and Ignoring the “Root Causes” of Higher Prices

For media inquiries please contact: THOMAS.PYLE@ENERGYDC.ORG

---

Rigzone

Biden Must Ensure U.S. Energy Security Amid Aggression On Ukraine, AEA Says

The AEA President Thomas Pyle issued a statement ahead of President Biden addressing the nation and contemplating a proper reaction to a...

.1 month ago

E&E News

3 issues to watch with Biden's oil and gas overhaul

American Energy Alliance President Thomas Pyle said the “draconian increases in royalty payments” would only serve to push drilling off...

.Nov 29, 2021

The Waterways Journal

Ukraine Invasion Clarifies Climate Agenda Costs

President Joe Biden just announced a ban on oil and gas imports from ... to Thomas Pyle, president of the Institute for Energy Research.

.1 month ago

---

desmog 5 22

American Energy Alliance is a501(c)(4)not-for-profit organization founded in May, 2008. It is the advocacy arm of the 501(c)(3) nonprofit Institute for Energy Research (IER). According to its website, the AEA “engages in grassroots public policy advocacy and debate concerning energy and environmental policies.” [1]

While the stated aim of the AEA is to “educate and mobilize citizens in understanding, promoting and helping to solve America’s most pressing energy and environmental policy problems,” this education has taken the form of attack ads against political candidates and messages such as “stand with coal” and “vote no on Obama’s failing energy policy.” This has led to some questions on the validity of the AEA‘snonprofit status, especially given the AEA‘s own statement that their group is “not political.”[2], [88]

The American Energy Allianceonce declared that it “has no ties to any political party, and it has no interest in supporting the agenda of any particular political party.” However,Brad Johnson at the *Wonk Room*noted that all of AEA‘s employees at the time were former House Republican staffers and AEA‘s website, EnergyTownHall.org, was also run by a former GOP house staffer. [56], [57]

AEA has also spent millions of dollars on media advertising through Republican-orientated vendor Mentzer Media for its stated nonpartisan activities. [2]

Greenpeace reports that IER and AEA worked together on a $3.6 million anti-Obama gas price advertising campaign funded by Koch Industries. The American Energy Alliance has also received over $3.8 million from Freedom Partners, including $1.5 million in 2012, a 501(c)(6) group directed by many of the Koch brothers’ “inner circle” such as Richard Fink, Marc Short, Wayne Gable, and Kevin Gentry. [3]

Koch Connections

Both the American Energy Alliance and its parent organization, the Institute for Energy Research (IER), are run by Tom Pyle, a former lobbyist for Koch Industries. [4] *Politico*reports that Pyle regularly attends the mega-donor summits organized by the Koch brothers, including the 2012 winter summit in Indian Wells, Calif., where the Kochs raised more than $150 million to be directed to groups ahead of the general election. [5]

Nancy Pfotenhauer, another lobbyist for Koch Industries, is listed as a Director on AEA‘s 2014 990 tax return. Pfotenhauer, formerly Nancy Mitchell, was an advisor to Senator John McCain during his presidential election campaign, and a former director of Koch Industries’ Washington office. Pfotenhauer was Koch Industries’ chief in-house lobbyist from 1996 to 2001 with a focus on gas pipelines. [6] In 2001, Nancy Pfotenhauer left Koch Industries to become the President of the Independent Women’s Forum (IWF) and later president of both Americans for Prosperity (AFP) and the IWF. She was also executive vice president for Citizens for a Sound Economy (CSE) a group co-founded by David H. Koch.[7], [8]

Many of Pfotenhauer’s organizations have received significant funding from Koch Industries. For example:

Stance on Climate Change

2015

“At a time when the Obama administration is pushing an aggressive climate agenda in Paris, public concerns about the economy and terrorism far outpace anxieties about climate change. Rather than forcing more costly climate policies on the public, world leaders should focus their attention on the economic and national security issues that matter most to people.” [13]

2014

“Even if the apocalyptic vision painted by Al Gore and others is perfectly true—which it’s not—measures limiting the emissions from individual cities are utterly absurd. They epitomize the prevalence of symbolism over science in our climate change policy debates.” [14]

“[A]ccording to official climate models, even if the U.S. enacted an immediate and total ban on all human emissions of greenhouse gases, the difference in global temperature by the year 2050 would be a mere five one-hundredths of a degree Celsius. And that’s the most that the U.S. government could possibly achieve, even if it relied on a ridiculously draconian ban on all future emissions.” [15]

Fossil Fuels

“The morally superior choice is for people to be free to use energy to make their lives better. Today, that means having access to the abundant energy resources of coal, oil, and natural gas. Those are the technologies that lifted the developed world out of poverty, and they continue to lift millions out of poverty while they power the high-energy lives of those of us fortunate enough to live in the developed world.” [16]

CO2

“Carbon dioxide is not dirty, and is not poisonous to humans in concentrations we observe in the atmosphere. In fact, carbon dioxide is the natural product of combustion–whether that combustion occurs within our cells (which is why humans exhale carbon dioxide), or whether carbon dioxide results from the combustion of natural gas. Carbon dioxide is essential to life on Earth because vegetation requires carbon dioxide to survive and thrive.”

[…] The policies that environmental activists advocate for, such as shutting down our nation’s affordable and reliable coal power plants, will make energy more expensive. And as we have seen in countries that have made electricity a luxury good through ill-advised energy policy–like Germany–higher energy costs exacerbate poverty and the negative health impacts associated with it.” [17]

Nonpofit Status & Political Activities

The American Energy Alliance is registered as a501(c)(4)not-for-profit organization, which means it is not required to disclose its funding sources and contributions are not tax-deductible. 501(c)(4) organizations, commonly referred to as “social welfare” groups, play an influential role in politics. [18]

The IRS notes that “a section 501(c)(4) social welfare organization may engage in some political activities, so long as that is not its primary activity.” The IRS also notes that “The promotion of social welfare does not include direct or indirect participation or intervention in political campaigns on behalf of or in opposition to any candidate for public office.” [19]

When the AEA filed for tax-exempt status in 2008, it told the IRS that it had no interest in supporting the agenda or any particular political party or political candidate,”reports The Center for Public Integrity. While AEA acknowledged “the possibility that some of AEA‘s publications and communications may be considered ‘political,’” the group asserted that it was a “nonpartisan policy-oriented organization,” not a ‘political’ organization.” [2]

Tax documents show that AEA spent over $5 million on “media and advertising” with vendor Mentzer Media, a media buying firm that works primarily with Republicans, receiving $3.9 million of that amount. In 2012, AEA had produced television ads in swing states Virginia and Ohio encouraging voters to “stand with coal” and “vote no on Obama’s failing energy policy,” while claiming they were not designed to assist Mitt Romney in unseating Barack Obama. [2]

Marcus Owens, an attorney who previously headed the IRS’ tax-exempt division, said the American Energy Alliance’s 2013 tax filing “certainly raises a red flag.” [20]

“It’s a politically active organization,” he told*Huffington Post.* According to Owens, AEA‘s pre-election advertisement blitz “sounds like a lobbying message on its face.” [20]

Funding

The following data is compiled from the Conservative Transparency project. Note that as a 501(c)(4) organization, the American Energy Alliance is not required to disclose its donors, so available data is limited. [21]

View the attached spreadsheet for additional details on American Energy Alliance funding by year (.xlsx).

As Recipient...

---

819 DN

...And then, finally, perhaps most importantly, Koch has built a nationwide activist network calledAmericans for Prosperity. And what this is is a boots-on-the-ground operation. So, Americans for Prosperity has chapters around the country. They can activate people to go knock on doors, take petitions. They will charter busesfrom West Virginia, North Carolina, Missouri, Ohio, you name it. They will getbuses of angry voters[pseudo-populist trigger anti-gubmint] to come to Washington, D.C., and then go visit congressional offices that have been specifically identified by that big corporate lobbying shop we talked about, where they can pressure lawmakers.

And Koch put this political machine into full force in 2009 and 2010, when it looked like the United States was going to regulate greenhouse gas emissions for the first time. You know, back then, there really was bipartisan support to do something on climate change. The Republican, John McCain,ran on doing something about climate change. But Koch Industries intervened, and, I think more than even Exxon or other companies, it sort of — it politicized this issue of climate change. And Koch went after any moderate Republicans who acknowledged that climate change was real, who supported any effort to put a price on carbon. And Koch helped to drive those people out of office. So it played a vitally important role in making it clear to Republicans that they could not support any effort on climate change.

AMY GOODMAN: The Kochtopus? Elaborate further.

CHRISTOPHER LEONARD: The Kochtopus, here’s a great example. In 2009, when we were debating climate change, my book shows that Koch secretly funded a think tank report from this group called the American Council [for] Capital Formation. And this report said that if we regulate climate change, it will be a disaster for the American economy. Then another Koch-funded think tank called the American Energy Alliance took the findings from that report, made political ads and targeted those ads at Republican politicians, like Lindsey Graham, who supported climate change legislation, so now Lindsey Graham has got these horrible campaign spots running back home. And then the corporate lobbyists from Koch will be visiting the offices of Lindsey Graham and explaining why they can’t support climate change bill.

So, the Kochtopus is this remarkably effective 360-degree machine that affects the public debate around issues like this, that has lobbyists who work on issues like this, and that can, finally, bring voters in. You know, Americans for Prosperity will — I’ve been at these events where they bus voters into Washington, D.C. They give them glossy printed protest signs. They feed them a boxed lunch. They take them to the congressional offices. And they can stoke what appears to be a real public revolt against legislation like this....

===

---

320 desmog

as this week the U.S. Senate tries to advance stalled bipartisan energy legislation, the American Energy Alliance (AEA) last week announced its latest initiative opposing any tax credit extension for electric vehicles (EV) in that bill.

Through a series of digital ads, the group, which receives a substantial share of its donations from an oil refinery trade group, is calling on Senate Republicans to squash a proposed amendment expanding the number of vehicles eligible for the credit.

READ MORe

==

https://thinkprogress.org/obscure-think-tank-gains-influence-1644feb0b813/

This is how the Kochs’ anti-renewable agenda becomes White House policy

Koch-tied officials “got their wish” with Trump’s attacks on climate action, environment.

MARK HANDJUL 17,2017

President-elect Donald Trump raised eyebrows late last year when he named the head of an obscure right-wing think tank, with close ties to petrochemical billionaires Charles and David Koch, to lead his energy transition team. Since then, officials from the Institute for Energy Research (IER) have been appointed to high-level positions at the Department of Energy where they are playing major roles in implementing pro-fossil fuel, anti-renewable energy policies.

Thomas Pyle, who serves as president of IER and its advocacy arm, the American Energy Alliance (AEA), set the tone by drafting a priority list for the new administration; at the top of the list was withdrawal from the Paris climate agreement.

Soon after Trump took office, newly appointed officials across the federal government started a push to prop up the fossil fuel sector, particularly the coal industry. In the spring,Energy Secretary Rick Perry directed his staff to conduct a study of the U.S. electric grid to determine if renewables were harming traditional baseload generation sources, like coal and nuclear. A former IER official, Travis Fisher, was selected to oversee the study.

A draft of the study leaked last week concluded that renewables pose no threat to the grid. The leaked draft was completed by DOE career staff, and thus is subject to change by Perry and his team of Trump appointees. A DOE spokeswoman told Bloomberg that “those statements as written are not in the current draft.” The report clarifies that the spokeswoman “wouldn’t say they are incorrect, just the draft is ‘constantly evolving.’”

In an April memo,Perry wrote that pro-renewable energy regulations issued by past U.S. administrations “threaten to undercut the performance of the grid” and have caused “the erosion ofcritical baseloadresources” derived from coal and nuclear energy. Since Perry ordered the study, numerous analyses and reports have been published rejecting that notion.

[Rick Perry called out for ‘thinly disguised’ attempt to undermine renewable energy

Former Koch-funded think tank official selected to lead DOE study.]

“From the beginning, all signs pointed to Perry’s so-called study as a piece of coal power propoganda,” Jim Marston, vice president of clean energy for the Environmental Defense Fund, wrote in a blog post.

Fisher has been clear about his disdain for policies that encourage the growth of renewable energy: In 2015, he wrote a report on the nation’s power grid in which he recommended that policymakers eliminate the EPA’s Clean Power Plan and Mercury and Air Toxics Standards; the federal production tax credit for wind energy; state renewable energy standards; and net metering incentives for rooftop solar.

“It’s no coincidence that, now that Donald Trump is in the White House, some of the same clean energy policies that Fisher targeted for attack in his 2015 grid study for IER are now being rolled back,” Dave Anderson, the Energy and Policy Institute’s policy and communications manager wrote in a report.

IER receives funding specifically to produce research papers that attack renewable energy and promote fossil fuels, according to Jesse Coleman, a researcher with Greenpeace USA’s investigations team. Other right-wing think tanks like the Heritage Foundation and the American Enterprise Institute have a wide array of financial backers; IER’s funding circle appears to be much smaller.

With Koch brothers-linked groups serving as its major funders, IER “can get away with more extreme views, especially on renewable energy, than either Heritage or the American Enterprise Institute does,” Coleman explained.

IER plays “a very valuable and preconceived function within this greater Koch network.”

In May, Trump appointed Daniel Simmons, IER’s former vice president for policy who has questioned the value of promoting renewable energy sources, to oversee the Department of Energy’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy.Simmons also held a top position at AEA, which advocated for the office he now oversees at DOE to be eliminated.

Simmons is the highest-profile former IER employee to land a job in the Trump administration. Prior to joining IER, he served as director of the natural resources task force at the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), a right-wing group that drafts industry-friendly model legislation for policymakers.

Another former AEA staff member, Alex Fitzsimmons, is now a senior adviser in the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, E&E News reported earlier this month. While at AEA, Fitzsimmons served as manager of policy and public affairs where he wrote blog posts on “green energy cronyism” and spotlighting Jay Leno’s criticisms of ethanol.

With the financial backing of tax-exempt organizations linked to the Kochs and other right-wing donor groups, IER has been promoting its pro-coal, anti-renewable energy agenda for years. Founded in 1989, IER is a small think tank, but its tentacles spread far and wide among other right-wing groups. AEA was formed in 2008. Between 2010 and 2014, IER and AEA received more than $5 million from Koch-tied funds.

[This Koch-backed group invites you to celebrate fossil fuels on Earth Day

The contest is designed to “showcase the awesomeness of fossil fuels.”]

IER plays “a very valuable and preconceived function within this greater Koch network, which is to provide academic ammunition for the other groups that fight for the Koch brothers and the oil and gas agenda writ large,” Coleman said in an interview.

“While they seem small, they’re part of the much larger Koch network that has always given them an echo chamber and increased their reach,” he continued. “And that’s the reason we see them with such seemingly outsized influence now.”

IER founder and CEO Robert Bradley, Jr. is an adjunct scholar at the Koch-founded and funded Cato Institute and the Koch-funded Competitive Enterprise Institute. Bradley previously served as director of policy analysis at Enron, where he wrote speeches for company founder Ken Lay. The company collapsed into bankruptcy in late 2001 with several officials, including CEO Jeff Skilling, serving prison sentences.

A ThinkProgress review of IER and AEA’s funders (according to data provided by Conservative Transparency, Guidestar, and CitizenAudit) revealed that since 2008, its donations included at least:

Institute for Energy Research
American Energy Alliance

Prior to joining IER, Pyle worked as a registered lobbyist for Koch Industries and served as director of federal affairs for Koch Industries from 2001 through 2005. Pyle also worked as policy analyst for then-House Majority Whip Tom DeLay (R-TX), who ranked among the top recipients of oil and gas industry funds during his time in Congress.

The Republican Party’s move further to the right, especially on energy and environmental issues, has political observers confused about how to describe its major players. Elliott Negin, a senior writer at the Union of Concerned Scientists, pointed out that the Washington Post called Simmons a “conservative scholar” when reporting his DOE appointment. As a veteran of the Koch brothers’ “climate science denier network,” the more accurate description of Simmons would be “fossil fuel industry propagandist,” Negin wrote.

Given its small size — it lists just nine current scholars and staff members on its website — IER cannot provide the Trump administration with an endless supply of anti-regulation energy officials. Industry trade groups and other right-leaning research organization are helping to fill the ranks of Trump’s energy and environmental team.

For energy and environment policy, though, IER is playing an important role in the Trump administration. “IER adheres to a very extreme brand of ‘free market’ ideology. As usually happens with other groups in the Koch network, they will specifically attack the enemies of Koch Industries’ profit centers. So… they attack solar and wind,” Coleman said.

During the presidential transition, the IER-AEA memo written by Pyle predicted that the Clean Power Plan would be withdrawn by the Trump administration. “Pyle, IER, and AEA soon got their wish,” Anderson wrote. “Trump signed an executive order that began the process of reviewing the Clean Power Plan during his first 100 days in the White House.”

With Pyle serving as Trump’s energy transition team chief, IER laid the groundwork for the energy policies that are now being amplified by the administration, Coleman said. Blaming renewable energy for a decline in the coal and nuclear industries, for instance, was a talking point that clearly came from IER.

“It’s such a crazy place that [other Republicans] don’t want to be a part of it.”

John Coequyt, global climate policy director for the Sierra Club, contends that the Trump administration is having trouble finding qualified people to fill appointed positions at DOE, which has created a vacuum for a small organization like IER.

“It’s such a crazy place that [other Republicans] don’t want to be a part of it,” Coequyt said. “We don’t know what’s going to happen with these [IER] guys or whether they are ultimately going to be successful. It’s hurting them that they’re such zealots.”

Release of the grid study ordered by Rick Perry has been delayed from its original late-June deadline. According to the leaked version of the study released last week, wind and solar power do not pose a significant threat to the reliability of the U.S. power grid, contradicting statements by Perry. The conclusions in the final study, after DOE’s political appointees get a chance to review it, will represent the key first test for IER’s influence on policies related to promoting fossil fuels and undercutting renewable energy sources.

Josh Israel contributed to this piece.

#CLIMATE, #DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY, #ENVIRONMENT, #EPA, #KOCH BROTHERS

==

---

https://www.ecowatch.com/electric-car-tax-credit-trump-2641647250.html

[pix trump tours the Shell Pennsylvania Petrochemicals Complex with Energy SecretaryRick Perry,Shell Oil company President Gretchen Watkins and Shell Pennsylvania Vice President Hilary Mercer in Monaca, Pennsylvania, on Aug. 13, 2019. NICHOLAS KAMM / AFP via Getty Images]

:{:{}:

}:

By Dana Drugmand

The oil industry, a staunch opponent of electric vehicles (EVs), received an early Christmas present from the White House as President Trump reportedly intervened to quash an EV tax credit expansion from inclusion in a government spending package.

The tax credit is meant to help offset the upfront cost of electric vehicles and boost the EV market. Consumers who purchase an EV can currently claim a credit up to $7,500, and the credit phases out once auto manufacturers sell 200,000 qualifying vehicles. Tesla and General Motors have both hit the 200,000-vehicle cap and had lobbied for an extension. A bipartisan proposal called for allowing a $7,000 credit for an additional 400,000 vehicles sold.

That proposal, introduced earlier this year as the Driving America Forward Act, was rolled into a broader package of incentives for renewable energy that proponents hoped to pass as part of an end-of-year spending deal. But groups tied to the Koch network and backed by oil industry funding worked hard to kill the clean energy incentives. These groups sent a letter to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell last week urging the Senate to oppose any bill that includes an EV tax credit extension.

Ultimately the EV provision was dropped from the spending package. According to Forbes, "In last-minute negotiations over a massive package of spending bills designed to avert a government shutdown, the EV provision was lost in the shuffle and that was the outcome Republicans and President Trump wanted."

Trump specifically pushed for excluding the EV tax credit, as Bloomberg reported.

"There has been extreme resistance from the president. I don't know why the White House would want to stop jobs and the future of the auto industry," said Michigan Senator Debbie Stabenow, one of the original sponsors of the Driving America Forward Act....

---

https://www.ecowatch.com/electric-cars-public-opinion-polls-2641161506.html

Dana Drugmand

Fossil fuel interests appear intent on swaying public opinion about the electric vehicle tax credit, based on recent polling on the policy. A deeper look at these efforts reveals oil and gas funding behind the groups conducting the polls and blatant bias in the polling methodology, according to experts.

Survey results commissioned and publicized by the American Energy Alliance (AEA) seem on their surface to indicate that a majority of respondents are not thrilled about subsidizing EVs purchased by other consumers, particularly wealthy Americans. However, according to polling experts who reviewed the survey for DeSmog, the questions were designed to solicit a certain response and produce results to serve a predetermined narrative that supports the oil industry's interests. According to polling expert Ed Maibach, director of the Center for Climate Change Communication at George Mason University, the surveys relied on "highly biased questions designed to elicit highly misleading answers."

Who Is Behind the 'Highly-Biased' Anti-Electric Vehicle Poll?

The organization that commissioned the surveys, AEA, is funded by oil interests including the Koch network and the American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers :(style="background-color:#ffff66ff"):}::{(AFPM), the nation's leading trade group of oil refiners. The group is touting these findings from recent polls in Maine, Michigan and South Dakota, saying the results are consistent with those from surveys they commissioned in nine other states.

"This is further evidence that efforts to compel taxpayers, ratepayers, workers, and consumers to pay for the choices of others, and the preferences of government bureaucrats, are doomed and will lead directly to voter resistance," said Thomas Pyle, president of AEA. "The citizens of Maine, Michigan, and South Dakota see an expansion of the electric vehicle tax credit exactly for what it is: a giveaway to rich Californians and large,already prosperous corporations."

Pyle's statement, and the survey questions themselves, are loaded with misleading information. The tax credit's stated purpose is to lower the cost of electric vehicles, which is critically important for low-to-moderate income Americans. Automakers don't claim the credit, consumers do, including those who opt to lease an electric vehicle. But Pyle appears to disregard these points in an attempt to drum up opposition to the policy.

Pyle's approach makes sense within the context of his and his organization's backgrounds and former lobbying clients, as well as those of the firm conducting the surveys.

The American Energy Alliance is a 501(c)(4) organization— meaning it is not required to disclose its donors — and is the advocacy arm of the Institute for Energy Research. IER supports "free-market energy and environmental policy" and was formed in 1989 from a predecessor organization founded by petrochemical billionaire Charles Koch. Donors to IER include oil and gas interests such as the Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation and Charles Koch Institute as well as ExxonMobil and the American Petroleum Institute.The AFPM oil refiners trade group is also a major donor, having given three times as much to the American Energy Alliance compared to any other organization, according to the most recently available tax records. AEA, is a former lobbyist for Koch Industries, the largest privately owned energy company in the U.S. Pyle has also lobbied for the Big Oil trade association formerly called the National Petrochemical & Refiners Association, which is now AFPM. Both Koch Industries and the members of AFPM like Exxon make billions in profits from fueling internal-combustion engine vehicles, so policies supporting vehicles not fueled by their products, like the EV tax credit, threaten their bottom lines.

MWR Strategies, the firm conducting the surveys on the EV tax credit, is a research, communications and lobbying company whose clients include electric utility and energy companies with clear fossil fuel interests. For example, TECO Energy — owner of natural gas businesses in Florida and New Mexico — paid MWR $80,000 just this year. Among other energy and utility corporations paying MWR are ENGIE, Public Service Enterprise Group/PSEG Power, and Southern Company. Notably, Koch Industries has paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to the firm from 2008 to 2016, OpenSecrets data reveals. Other petroleum corporations and trade associations like El Paso Corp. and AFPM's predecessor National Petrochemical & Refiners Association have previously retained MWR.

Michael McKenna, president of MWR Strategies, is an energy lobbyist who led Trump's Energy Department transition team, and, as E&E reported, is "well-known in Republican energy circles" and was recently tapped to serve in the White House as an advisor to the president. McKenna previously worked at several other research and communications firms including Luntz Research Companies, founded by notorious climate denier Frank Luntz(who only recently announced he was wrong and has shifted his views).

The MWR Strategies website does not have information about current work, rather the "current" section is a list of links to polling on climate and energy topics dating back to 2008 and earlier. These "polls" are structured in much the same way as the polls about EV tax credits, with questions focused on the (debunked) premise that addressing climate change is too expensive and even asking about the "certainty" of climate science (exploiting scientific uncertainty has been a key strategy of the fossil fuel industry's well-documented disinformation campaign).

MWR's polling strategy appears to be posing misleading questions, some with inaccurate information, in order to garner a particular response. For example, in the firm's March 2008 poll on global warming, one question asked which is more important, addressing global warming or reducing reliance on foreign energy sources — which is a false choice given that renewable energy sources like solar and wind would do both. In another survey from 2006 on energy, the statement "liquefied natural gas cannot explode like gasoline" was posed to respondents. This is also misleading because while the liquid itself won't explode, blasts can occur at LNG sites and associated vapors are combustible.

How MWR's EV Tax Credit Survey Misleads Respondents and Deceives the Public

In the recent surveys MWR conducted on the EV tax credit, one of the statements that respondents could agree or disagree with was, "It is not right for GM to ask taxpayers for a tax credit." General Motors is lobbying to extend and expand the electric car tax credit, but the automaker would not actually claim the credit — consumers would.

Another question claims that "the average buyer of an electric car makes more than 150 thousand dollars per year," a claim that is demonstrably false. When pressed by DeSmog for a citation or clarification, McKenna responded through a media relations contact, pointing to the often-debunked Manhattan Institute report by Jonathan Lesser called "Short Circuit: The High Cost of Electric Vehicle Subsidies."

That report actually cites a 2013 UC-Davis study that examined "the characteristics of 1,200 households who actually purchased a new plug-in vehicle in California during 2011-2012," finding that "46 percent of electric car drivers in California alone had incomes above $150,000." This study, now six years old, does not translate to the statement regarding an "average buyer" that was presented in the survey. In effect, the survey question was premised on a falsified statistic from an outdated data set that only included California.

[grf]

Excerpt of misleading questions from the MWR poll about consumer attitudes toward the electric car tax credit.

Polling and communication experts told DeSmog that these EV tax credit surveys should not be considered legitimate measures of public opinion. Many of the questions are actually statements that respondents can agree or disagree with. But according to polling expert Joshua Dyck, associate professor of political science at UMass Lowell and director of the Center for Public Opinion, "Agree/disagree items are not a legitimate way to determine public opinion on policy issues."

"There is a well known response bias for respondents in surveys to agree to prompts in questions structured as agree/disagree items," he said. "This is known to survey researchers by the term 'response acquiescence.' In order to get at how respondents actually feel, you should allow respondents to pick from balanced options. I wouldn't put much stock in the agree/disagree items in this survey."

Ed Maibach, director of the Center for Climate Change Communication at George Mason University, also said these surveys were designed to be misleading.

"Unbiased survey questions intended to elicit people's opinions about or support for a proposition (such as a proposed public policy) can be done in one of two ways. The proposition can be stated in neutral, factual terms with or without the leading arguments both for and against the proposition," he explained. "The questions on AEA surveys did not state the facts about the propositions, but instead made negative claims about the consequences of the propositions. Therefore, people were responding to the negative statements made about the proposition, not the proposition itself."

Ed Maibach, a climate change communication researcher at George Mason University.

This response to negative statements gives the misleading appearance that there is little public support for the EV tax credit. "Elected officials who are concerned about voter opinion should probably think twice before expanding favorable tax treatment for electric vehicles. Voters in each of the 12 States we examined are very skeptical of them," MWR's McKenna said in a statement about the poll.

But as Maibach explained, this is probably not true. "The poll done for AEA was not intended to determine how people actually feel about public policies in support of EVs, rather it was done to give the impression that people do not support use of public resources to support EVs," he said.

Maibach's Center for Climate Change Communication, along with Climate Nexus and the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication, did a poll in July of 820 registered voters in Michigan on their attitudes towards various climate policies. According to the results, "Michigan voters favor expanding the tax credit for those who purchase EVs — close to two-thirds (66 percent) agree the federal tax credit for EVs should extend beyond each manufacturer's first 200,000 vehicles."

Pyle, AEA's president and former Koch lobbyist, told E&E News he stands by his surveys finding little support for the tax credit, adding that he is "not concerned about what the greens think about our work."

But Maibach pushed back against this statement. "The problem with his poll is not that 'the greens' don't like the findings," he said. "The problem is that his findings are bogus, because they asked highly biased questions designed to elicit highly misleading answers."

==

---

https://www.desmogblog.com/2019/01/25/american-fuel-petrochemical-manufacturers-rallied-republican-governors-trump-rollback-auto-standards

no lnx many

How This Oil Refiners Group Rallied GOP Governors' Support for Trump’s Rollback of Auto Standards

By Ben Jervey • Friday, January 25, 2019

As the Trump administration worked to revise and relax federal fuel economy and emissions standards for cars and light trucks, an oil refiners trade group worked connections with Republican governors to rally support for the proposed rollback.

Emails obtained by Documented, a watchdog group that tracks corporate influence in government, revealed that the American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers (AFPM) were actively recruiting Republican Governors to sign onto a public comment letter supporting the weaker CAFE (corporate average fuel efficiency) standards, while also “shopping around” a pre-written op-ed with language borrowed from the American Energy Alliance, a free market advocacy group run by a former Koch Industries lobbyist.  

A blockbuster New York Times investigation published in December revealed how AFPM, using a front group called Energy4US, deployed Facebook advertisements to prompt thousands of identical public comments filed in the Federal Register supporting the proposed rule. An earlier article on the Facebook ads by ProPublica had linked AFPM to Energy4US, and researchers at DeSmog'sKochvsClean had since connected the front group to more than one-quarter of all public comments that the Department of Transportation (DOT) had received on the proposed rule, while also revealing that the Consumer Energy Alliance was connected to the campaign.

In addition to the more than 3,000 identical comments, the emails obtained by Documented through a number of state open records requests revealed a much broader influence campaign.

Email messages show AFPM representatives reaching out to the staff of Republican governors, soliciting signatures for a formal letter that was eventually submitted to the Department of Transportation and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). In another email, AFPM’s Senior Vice President of Federal and Regulatory Affairs shared a pre-written draft of an op-ed with the Wyoming Governor's office, asking if Governor Matt Mead would consider putting his name on it.

How AFPM Rallied Republican Governors to Support the Rollback

AFPM deployed the corporate-backed Republican Governors Association (RGA) and their policy arm, the Republican Governors Public Policy Committee (RGPPC), which helped circulate the letter. AFPM contributed more than $200,000 to RGA during the 2018 election cycle, according to IRS filings.

“Brian Sanderson, the Policy Director with the RGA, has been circulating the letter as well as informational materials to Governors across the country for review. I wanted to reach out to offer to answer any questions and ask for Governor Martinez to consider joining the attached letter,” AFPM’s manager of state and local outreach Peter Barnes wrote in an email to Keith Gardner, chief of staff to New Mexico Governor Martinez. Barnes wrote an identical message asking for support from Mississippi Governor Phil Bryant.

Eventually, governors from Texas, Kansas, Kentucky, Maine, Mississippi, Nebraska, North Dakota, and Oklahoma co-signed the letter, which was sent to the DOT and EPA on October 26, 2018, and subsequently added to the official rulemaking records.

The letter was initially spearheaded by Texas Governor Abbott, whose office sent AFPM talking points on the rule. A close reading of the documents obtained paints a picture of AFPM playing an instrumental role in the organization and dissemination of this governor's letter to others.

AFPM Was Also 'Shopping Around an Op-Ed'

Prior to submitting the letter in the Federal Register, AFPM also asked Republican governors to publish an op-ed supporting the rule. According to an internal memo for Wyoming Governor Matt Mead, AFPM had been “shopping around an op-ed” supporting the changes to fuel economy standards.

“The American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers Association has been shopping around an op-ed which supports the changes and are requesting Governor’s [sic] to sign on (op-ed attached). So far, to my knowledge, the op-ed has been presented to you and the Governors of New Mexico and Nebraska,” the memo stated.

In an email correspondence from AFPM's Senior Vice President of Federal and Regulatory Affairs, Derrick Morgan, to the Nebraska Governor’s office, also obtained by Documented, Morgan alleges that there was “initial interest from Governor Mead of Wyoming.”

“We put together a potential op-ed (draft attached) that will support what the Trump Administration is doing on fuel economy through the EPA and DOT,” Morgan stated in an email to Nebraska Governor Chief of Staff Matt Miltenberger.

The governors ultimately passed on the opportunity to put their names on the op-ed, a decision that might have spared them considerable embarrassment, considering the source of much of the language of the draft.

AFPM’s Op-Ed Borrowed Heavily from the American Energy Alliance

The op-ed draft that was “shopped around” by the AFPM included many sentences lifted entirely from an April letter distributed by the American Energy Alliance (AEA), and which followed the same format as the original letter.

The AEA letter — also signed by representatives of 12 conservative free market groups, including Americans for Prosperity, the Competitive Enterprise Institute, and Americans for Tax Reform — featured sections describing the “fundamental problems” with the Obama-era clean car standards. The sections were titled: “cost to consumers,” “consumer choice,” “inefficiency,” and “It’s a relic.”

The AFPM draft op-ed included similar sections titled: “The mandate makes cars more expensive,” “The mandate minimizes consumer choice,” “The mandate gives California a disproportionate say in the mandate,” and “The mandate fails to recognize our new energy abundance.”

Within each of the mimicked sections, some phrases and sentences are reproduced verbatim from the AEA letter. For example, both texts include a slight variation on the line: “who should decide what cars and trucks you should buy, you and your family or unelected bureaucrats in Sacramento or Washington?”

Compare the two:

The original American Energy Alliance Letter.

The draft op-ed “shopped around” by AFPM.

Both texts also include this often debunked statement: “According to the National Auto Dealers Association, the existing mandates would cause the price of an average vehicle to increase by $3,000 in 2025.”

There are plenty of other examples, which you can see for yourself by comparing the AEA letter with the AFPM draft op-ed.

AFPM has not responded to DeSmog's questions about the provenance of the draft op-ed and if the group was actively working with the American Energy Alliance or others on this issue. So, it's impossible to know whether the group was working in concert with AEA, or whether AFPM staff were simply lifting language from a fellow Koch-affiliated organization. Among other ties, AFPM has received funding from the Koch Industries PAC and has a past board member who worked for Koch Industries.

==

---

http://www.alternet.org/environment/trumps-energy-secretary-rick-perry-orders-dubious-study-against-wind-and-solar

Secretary Rick Perry is cooking up a case to stifle further federal support of renewable wind and solar energy. He’s ordered a dubiously sourced staff study that is aimed to paint renewables as an unreliable source for the nation’s electric grid.

The study, due June 23, seeks to determine whether federal tax and subsidy policies favoring renewable energy have burdened “baseload” coal-fired generation, putting power grid reliability at risk. It is being spearheaded by Energy Department political appointee Travis Fisher, who’s associated with a  Washington policy group that opposes almost any government aid for renewable energy.

Fisher wrote a 2015 report for the Institute for Energy Research that called clean energy policies “the single greatest emerging threat”to the nation’s electric power grid, and a greater threat to electric reliability than cyber attacks, terrorism or extreme weather.

The Institute for Energy Research and its advocacy arm, the American Energy Alliance, has been the “influential force in shaping Donald Trump’s plans to dismantle Obama administration climate initiatives,’’ according to Bloomberg News.

Headed by Thomas Pyle, a former director of federal affairs for Koch Industries, IER has already delivered its fossil fuel industry wish list to the Trump administration. It’s part of the “America First Energy Plan” that was posted on the White House website on Jan. 20.

As a blueprint for quashing renewable energy research and development, Perry’s call for the study immediately signaled alarm. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) slammed the study as “anti-wind.” University of Texas’ Energy Institute experts called the question of whether renewables are killing coal “would be similar to asking in the late 1990s whether email was killing fax machines and snail mail.’’

A letter from Advanced Energy Economy, American Wind Energy Association and Solar Energy Industries Association disputed the administration’s premise: “Policies supporting the deployment of these technologies are not playing an important role in the decline of coal and nuclear plants. Numerous studies have conclusively demonstrated that low natural gas prices and stagnant load growth are the principal factors behind the retirements in coal and nuclear plants.’’

Energy Department officials last week sought to reassure members of its electricity policy advisory panel that a grid reliability study “is gathering a range of viewpoints from experts at DOE’s national laboratories,” reported E&E News, a Washington new organization that covers energy issues.

---

September, 2013

The National Black Chamber of Commercewas a signatory to a letter designed by the American Energy Alliance (AEA) asking Congress not to renew windenergy tax credits that would expire at the end of the year.  [9]

Other signers of the letter included:

==

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/elliott-negin/the-koch-brothers-are-sti_b_4396033.html

...

So who signed the AFP letter? About half of the signatories are local tea party affiliates and anti-wind NIMBY groups of indeterminate size and funding. The other half are, for the most part, relatively obscure national groups, but there are a few that have attracted attention over the years for their contrarian views on climate science and renewable energy. Like AFP, those groups are awash in petrodollars.

The American Energy Alliance (and its parent, the Institute for Energy Research), Competitive Enterprise Institute, Freedom Works, Frontiers of Freedom and Heritage Action (and its parent, the Heritage Foundation) collectively have received millions of dollars from Koch family foundations, ExxonMobil and the American Petroleum Institute, the oil and gas industry's premier trade association.

The Institute for Energy Research's Questionable Research

On December 3, the Institute for Energy Research and its political arm, the American Energy Alliance, sponsored what they dubbed the "wind welfare" summit in Washington, D.C., featuring IER founder and CEO Robert Bradley Jr., a Koch network veteran. AEA announced it would spend $40,000 on print and digital ads calling for an end to the PTC and is flying in anti-PTC advocates for meetings on Capitol Hill.

Bradley presumably highlighted the findings of a report IER released the day before claiming that a small number of states with wind resources -- Iowa, North Dakota, Oklahoma and Texas -- are reaping the benefits of the PTC while 30 states and the District of Columbia are "losing millions" to fund it.

The report's findings, however, don't hold up to scrutiny. Mike Jacobs, a senior energy analyst at the Union of Concerned Scientists, pointed out in a recent blog that IER ignored the fact that a number of the states it identified as "net payers" are home to wind industry manufacturing facilities. There are 62 companies in Ohio making turbine components, for example, 40 in Michigan and 21 in California. Jacobs also discovered that IER downplayed the fact that "the PTC benefits consumers where wind-generated electricity adds to the supply and lowers the price of electricity, landowners who receive lease payments from the wind turbines, and local communities that collect tax payments on installed wind farms."

Jeff Spross, blogging on the Center for American Progress' ThinkProgress website, also chided IER, pointing out that most industries are not equally distributed across the country. "The oil and gas industries, for instance, benefit from a wealth of federal tax carve-outs," he wrote, "but the economic activity they generate is concentrated in just a few key states."

In other words, it's disingenuous to single out the wind industry....

==

a front for a front? IER?

---

The Center for Public Integrity used 990s obtained by CRP as it looked into the American Energy Alliance's claim that the $1.3 million it spent on ads in the 2012 elections were not actually political. In another rundown of new filings, CPI also cited tax documents and data from CRP.  :

Swing state voters in Virginia and Ohio last fall were bombarded with television advertisements encouraging them to "stand with coal" and "vote no on Obama's failing energy policy."

But the sponsor of these ads — a pro-business nonprofit advocacy group called the American Energy Alliance — says the messages weren’t designed to aid Republican Mitt Romney in his bid to unseat President Barack Obama.

In a new tax return filed Friday and first obtained by the Center for Responsive Politics, the American Energy Alliance, led by former Koch Industries lobbyist Thomas Pyle, told the Internal Revenue Service that it did not "engage in direct or indirect political campaign activities on behalf of or in opposition to candidates for public office" last year.

The group made an even more explicit pledge to be nonpartisan when it applied for tax-exempt status in 2008, telling the IRS that it had "no interest in supporting the agenda or any particular political party or political candidate."

While it acknowledged “the possibility that some of AEA's publications and communications may be considered ‘political,’” the group asserted that it was a “nonpartisan policy-oriented organization,” not a “‘political’ organization.”

The new tax documents also show that American Energy Alliance spent more than $5 million on "media and advertising," with vendor Mentzer Media, a media buying firm that works primarily with Republicans, receiving $3.9 million of that amount.

The “stand with coal” ads cost at least $1.36 million, according to disclosures the American Energy Alliance filed with the Federal Election Commission.

Because these broadcast ads came within 60 days of the November election and mentioned the president, the American Energy Alliance was required to report the spots to the FEC as “electioneering communications” — a special type of issue-based advertising that comes with enhanced disclosure requirements.

The group also engaged in a host of other pre-election activities that often included battleground presidential states and attacked Obama.

Marcus Owens, an attorney who previously headed the IRS’ tax-exempt division, said the American Energy Alliance’s new filing “certainly raises a red flag.”

“It’s a politically active organization,” he said, adding that the pre-election advertisements were veiled in what “sounds like a lobbying message on its face.”

Benjamin Cole, a spokesman for the American Energy Alliance, rejected accusations that his group behaved improperly.

Cole told the Center for Public Integrity that the ads were “designed to inform the American public about President Obama's energy policies… not his re-election efforts.”

“We could just as easily run those same ads today,” Cole continued, adding that all of the group’s ads are vetted by lawyers to “ensure that nothing we do runs afoul of federal election or tax laws.”

One element of the new IRS documents that’s for sure: The American Energy Alliance’s footprint has grown substantially. In all, the American Energy Alliance spent $7 million last year.

That's a nearly seven times what it spent in 2010 — and more than 300 percent above the roughly $1.7 million it spent during its inaugural year in 2008, according to a Center for Public Integrity review of IRS records.

It’s unclear who precisely has funded this surge, although the American Energy Alliance’s new annual report does show that just three donors — who each gave at least $1 million — accounted for three-fourths of the American Energy Alliance’s total $7.3 million haul last year.

=-=

Fri, 2010-05-28

Brad Johnson over at The WONK ROOM reports:

The American Energy Alliance (AEA), a new polluter front group, is touring the nation to smear President Barack Obama’s clean energy reform agenda. Employees riding the “American Energy Express” bus are spreading the conservative lies that the American Clean Energy and Security Act will “cripple our sluggish economy.” AEA is the 501 c(4) offshoot of the Institute for Energy Research, a right-wing oil-industry think tank run by Robert Bradley, a former speechwriter for Kenneth Lay. E&E News reports thatAEA’s “Energy Town Hall” bus tour pictures workers in hard hats:

The American Energy Alliance, which is affiliated with the conservative Institute for Energy Research, has begun a four-week bus tour to county fairs, sporting events and public meetings in several coal-reliant states. Representatives of the group will travel in a large blue bus carrying the slogan “Stop the National Energy Tax, Save American Jobs” and a picture of workers in hard hats. They will cross Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, West Virginia and Virginia. Yesterday, AEA officials participated in a rally with another group, Americans for Prosperity, in Zanesville, Ohio; a day earlier, they visited a county fair in western Pennsylvania.In fact, by attacking legislation that addresses climate change and our national dependence on fossil fuels, AEA is preventing a clean-energy economic boom. Laughably, AEA claims it has “no ties to any political party“:

American Energy Alliance staffers Kevin Kennedy, Patrick Creighton, and Laura Henderson on tour in Pennsylvania. All are former House GOP staff.

AEA may be telling the truth that it has “no interest in supporting the agenda of any particular political party” — its only interest seems to be blocking progressive reform by spreading lies and distortions. However, AEA is tightly connected to the Republican Party and right-wing oil interests. In fact, all of its employees are former House Republican staffers:

Thomas J. Pyle, AEA President, Is A Oil Lobbyist And DeLay Operative. Before joining the Institute for Energy Research and the American Energy Alliance, Pyle worked as a lobbyist for the right-wing oil giant Koch Industries, first in-house starting in 2001, and then at the Rhoads Group. In 2008 Pyle became a lobbyist for the National Petrochemical and Refiners Association. Previously, Pyle served as policy analyst for Rep. Tom DeLay (R-TX), Majority Whip of the U.S. House of Representatives and as staff director for the GOP Congressional Western Caucus. Pyle started as a legislative assistant for radical anti-environmentalists Rep. Richard Pombo (R-CA) and Rep. George Radanovich (R-CA). [Institute for Energy Research, Center for Public Integrity]

Patrick Creighton, AEA Communications Director, Worked For Bush And Pennsylvania Republicans. Patrick Creighton was the special assistant to Samuel T. Mok, the chief financial officer at the Department of Labor from 2004 to 2006. He then worked as a spokesman for oil and natural gas advocate Rep. John Peterson (R-PA) from 2006 to 2009, worked to elect Rep. Glenn Thompson (R-PA), then joined Thompson’s office until May 2009. [Institute for Energy Research, Legistorm]

Kevin Kennedy, AEA Federal Affairs Director, Promoted Alaska Drilling Under Don Young. After graduating from Union College in 2004, Kevin Kennedy worked for the Astroturf organization Arctic Power, which advocated drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. In 2007, Kennedy became a legislative assistant for the corrupt Rep. Don Young (R-AK) and the House Committee on Natural Resources. He joined the Institute for Energy Research and American Energy Alliance in 2009. [Institute for Energy Research]

Laura Henderson, AEA Spokesperson, Served Shelby, Dole, And Tiberi. Laura Henderson was a former press secretary for offshore drilling advocate Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL) from 2005-2009. Previously, she worked for former Sen. Elizabeth Dole (R-NC) and Rep. Pat Tiberi (R-OH). [Institute for Energy Research]

Daniel R. Simmons, AEA State Affairs Director, Is A Koch-Funded GOP Staffer. Simmons was the Director of the Natural Resources Task Force at the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), a right-wing network funded by Koch Industries, the American Petroleum Institute, and other corporate and right-wing organizations. Previously, Simmons was a Research Fellow at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, also funded by Koch. From 2001 to 2005, Simmons served on the staff of Rep. George Nethercutt (R-WA) on the House Natural Resources Committee. Simmons holds a B.A. in Economics from Utah State University and a J.D. from George Mason University School of Law, also supported by Koch Industries. [Institute for Energy Research, Legistorm]

Furthermore, AEA’s EnergyTownHall.org website is run by yet another former GOP House staffer:

GOP.gov Webmaster Nathan Imperiale Runs EnergyTownHall.Org.AEA’s EnergyTownHall.org was designed by NJI Media Group, part of Endeavour Global Strategies. Endeavour’s head, Sean Spicer, is a long-time GOP operative, including communications work for the House Republican Conference and the Bush White House. NJI Media Group’s president, Nathan Imperiale, served as Director of New Media for the House Republican Conference, building its GOP.gov website. [Twitter,2/13/09; Endeavour Global Strategies]

AEA’s “American Energy Express” joins a field crowded by conservative oil and coal propaganda — the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity’s “Factuality” bus tour, the American Petroleum Institute’s “Energy Citizens” oil rallies, and the Americans For Prosperity “Hot Air” balloon tour.

Update At Free Advice, Institute for Energy Research economist Bob Murphy writes that Paul Krugman doesn't understand tea party protesters because he doesn't care about checks on government power like they do, and continues:

So, by symmetry, I think people on "our side" should realize that the great masses of Americans who are for health care reform and climate legislation (and it pains me to not put scare quotes around those phrases) aren't actually closet socialists who want to bring America to its knees.

By Brad Johnson at The WONK ROOM.

==

Conservative group launches broad anti-carbon tax campaign

By Zack Colman - 07/16/13

A conservative energy group is rolling out a multi-pronged push ahead of the August congressional recess that aims to put the carbon tax in its deathbed.

“We’re hoping to put the final nail in the coffin on the carbon tax. The proposal should be dead on arrival by the time lawmakers come back from August recess,” Benjamin Cole, a spokesman with the Institute for Energy Research and its advocacy arm, the American Energy Alliance, told The Hill in an interview detailing the plan.

The effort includes a new poll of American opinion on a carbon tax and an advertising campaign centered on five House members, among other elements.

As early as Thursday, AEA will launch a two-week radio advertising campaign that targets five House lawmakers — four Democrats and one Republican.

The ad blitz, which will cost between $120,000 and $150,000,targets Democratic Reps. Bill Owens (N.Y.), Kyrsten Sinema (Ariz.), Patrick Murphy (Fla.) and William Enyart (Ill.), along with GOP Rep. Chris Smith (N.J.).

AEA chose to focus on members who have been “soft on the carbon tax issue” and reside in “marginal districts,” Cole said.

“We obviously are ones to apply pressure in any way we can,” he said.

The timing of the IER and AEA operation is designed to get energy issues on the agenda when lawmakers meet with voters in their congressional districts, Cole said.

Cole compared the upcoming recess to the summer of 2010, when the House had recently passed ObamaCare, the national healthcare law.

He said the climate change plan Obama unveiled last month — which relies on a suite of executive actions that industry, Republicans and coal-state Democrats say will slow the economy — will draw fire from voters across the country.

“We know that there’s going to be town halls that congressmen go back to their districts to hear from their constituents. We want to make sure that energy is on the plate,” he said.

The effort will attempt to blunt any possible momentum for a carbon tax, Cole said.

Of that, there appears to be little.

Taxing carbon emissions has support from some environmentalists, as well as a collection of conservative economists and advocates who say it should be coupled with lower personal tax rates. But the idea has little political traction.

Carbon tax proposals are a non-starter in the GOP-controlled House. And Republicans combined a bloc of centrist Democrats threaten to thwart a carbon tax in the Senate. On top of all that, the White House has said it won’t pursue a carbon tax.

The concept has fueled intense opposition from the right.

The IER and AEA campaign has the support of several conservative outfits, including Americans for Tax Reform, FreedomWorks and the Competitive Enterprise Institute.

The first piece of the rollout is an IER-commissioned poll of 800 registered voters conducted last week by The Tarrance Group that says Americans reject the idea of a carbon tax.

Fifty-nine percent of respondents said they oppose a carbon tax “paid by businesses of all sizes,” compared with 35 percent of those who favored the concept.

The poll doesn't take into account different schemes for a carbon tax — for example, there’s variability in policy circles when deciding whether to apply a fee at the point of carbon emissions or fossil fuel extraction.

Still, the responses differed greatly among parties. A majority of Democrats — 54 percent — favored a carbon tax, while 80 percent of Republicans rejected it.

The results of that poll will be discussed at a carbon tax event IER is hosting Wednesday. Then comes the radio ad launch.

IER will also give lawmakers a point-by-point critique of the climate change plan Obama unveiled last month before they head home.

“It’s teeing up August recess interaction with constituents,” Cole said.

Cole said that IER and AEA plan to keep the heat on lawmakers until the heads of the congressional tax-writing panels, Rep. Dave Camp (R-Mich.) and Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.), formally declare a carbon tax is off the table.

The two committee heads have demonstrated a desire to overhaul the federal tax code — and for both, time is of the essence. Baucus isn’t running for reelection in 2014, and Camp’s term as chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee is up after next year.

“There’s nothing that motivates a politician more than building his own legacy,” Cole said.

Read more: http://thehill.com/blogs/e2-wire/e2-wire/311159-conservative-group-launches-broad-anti-carbon-tax-campaign#ixzz2bz7bE8Qk

Follow us: @thehill on Twitter | TheHill on Facebook

==

---

backed down

grover http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2012/11/13/1182511/grover-norquist-abruptly-reverses-position-on-carbon-tax-after-facing-criticism-from-koch-backed-group/

Grover Norquist Abruptly Changes Position On Carbon Tax After Facing Criticism From Koch-Backed Group

By Stephen Lacey on Nov 13, 2012

Anti-tax crusader Grover Norquist raised a lot of eyebrows on Monday when he told National Journal that a carbon tax might be on the table if it were swapped with a cut to the income tax.

“It’s possible you could structure something that wasn’t an increase and didn’t violate the pledge,” he reportedly said.

As president of Americans for Tax Reform, Norquist has convinced hundreds of members of Congress to sign a pledge that they will never raise taxes. While his influence appears to be waning in Washington, Norquist’s tax pledge is still considered gospel for many Republicans. That’s why his willingness to consider a tax on global warming pollution is a big deal in political circles.

But one day later, after being criticized by the American Energy Alliance, the advocacy arm of a Koch-supported energy think tankdevoted to promoting fossil fuel development, Norquist has completely reversed his statement, saying there virtually “no conceivable way” he could support a tax on carbon....http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2012/11/13/1182511/grover-norquist-abruptly-reverses-position-on-carbon-tax-after-facing-criticism-from-koch-backed-group/

---

==

Koch Industries Climate Denial Front Group

Institute for Energy Research (IER)

Read more about the Institute for Energy Research

Find more recipients of Koch foundation money

$175,000 received from Koch foundations 2005-2011 [Total Koch foundation grants 1997-2011: $235,000]

IER supported and promoted the"Spanish" and "Danish" studiescritical of clean energy jobs, both of which have been debunked by credible sources. IER also argues that efforts to curb global warming would accomplish little at too great a cost, promotes ACCF/NAM and Heritage Foundation studies that exaggerate the costs of climate policy, and discourages U.S. leadership on the international stage.

Robert Bradley, a former Enron executive, is the CEO of IER and one of its founders.Thomas Pyle, a former Koch and oil-industry lobbyist, is the President of IER and the American Energy Alliance, the 501c4 counterpart to IER. Politico reports that IER and AEA still receive Koch money in support of a $3.6 million anti-Obama gas price advertising campaign, although Koch foundations appear to have stopped supporting IER after 2007. The most recent available Koch foundation tax filings to IRS are for the year 2010, indicating the Kochs picked IER back up in 2011 or are funneling money through other avenues.

AEA was founded by the National Association of Manufacturers and the American Petroleum Institute to fight the BTU tax proposal in 1993, and in recent years funded by ExxonMobil and Koch Industries. AEA has been active in the climate debate, from running ads repeating false claims about the costs of climate legislation to trashing clean energy at town halls around the US.

http://www.greenpeace.org/usa/en/campaigns/global-warming-and-energy/polluterwatch/koch-industries/institute-for-energy-research/

==

The romance between ALEC and fracking continued at this year's ALEC meeting in Utah -- an appropriate location for the frack-friendly ALEC crew. In May, the U.S. Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar approved a major shale gas project by Texas-based Anadarko Petroleum Corp. in Utah's Uinta Basin -- expected to develop more than 3,600 new wells over the next decade.

In another industry-friendly move, Utah's Governor Gary Herbert, who spoke the ALEC conference's opening luncheon, signed a bill into law in March demanding that Congress hand over 30 million acres of federal land to the state by 2015 or the state will sue. According to the Associated Press, Lawmakers in Utah and Arizona have said the legislation is endorsed by ALEC. As documented by the Center for Media and Democracy's ALEC Exposed Project, ALEC drafted the "Sagebrush Rebellion Act," which was "designed to establish a mechanism for the transfer of ownership of unappropriated lands from the federal government to the states." According to the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, the governor's initiative would open up millions of acres of the "Wilderness Study Areas and proposed wilderness areas to oil and gas development" but in the process would cost Utah taxpayers enormously.

At the meeting, the CEO of the Institute for Energy Research (IER) Dr. Robert Bradley was one of the featured speakers. Bradley, formerly a director of policy analysis at Enron, also spoke at the 2011 ALEC conference in New Orleans. He is also an "adjunct scholar" at the right-wing think tank the Cato Institute and specializes in "global warming alarmism." IER is a non-profit group focused on global energy markets that pushes for deregulation, advances climate change denial, and attempts to discredit renewable energy sources. The group's 2010 IRS 990 form said that its focus was narrowed in on "impediments to domestic energy production, including government restrictions on access, burdensome regulations, and the favoritism of energy sources that are unsustainable in the marketplace."

The PR Bus of AEA and Koch's AFPIER received some $307,000 from Exxon Mobil between 2003 and 2007, according to the publicly traded company's "Corporate Giving Reports." IER also received a total of $235,000 from Koch Family foundations between 1997-2010, according to a Greenpeace report. Koch Industries, an ALEC member, also profits from the expansion of fracking. Unlike Exxon, because Koch is not a publicly-traded company, any corporate donations to groups like IER, AEA, or AFP are not publicly disclosed.

IER is a "partner" organization of the American Energy Alliance, a 501(c)4 organization which calls itself the "grassroots arm" of IER. Thomas Pyle is president of both organizations, and is a former lobbyist for Koch Industries and former energy policy aide for former House Majority Leader Thomas D. DeLay, who resigned from the leadership following his indictment on conspiracy charges. Wayne Gable, also a former lobbyist for Koch Industries and former president for two of the Koch Family foundations, is on the board of both IER and AEA.

In 2011 IER and AEA launched "Energy for America" as a joint initiative with a laser point in on fracking, with an aim to "educate" the public on the practice. In October 2011, AEA and IER, in partnership with Koch Industries' astroturf group Americans for Prosperity, started a "Energy for America" bus tour to encourage the expansion of domestic exploration of oil, gas and coal, targeting U.S. Senate battleground states for the upcoming 2012 elections.

Additionally, Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck is one of the three chairs of the ALEC Energy, Environment, and Agriculture Task Force. One of its clients is Freeport LNG, which owns and operates one of the first liquefied natural gas import terminals built in the United States. According to the law firm's website, "For the last nine years, Brownstein has been the lead counsel in the structuring, strategy and development of the $1.2 billion receiving and regasification facility with commercial output capacity of more than 2.0 billion cubic feet of natural gas per day."

---

March 30, 2012

Funders Behind New Anti-Obama Ad Blitz Stay Hidden

Posted byJane Mayer

A new and highly aggressive multi-million-dollar anti-Obama ad campaign has started airing on television stations in eight key political swing states—but for now at least, the funders are staying hidden in the shadows.

The ads in question have a distinctly oily aura, which is unsurprising, perhaps since the group sponsoring them has been funded in the past by major fossil-fuel companies. The group defines itself as a non-partisan nonprofit, but exemplifies the growing role that secret money is playing in the 2012 Presidential campaign. Technically, the ads have been produced and aired by the Washington-based American Energy Alliance, a 501c-4 social-welfare organization under the Internal Revenue Service’s tax code, whose activities, under the law, have to be largely non-political. This group shares office space and personnel with a sister organization, the Institute for Energy Research, a 501c-3, whose tax status is typically reserved for charities. Its activities have to be strictly non-partisan and non-political. Both groups hide the identities of their funders. All that Benjamin Cole, director of communications for both groups would say is that the ads are funded by “individuals, foundations, and corporations.”

Cole says that the $3.6 million ad campaign “is not election related at all. We’re not seeking to influence the elections.” It is, he says, only a coincidence that most of the eight states that the ads will air in—Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Michigan, New Mexico, Nevada, Ohio, Virginia—are considered hotly contested swing states that could decide the outcome of the election. He says these states were chosen only because they are all places where energy is an issue. He explained, for instance, that offshore oil drilling is an issue in Virginia, and the high price of gasoline is an issue in Florida—a definition that would, it seems, allow for the group to chose any state.

He acknowledges, however, that the ads will directly blame Obama for recent increases in gas prices, despite the fact that even such conservative and libertarian voices such as Cato Institute scholars and Rupert Murdoch’s Wall Street Journal have protested that this is specious.

So who is behind the advertising campaign to push the line that Obama is to blame? Bill Burton, senior strategist at the pro-Obama Super PAC Priorities USA believes that it comes from a familiar source. “The Koch brothers and other oil barons are using profits from high gas prices to fund false political attacks benefitting Governor Romney,” he says.

Cole retorts that there is “not a single penny of Koch money” paying for the two-week ad campaign. But he declined to confirm or deny reports, including one by Politico, that the Koch brothers, whose privately owned conglomerate, Koch Industries, is a major domestic-oil refiner, have steered funds to both the American Energy Alliance and the Institute for Energy Research. A spokesperson at Koch Industries did not respond to questions on the Kochs’ ties to the groups.

The ties, though, appear to be extensive. In the past, according to National Public Radio, the Energy Research Institute has received funds from the Claude R. Lambe Charitable Foundation, which is controlled by the Kochs, as well as from Exxon Mobil and other energy companies.

The president of the American Energy Alliance, Thomas Pyle, formerly worked for Koch Industries, according to the watchdog group OpenSecrets.org. The records show that he also worked as an outside lobbyist for the Kochs’ private interests in Washington, first at Perceptum Consulting, and later at the Rhoads Group. According to Politico’s Ken Vogel, Pyle has “regularly attended” semi-annual political meetings run by the Kochs, including one this past winter in Indian Well, California, where the Kochs raised over a hundred and fifty million dollars to be directed to groups working against the Democrats in the 2012 general election. At a previous such political summit, Charles Koch described the 2012 election as “the mother of all wars.”

Pyle has a colorful political résumé as well. He worked as a top aide to Tom DeLay, the former Republican Majority Leader of the House of Representatives who was later convicted of money laundering, and he was identified by the Washington Post as a participant in the so-called “Brooks Brothers Riot,” in which Republican operatives from Washington stormed vote-counters in Florida during the hotly contested 2000 Bush v. Gore Presidential election. (“Tom Pyle is not running from his record at all,” Cole said, when asked about these ties. “It’s regrettable that the President is running from his.”)

The Kochs have blazed the trail for this sort of secretly funded, independent campaign. The ads attacking Obama for high gas prices follow an even larger ad buy last January made by Americans for Prosperity, an advocacy group founded and partly funded by David Koch, that, according to the Journal aired six million dollars’ worth of ads criticizing the President’s handling of Solyndra, the solar-energy firm that went bankrupt after receiving grants from the government. Those ads, interestingly, ran in many of the same key Presidential-battleground states earmarked for the new anti-Obama gas ads—specifically Ohio, Iowa, North Carolina, Virginia, Michigan, and Wisconsin.

So, whose money is behind the American Energy Alliance? The most striking feature of the 2012 Presidential campaign is that, at least for now, neither viewers of the ads, nor voters, nor virtually anyone else can tell.

Read more http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/newsdesk/2012/03/funders-behind-new-antiobama-ad-blitz.html#ixzz1rSpUvkYv

---

The American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity, whose members include Peabody Energy Corp. (BTU) in St. Louis and Southern Co. (SO) in Atlanta, is trying to reach voters with its campaign to promote coal and warn about the economic impact of the EPA’s rules.

Earnhardt Sponsorship

Last month it announced it would sponsor Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s JR Motorsports team. An 18-wheel, mobile classroom will also be featured at NASCAR events to showcase the benefits of the fossil fuel, said Miller, the group’s spokeswoman, in an interview.

Meanwhile, the American Energy Alliance, which spent $3.6 million on a campaign targeting Obama on gasoline prices, produced a 4 1/2 minute long YouTube video describing the economic risks to Craig, Colorado, presented by state and federal policies that would limit coal use.

Coal’s complaints play into the Republican narrative that Obama administration regulations are hurting the economy.  bloomberg

---

BTU Tax

In 1993 Burson-Marsteller led a $1.8 million campaign to

defeat a proposed tax on fossil fuels. President

Clinton’s BTU Tax was the most ambitious measure to

combat climate change yet proposed by an American

government. The BTU Tax was to be levied on fossil

fuels, specifically on the heat generating capacity of

fossil fuels – a BTU (British Thermal unit) is a measure

of how much heat will be released by a given mass of

fuel. The tax would have added 25 cents to the price of

a gallon of petrol.

The tax was at the centre of Clinton’s plans to reduce

greenhouse gas emissions, which he aimed to reduce to

1990 levels by 2000.

Big business was unhappy with the plans however. The

National Association of Manufacturers (a sponsor of the

Global Climate Coalition), the American Petroleum

Institute, over 1,600 companies, large and small, and

farmers organised themselves to create the American

Energy Alliance (AEA), specifically to derail the BTU

tax[37].

The AEA hired B-M to orchestrate the campaign. Deploying

around 45 staff in 23 states, B-M organised a ‘grass

roots’ letter writing and phone-in campaign. They placed

anti-BTU articles and editorials in the press,

commissioned sceptical economists to write reports and

obtained media access for businessmen to express their

views. Naturally they also lobbied against the Tax in

Washington D.C.[38]

Congressional support for the BTU tax quickly withered

away and Clinton’s plan was defeated. Congress voted for

the tax to be kept below the five cents level. Treasury

Secretary Lloyd-Bentsen described the campaign as “one

of the most sophisticated jobs I've seen by lobbyists in

a long time.”

---

possible dupl:

webodec3

Explore

Account

Logout

Support

Download

WebofDCeit

GLOBAL WARMING

SKEPTIC/DENIER

FUNDER$

FRONTS

POLITICIANS

INDUSTRIE$

LOBBYIST$

MEDIA

FLACKS

HACKS

DIRTY TRICKS

REVOLVING DOOR

Europe

Institute for Energy Research IER

api, Denier, enron, Exxon, Front, Koch

Institute for Energy Research IER

alec, api, revolving door, Uber, xl

American Petroleum Institute API

Berman, CoC, crypto, evil, GMOnsanto

Berman, R

Koch

American Energy Alliance

api, astroturf, GMOnsanto, PR, tobacco, Uber

BURSEN-MARSTELLER BM

api, cheney, DCI, Exxon, SLAPP, Uber

EXXON MOBIL

bank, coal, Uber

BANK OF AMERICA BofA

B2, cheney, Denier, gop, lobbyist, revolving door, tobacco

Barbour, BGR

coal, CoC

COAL

American Energy Alliance

Pyle, T

1994 Newt Revo, alec, Christian, enron, gop, tobacco

DeLay

aei, hub, Koch, revolving door, TP, Uber, xl

KOCH

Denier, enron, heartland, Koch, PR

Bradley, Robt

B2, enron

Brooks Bros Riot

1994 Newt Revo, aei, B2, lobbyist

ABRAMOFF

PR

FLACKS

Mod, Uber

LOBBYIST$

Christian, coal, CoC, Denier, gop

Blunt, R

coal, Defunct, gop, Koch, revolving door

Pombo R Rep

B2, Koch, lobbyist, revolving door, Staffer, xl

INTERNATIONAL

Defunct, gop

Radanovich rep

Rhoads Group

USC

texas

WIND

Solyndra

aei, api, coal, CoC, hub, Koch

Aspen/KOCH

coal, democrat

Obama

Pyle, T

api, CoC, Koch, xl

Keystone XL Pipeline

Search

Pyle, T

BROOKS BROS No. 1. Tom Pyle, who had worked for Rep. Tom DeLay (R-Tex.), went private sector a few months later, getting a job as director of federal affairs for Koch Industries.

---

Thomas J. Pyle, AEA President, Is A Oil Lobbyist And DeLay Operative. Before joining the Institute for Energy Research and the American Energy Alliance, Pyle worked as a lobbyist for the right-wing oil giant Koch Industries, first in-house starting in 2001, and then at the Rhoads Group. In 2008 Pyle became a lobbyist for the National Petrochemical and Refiners Association. Previously, Pyle served as policy analyst for Rep. Tom DeLay (R-TX), Majority Whip of the U.S. House of Representatives and as staff director for the GOP Congressional Western Caucus. Pyle started as a legislative assistant for radical anti-environmentalists Rep. Richard Pombo (R-CA) and Rep. George Radanovich (R-CA). [Institute for Energy Research, Center for Public Integrity]

---

sw stub

Thomas J. Pyle, a former energy policy aide for former House Majority Leader Thomas D. DeLay, is director of federal affairs for Koch Industries. [1][2]

Affiliations

"Team DeLay"

External links

Al Kamen, "Miami 'Riot' Squad: Where Are They Now?" Washington Post, January 24, 2005. Shows Pyle in photo.

"Political Contributions by DeLay Alumni During the 2003-2004 Election Cycle," Tech Politics (CQ Weekly, Federal Election Commissiondownloaded March 2005.)

Categories:

Politics

Scandals

Corruption

---

Pyle has a colorful political résumé as well. He worked as a top aide to Tom DeLay, the former Republican Majority Leader of the House of Representatives who was later convicted of money laundering, and he was identified by the Washington Post as a participant in the so-called “Brooks Brothers Riot,” in which Republican operatives from Washington stormed vote-counters in Florida during the hotly contested 2000 Bush v. Gore Presidential election. (“Tom Pyle is not running from his record at all,” Cole said, when asked about these ties. “It’s regrettable that the President is running from his.”)  jm nyer

---

Note lack of details here:

Thomas J. Pyle is the president of the Institute for Energy Research (IER). In this capacity, Pyle brings a unique backdrop of public and private sector experience to help manage IER’s Washington, DC-based staff and operations. He also helps to develop the organization’s free market policy positions and implement education efforts with respect to key energy stakeholders, including policymakers, federal agency representatives, industry leaders, consumer entities and the media.

Previously, Pyle was the founder of his own consulting firm, Pyle Consulting, Inc., an active public affairs consulting firm with a wide range of private and not-for-profit customers. Prior to starting his own firm, Pyle served as vice president of the Rhoads Group in Washington, DC where he represented and advised a variety of association and corporate clients in meeting their strategic public policy goals and priorities. Additionally, he also served as director of federal affairs for a major integrated manufacturing and services company focusing on energy, environment, regulatory and transportation issues.

Before coming to the private sector, Pyle held numerous positions on Capitol Hill including serving a policy analyst for the Majority Whip of the U.S. House of Representatives and as staff director for the Congressional Western Caucus, as well as other legislative staff positions.

Pyle holds a B.A. in Political Science from the University of Southern California.

--

---

backup

---

a front for front? IER?

---

fight epa coal regs before published 5/14

American Energy Alliance/Institute For Energy Research

The Institute for Energy Research and its political arm, the American Energy Alliance, are bothfunded in part by the Koch brothers and their donor network and run by Tom Pyle, a former lobbyist for Koch Industries. The group was recently identified as a beneficiary of the Kochs’ vast political network, which raised at least $407 million in the last election alone, according to a recent analysis by the Washington Post and the Center for Responsive Politics. In January, an IER blog post said the plan to cut carbon pollution from existing power plants “will wreak havoc on our largest source of electricity.”

---

GOP Team At American Energy Alliance Runs ‘Energy Town Hall’ Oil Bus Tour

The American Energy Alliance, which is affiliated with the conservative Institute for Energy Research, has begun a four-week bus tour to county fairs, sporting events and public meetings in several coal-reliant states. Representatives of the group will travel in a large blue bus carrying the slogan “Stop the National Energy Tax, Save American Jobs” and a picture of workers in hard hats. They will cross Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, West Virginia and Virginia. Yesterday, AEA officials participated in a rally with another group, Americans for Prosperity, in Zanesville, Ohio; a day earlier, they visited a county fair in western Pennsylvania.The American Energy Alliance (AEA), a new polluter front group, is touring the nation to smear President Barack Obama’s clean energy reform agenda. Employees riding the “American Energy Express” bus are spreading the conservative lies that the American Clean Energy and Security Act will “cripple our sluggish economy.” AEA is the 501 c(4) offshoot of the Institute for Energy Research, a right-wing oil-industry think tank run by Robert Bradley, a former speechwriter for Kenneth Lay. E&E News reports that AEA’s “Energy Town Hall” bus tour pictures workers in hard hats:

In fact, by attacking legislation that addresses climate change and our national dependence on fossil fuels, AEA is preventing a clean-energy economic boom. Laughably, AEA claims it has “no ties to any political party“:

AEA has no ties to any political party, and it has no interest in supporting the agenda of any particular political party.

AEA may be telling the truth that it has “no interest in supporting the agenda of any particular political party” — its only interest seems to be blocking progressive reform by spreading lies and distortions. However, AEA is tightly connected to the Republican Party and right-wing oil interests. In fact, all of its employees are former House Republican staffers:

Thomas J. Pyle, AEA President, Is A Oil Lobbyist And DeLay Operative.Before joining the Institute for Energy Research and the American Energy Alliance, Pyle worked as a lobbyist for the right-wing oil giant Koch Industries, first in-house starting in 2001, and then at the Rhoads Group. In 2008 Pyle became a lobbyist for the National Petrochemical and Refiners Association. Previously, Pyle served as policy analyst for Rep. Tom DeLay (R-TX), Majority Whip of the U.S. House of Representatives and as staff director for the GOP Congressional Western Caucus. Pyle started as a legislative assistant for radical anti-environmentalists Rep. Richard Pombo (R-CA) and Rep. George Radanovich (R-CA). [Institute for Energy Research, Center for Public Integrity]

Patrick Creighton, AEA Communications Director, Worked For Bush And Pennsylvania Republicans. Patrick Creighton was the special assistant to Samuel T. Mok, the chief financial officer at the Department of Labor from 2004 to 2006. He then worked as a spokesman for oil and natural gas advocate Rep. John Peterson (R-PA) from 2006 to 2009, worked to elect Rep. Glenn Thompson (R-PA), then joined Thompson’s office until May 2009. [Institute for Energy Research, Legistorm]

Kevin Kennedy, AEA Federal Affairs Director, Promoted Alaska Drilling Under Don Young. After graduating from Union College in 2004, Kevin Kennedy worked for the Astroturf organization Arctic Power, which advocated drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. In 2007, Kennedy became a legislative assistant for the corrupt Rep. Don Young (R-AK) and the House Committee on Natural Resources. He joined the Institute for Energy Research and American Energy Alliance in 2009. [Institute for Energy Research]

Laura Henderson, AEA Spokesperson, Served Shelby, Dole, And Tiberi. Laura Henderson was a former press secretary for offshore drilling advocate Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL) from 2005-2009. Previously, she worked for former Sen. Elizabeth Dole (R-NC) and Rep. Pat Tiberi (R-OH). [Institute for Energy Research]

Daniel R. Simmons, AEA State Affairs Director, Is A Koch-Funded GOP Staffer. Simmons was the Director of the Natural Resources Task Force at the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), a right-wing network funded by Koch Industries, the American Petroleum Institute, and other corporate and right-wing organizations. Previously, Simmons was a Research Fellow at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, also funded by Koch. From 2001 to 2005, Simmons served on the staff of Rep. George Nethercutt (R-WA) on the House Natural Resources Committee. Simmons holds a B.A. in Economics from Utah State University and a J.D. from George Mason University School of Law, also supported by Koch Industries. [Institute for Energy Research, Legistorm]

Furthermore, AEA’s EnergyTownHall.org website is run by yet another former GOP House staffer:

GOP.gov Webmaster Nathan Imperiale Runs EnergyTownHall.Org.AEA’s EnergyTownHall.org was designed by NJI Media Group, part of Endeavour Global Strategies. Endeavour’s head, Sean Spicer, is a long-time GOP operative, including communications work for the House Republican Conference and the Bush White House. NJI Media Group’s president, Nathan Imperiale, served as Director of New Media for the House Republican Conference, building its GOP.gov website. [Twitter, 2/13/09; Endeavour Global Strategies]

AEA’s “American Energy Express” joins a field crowded by conservative oil and coal propaganda — the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity’s “Factuality” bus tour, the American Petroleum Institute’s “Energy Citizens” oil rallies, and the Americans For Prosperity “Hot Air” balloon tour.

UPDATEAt Free Advice, Institute for Energy Research economist Bob Murphy writes that Paul Krugman doesn't understand tea party protesters because he doesn't care about checks on government power like they do, and continues:

So, by symmetry,

I think people on "our side" should realize that the great masses of Americans who are for health care reform and climate legislation (and it pains me to not put scare quotes around those phrases) aren't actually closet socialists who want to bring America to its knees.

---

Pyle told the New York Times in February that the group was preparing to attack the proposal with television and radio ads. “That’s going to be a big fight, when they roll out the rule for existing plants,” Pyle said. “We’ll be ready for them.”

AEA has recently been attacking vulnerable Democrats in fossil-fuel friendly states — Rep. Nick Rahall (WV), Sen. Mark Begich (AK) — for supporting a carbon tax, even though they never did. In 2012, the group sought to make the Production Tax Credit for wind energy “so toxic” that Republicans wouldn’t back it.

==

The Center for Public Integrity used 990s obtained by CRP as it looked into the American Energy Alliance's claim that the $1.3 million it spent on ads in the 2012 elections were not actually political. In another rundown of new filings, CPI also cited tax documents and data from CRP.  :

Swing state voters in Virginia and Ohio last fall were bombarded with television advertisements encouraging them to "stand with coal" and "vote no on Obama's failing energy policy."

But the sponsor of these ads — a pro-business nonprofit advocacy group called the American Energy Alliance — says the messages weren’t designed to aid Republican Mitt Romney in his bid to unseat President Barack Obama.

In a new tax return filed Friday and first obtained by the Center for Responsive Politics, the American Energy Alliance, led by former Koch Industries lobbyist Thomas Pyle, told the Internal Revenue Service that it did not "engage in direct or indirect political campaign activities on behalf of or in opposition to candidates for public office" last year.

The group made an even more explicit pledge to be nonpartisan when it applied for tax-exempt status in 2008, telling the IRS that it had "no interest in supporting the agenda or any particular political party or political candidate."

While it acknowledged “the possibility that some of AEA's publications and communications may be considered ‘political,’” the group asserted that it was a “nonpartisan policy-oriented organization,” not a “‘political’ organization.”

The new tax documents also show that American Energy Alliance spent more than $5 million on "media and advertising," with vendor Mentzer Media, a media buying firm that works primarily with Republicans, receiving $3.9 million of that amount.

The “stand with coal” ads cost at least $1.36 million, according to disclosures the American Energy Alliance filed with the Federal Election Commission.

Because these broadcast ads came within 60 days of the November election and mentioned the president, the American Energy Alliance was required to report the spots to the FEC as “electioneering communications” — a special type of issue-based advertising that comes with enhanced disclosure requirements.

The group also engaged in a host of other pre-election activities that often included battleground presidential states and attacked Obama.

Marcus Owens, an attorney who previously headed the IRS’ tax-exempt division, said the American Energy Alliance’s new filing “certainly raises a red flag.”

“It’s a politically active organization,” he said, adding that the pre-election advertisements were veiled in what “sounds like a lobbying message on its face.”

Benjamin Cole, a spokesman for the American Energy Alliance, rejected accusations that his group behaved improperly.

Cole told the Center for Public Integrity that the ads were “designed to inform the American public about President Obama's energy policies… not his re-election efforts.”

“We could just as easily run those same ads today,” Cole continued, adding that all of the group’s ads are vetted by lawyers to “ensure that nothing we do runs afoul of federal election or tax laws.”

One element of the new IRS documents that’s for sure: The American Energy Alliance’s footprint has grown substantially. In all, the American Energy Alliance spent $7 million last year.

That's a nearly seven times what it spent in 2010 — and more than 300 percent above the roughly $1.7 million it spent during its inaugural year in 2008, according to a Center for Public Integrity review of IRS records.

It’s unclear who precisely has funded this surge, although the American Energy Alliance’s new annual report does show that just three donors — who each gave at least $1 million — accounted for three-fourths of the American Energy Alliance’s total $7.3 million haul last year.

=-=

Fri, 2010-05-28 20:04

Brad Johnson over at The WONK ROOM reports:

The American Energy Alliance (AEA), a new polluter front group, is touring the nation to smear President Barack Obama’s clean energy reform agenda. Employees riding the “American Energy Express” bus are spreading the conservative lies that the American Clean Energy and Security Act will “cripple our sluggish economy.” AEA is the 501 c(4) offshoot of the Institute for Energy Research, a right-wing oil-industry think tank run by Robert Bradley, a former speechwriter for Kenneth Lay. E&E News reports that AEA’s “Energy Town Hall” bus tour pictures workers in hard hats:

The American Energy Alliance, which is affiliated with the conservative Institute for Energy Research, has begun a four-week bus tour to county fairs, sporting events and public meetings in several coal-reliant states. Representatives of the group will travel in a large blue bus carrying the slogan “Stop the National Energy Tax, Save American Jobs” and a picture of workers in hard hats. They will cross Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, West Virginia and Virginia. Yesterday, AEA officials participated in a rally with another group, Americans for Prosperity, in Zanesville, Ohio; a day earlier, they visited a county fair in western Pennsylvania.In fact, by attacking legislation that addresses climate change and our national dependence on fossil fuels, AEA is preventing a clean-energy economic boom. Laughably, AEA claims it has “no ties to any political party“:

American Energy Alliance staffers Kevin Kennedy, Patrick Creighton, and Laura Henderson on tour in Pennsylvania. All are former House GOP staff.

AEA may be telling the truth that it has “no interest in supporting the agenda of any particular political party” — its only interest seems to be blocking progressive reform by spreading lies and distortions. However, AEA is tightly connected to the Republican Party and right-wing oil interests. In fact, all of its employees are former House Republican staffers:

Thomas J. Pyle, AEA President, Is A Oil Lobbyist And DeLay Operative. Before joining the Institute for Energy Research and the American Energy Alliance, Pyle worked as a lobbyist for the right-wing oil giant Koch Industries, first in-house starting in 2001, and then at the Rhoads Group. In 2008 Pyle became a lobbyist for the National Petrochemical and Refiners Association. Previously, Pyle served as policy analyst for Rep. Tom DeLay (R-TX), Majority Whip of the U.S. House of Representatives and as staff director for the GOP Congressional Western Caucus. Pyle started as a legislative assistant for radical anti-environmentalists Rep. Richard Pombo (R-CA) and Rep. George Radanovich (R-CA). [Institute for Energy Research, Center for Public Integrity]

Patrick Creighton, AEA Communications Director, Worked For Bush And Pennsylvania Republicans. Patrick Creighton was the special assistant to Samuel T. Mok, the chief financial officer at the Department of Labor from 2004 to 2006. He then worked as a spokesman for oil and natural gas advocate Rep. John Peterson (R-PA) from 2006 to 2009, worked to elect Rep. Glenn Thompson (R-PA), then joined Thompson’s office until May 2009. [Institute for Energy Research, Legistorm]

Kevin Kennedy, AEA Federal Affairs Director, Promoted Alaska Drilling Under Don Young. After graduating from Union College in 2004, Kevin Kennedy worked for the Astroturf organization Arctic Power, which advocated drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. In 2007, Kennedy became a legislative assistant for the corrupt Rep. Don Young (R-AK) and the House Committee on Natural Resources. He joined the Institute for Energy Research and American Energy Alliance in 2009. [Institute for Energy Research]

Laura Henderson, AEA Spokesperson, Served Shelby, Dole, And Tiberi. Laura Henderson was a former press secretary for offshore drilling advocate Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL) from 2005-2009. Previously, she worked for former Sen. Elizabeth Dole (R-NC) and Rep. Pat Tiberi (R-OH). [Institute for Energy Research]

Daniel R. Simmons, AEA State Affairs Director, Is A Koch-Funded GOP Staffer. Simmons was the Director of the Natural Resources Task Force at the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), a right-wing network funded by Koch Industries, the American Petroleum Institute, and other corporate and right-wing organizations. Previously, Simmons was a Research Fellow at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, also funded by Koch. From 2001 to 2005, Simmons served on the staff of Rep. George Nethercutt (R-WA) on the House Natural Resources Committee. Simmons holds a B.A. in Economics from Utah State University and a J.D. from George Mason University School of Law, also supported by Koch Industries. [Institute for Energy Research, Legistorm]

Furthermore, AEA’s EnergyTownHall.org website is run by yet another former GOP House staffer:

GOP.gov Webmaster Nathan Imperiale Runs EnergyTownHall.Org.AEA’s EnergyTownHall.org was designed by NJI Media Group, part of Endeavour Global Strategies. Endeavour’s head, Sean Spicer, is a long-time GOP operative, including communications work for the House Republican Conference and the Bush White House. NJI Media Group’s president, Nathan Imperiale, served as Director of New Media for the House Republican Conference, building its GOP.gov website. [Twitter,2/13/09; Endeavour Global Strategies]

AEA’s “American Energy Express” joins a field crowded by conservative oil and coal propaganda — the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity’s “Factuality” bus tour, the American Petroleum Institute’s “Energy Citizens” oil rallies, and the Americans For Prosperity “Hot Air” balloon tour.

Update At Free Advice, Institute for Energy Research economist Bob Murphy writes that Paul Krugman doesn't understand tea party protesters because he doesn't care about checks on government power like they do, and continues:

So, by symmetry, I think people on "our side" should realize that the great masses of Americans who are for health care reform and climate legislation (and it pains me to not put scare quotes around those phrases) aren't actually closet socialists who want to bring America to its knees.

By Brad Johnson at The WONK ROOM.

==

Conservative group launches broad anti-carbon tax campaign

By Zack Colman - 07/16/13 05:00 AM ET

A conservative energy group is rolling out a multi-pronged push ahead of the August congressional recess that aims to put the carbon tax in its deathbed.

“We’re hoping to put the final nail in the coffin on the carbon tax. The proposal should be dead on arrival by the time lawmakers come back from August recess,” Benjamin Cole, a spokesman with the Institute for Energy Research and its advocacy arm, the American Energy Alliance, told The Hill in an interview detailing the plan.

The effort includes a new poll of American opinion on a carbon tax and an advertising campaign centered on five House members, among other elements.

As early as Thursday, AEA will launch a two-week radio advertising campaign that targets five House lawmakers — four Democrats and one Republican.

The ad blitz, which will cost between $120,000 and $150,000, targets Democratic Reps. Bill Owens (N.Y.), Kyrsten Sinema (Ariz.), Patrick Murphy (Fla.) and William Enyart (Ill.), along with GOP Rep. Chris Smith (N.J.).

AEA chose to focus on members who have been “soft on the carbon tax issue” and reside in “marginal districts,” Cole said.

“We obviously are ones to apply pressure in any way we can,” he said.

The timing of the IER and AEA operation is designed to get energy issues on the agenda when lawmakers meet with voters in their congressional districts, Cole said.

Cole compared the upcoming recess to the summer of 2010, when the House had recently passed ObamaCare, the national healthcare law.

He said the climate change plan Obama unveiled last month — which relies on a suite of executive actions that industry, Republicans and coal-state Democrats say will slow the economy — will draw fire from voters across the country.

“We know that there’s going to be town halls that congressmen go back to their districts to hear from their constituents. We want to make sure that energy is on the plate,” he said.

The effort will attempt to blunt any possible momentum for a carbon tax, Cole said.

Of that, there appears to be little.

Taxing carbon emissions has support from some environmentalists, as well as a collection of conservative economists and advocates who say it should be coupled with lower personal tax rates. But the idea has little political traction.

Carbon tax proposals are a non-starter in the GOP-controlled House. And Republicans combined a bloc of centrist Democrats threaten to thwart a carbon tax in the Senate. On top of all that, the White House has said it won’t pursue a carbon tax.

The concept has fueled intense opposition from the right.

The IER and AEA campaign has the support of several conservative outfits, including Americans for Tax Reform, FreedomWorks and the Competitive Enterprise Institute.

The first piece of the rollout is an IER-commissioned poll of 800 registered voters conducted last week by The Tarrance Group that says Americans reject the idea of a carbon tax.

Fifty-nine percent of respondents said they oppose a carbon tax “paid by businesses of all sizes,” compared with 35 percent of those who favored the concept.

The poll doesn't take into account different schemes for a carbon tax — for example, there’s variability in policy circles when deciding whether to apply a fee at the point of carbon emissions or fossil fuel extraction.

Still, the responses differed greatly among parties. A majority of Democrats — 54 percent — favored a carbon tax, while 80 percent of Republicans rejected it.

The results of that poll will be discussed at a carbon tax event IER is hosting Wednesday. Then comes the radio ad launch.

IER will also give lawmakers a point-by-point critique of the climate change plan Obama unveiled last month before they head home.

“It’s teeing up August recess interaction with constituents,” Cole said.

Cole said that IER and AEA plan to keep the heat on lawmakers until the heads of the congressional tax-writing panels, Rep. Dave Camp (R-Mich.) and Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.), formally declare a carbon tax is off the table.

The two committee heads have demonstrated a desire to overhaul the federal tax code — and for both, time is of the essence. Baucus isn’t running for reelection in 2014, and Camp’s term as chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee is up after next year.

“There’s nothing that motivates a politician more than building his own legacy,” Cole said.

Read more: http://thehill.com/blogs/e2-wire/e2-wire/311159-conservative-group-launches-broad-anti-carbon-tax-campaign#ixzz2bz7bE8Qk

Follow us: @thehill on Twitter | TheHill on Facebook

==

---

backed down grover http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2012/11/13/1182511/grover-norquist-abruptly-reverses-position-on-carbon-tax-after-facing-criticism-from-koch-backed-group/

---

Grover Norquist Abruptly Changes Position On Carbon Tax After Facing Criticism From Koch-Backed Group

By Stephen Lacey on Nov 13, 2012 at 1:27 pm

Anti-tax crusader Grover Norquist raised a lot of eyebrows on Monday when he told National Journal that a carbon tax might be on the table if it were swapped with a cut to the income tax.

“It’s possible you could structure something that wasn’t an increase and didn’t violate the pledge,” he reportedly said.

As president of Americans for Tax Reform, Norquist has convinced hundreds of members of Congress to sign a pledge that they will never raise taxes. While his influence appears to be waning in Washington, Norquist’s tax pledge is still considered gospel for many Republicans. That’s why his willingness to consider a tax on global warming pollution is a big deal in political circles.

But one day later, after being criticized by the American Energy Alliance, the advocacy arm of a Koch-supported energy think tank devoted to promoting fossil fuel development, Norquist has completely reversed his statement, saying there virtually “no conceivable way” he could support a tax on carbon....http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2012/11/13/1182511/grover-norquist-abruptly-reverses-position-on-carbon-tax-after-facing-criticism-from-koch-backed-group/

---

==

Koch Industries Climate Denial Front Group

Institute for Energy Research (IER)

On this page

Read more about the Institute for Energy Research

Find more recipients of Koch foundation money

$175,000 received from Koch foundations 2005-2011 [Total Koch foundation grants 1997-2011: $235,000]

IER supported and promoted the "Spanish" and "Danish" studies critical of clean energy jobs, both of which have been debunked by credible sources. IER also argues that efforts to curb global warming would accomplish little at too great a cost, promotes ACCF/NAM and Heritage Foundation studies that exaggerate the costs of climate policy, and discourages U.S. leadership on the international stage.

Robert Bradley, a former Enron executive, is the CEO of IER and one of its founders. Thomas Pyle, a former Koch and oil-industry lobbyist, is the President of IER and the American Energy Alliance, the 501c4 counterpart to IER. Politico reports that IER and AEA still receive Koch money in support of a $3.6 million anti-Obama gas price advertising campaign, although Koch foundations appear to have stopped supporting IER after 2007. The most recent available Koch foundation tax filings to IRS are for the year 2010, indicating the Kochs picked IER back up in 2011 or are funneling money through other avenues.

AEA was founded by the National Association of Manufacturers and the American Petroleum Institute to fight the BTU tax proposal in 1993, and in recent years funded by ExxonMobil and Koch Industries. AEA has been active in the climate debate, from running ads repeating false claims about the costs of climate legislation to trashing clean energy at town halls around the US.

http://www.greenpeace.org/usa/en/campaigns/global-warming-and-energy/polluterwatch/koch-industries/institute-for-energy-research/

==

The romance between ALEC and fracking continued at this year's ALEC meeting in Utah -- an appropriate location for the frack-friendly ALEC crew. In May, the U.S. Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar approved a major shale gas project by Texas-based Anadarko Petroleum Corp. in Utah's Uinta Basin -- expected to develop more than 3,600 new wells over the next decade.

In another industry-friendly move, Utah's Governor Gary Herbert, who spoke the ALEC conference's opening luncheon, signed a bill into law in March demanding that Congress hand over 30 million acres of federal land to the state by 2015 or the state will sue. According to the Associated Press, Lawmakers in Utah and Arizona have said the legislation is endorsed by ALEC. As documented by the Center for Media and Democracy's ALEC Exposed Project, ALEC drafted the "Sagebrush Rebellion Act," which was "designed to establish a mechanism for the transfer of ownership of unappropriated lands from the federal government to the states." According to the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, the governor's initiative would open up millions of acres of the "Wilderness Study Areas and proposed wilderness areas to oil and gas development" but in the process would cost Utah taxpayers enormously.

At the meeting, the CEO of the Institute for Energy Research (IER) Dr. Robert Bradley was one of the featured speakers. Bradley, formerly a director of policy analysis at Enron, also spoke at the 2011 ALEC conference in New Orleans. He is also an "adjunct scholar" at the right-wing think tank the Cato Institute and specializes in "global warming alarmism." IER is a non-profit group focused on global energy markets that pushes for deregulation, advances climate change denial, and attempts to discredit renewable energy sources. The group's 2010 IRS 990 form said that its focus was narrowed in on "impediments to domestic energy production, including government restrictions on access, burdensome regulations, and the favoritism of energy sources that are unsustainable in the marketplace."

The PR Bus of AEA and Koch's AFP

IER received some $307,000 from Exxon Mobil between 2003 and 2007, according to the publicly traded company's "Corporate Giving Reports." IER also received a total of $235,000 from Koch Family foundations between 1997-2010, according to a Greenpeace report. Koch Industries, an ALEC member, also profits from the expansion of fracking. Unlike Exxon, because Koch is not a publicly-traded company, any corporate donations to groups like IER, AEA, or AFP are not publicly disclosed.

IER is a "partner" organization of the American Energy Alliance, a 501(c)4 organization which calls itself the "grassroots arm" of IER. Thomas Pyle is president of both organizations, and is a former lobbyist for Koch Industries and former energy policy aide for former House Majority Leader Thomas D. DeLay, who resigned from the leadership following his indictment on conspiracy charges. Wayne Gable, also a former lobbyist for Koch Industries and former president for two of the Koch Family foundations, is on the board of both IER and AEA.

In 2011 IER and AEA launched "Energy for America" as a joint initiative with a laser point in on fracking, with an aim to "educate" the public on the practice. In October 2011, AEA and IER, in partnership with Koch Industries' astroturf group Americans for Prosperity, started a "Energy for America" bus tour to encourage the expansion of domestic exploration of oil, gas and coal, targeting U.S. Senate battleground states for the upcoming 2012 elections.

Additionally, Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck is one of the three chairs of the ALEC Energy, Environment, and Agriculture Task Force. One of its clients is Freeport LNG, which owns and operates one of the first liquefied natural gas import terminals built in the United States. According to the law firm's website, "For the last nine years, Brownstein has been the lead counsel in the structuring, strategy and development of the $1.2 billion receiving and regasification facility with commercial output capacity of more than 2.0 billion cubic feet of natural gas per day."

---

March 30, 2012

Funders Behind New Anti-Obama Ad Blitz Stay Hidden

Posted by Jane Mayer

A new and highly aggressive multi-million-dollar anti-Obama ad campaign has started airing on television stations in eight key political swing states—but for now at least, the funders are staying hidden in the shadows.

The ads in question have a distinctly oily aura, which is unsurprising, perhaps since the group sponsoring them has been funded in the past by major fossil-fuel companies. The group defines itself as a non-partisan nonprofit, but exemplifies the growing role that secret money is playing in the 2012 Presidential campaign. Technically, the ads have been produced and aired by the Washington-based American Energy Alliance, a 501c-4 social-welfare organization under the Internal Revenue Service’s tax code, whose activities, under the law, have to be largely non-political. This group shares office space and personnel with a sister organization, the Institute for Energy Research, a 501c-3, whose tax status is typically reserved for charities. Its activities have to be strictly non-partisan and non-political. Both groups hide the identities of their funders. All that Benjamin Cole, director of communications for both groups would say is that the ads are funded by “individuals, foundations, and corporations.”

Cole says that the $3.6 million ad campaign “is not election related at all. We’re not seeking to influence the elections.” It is, he says, only a coincidence that most of the eight states that the ads will air in—Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Michigan, New Mexico, Nevada, Ohio, Virginia—are considered hotly contested swing states that could decide the outcome of the election. He says these states were chosen only because they are all places where energy is an issue. He explained, for instance, that offshore oil drilling is an issue in Virginia, and the high price of gasoline is an issue in Florida—a definition that would, it seems, allow for the group to chose any state.

He acknowledges, however, that the ads will directly blame Obama for recent increases in gas prices, despite the fact that even such conservative and libertarian voices such as Cato Institute scholars and Rupert Murdoch’s Wall Street Journal have protested that this is specious.

So who is behind the advertising campaign to push the line that Obama is to blame? Bill Burton, senior strategist at the pro-Obama Super PAC Priorities USA believes that it comes from a familiar source. “The Koch brothers and other oil barons are using profits from high gas prices to fund false political attacks benefitting Governor Romney,” he says.

Cole retorts that there is “not a single penny of Koch money” paying for the two-week ad campaign. But he declined to confirm or deny reports, including one by Politico, that the Koch brothers, whose privately owned conglomerate, Koch Industries, is a major domestic-oil refiner, have steered funds to both the American Energy Alliance and the Institute for Energy Research. A spokesperson at Koch Industries did not respond to questions on the Kochs’ ties to the groups.

The ties, though, appear to be extensive. In the past, according to National Public Radio, the Energy Research Institute has received funds from the Claude R. Lambe Charitable Foundation, which is controlled by the Kochs, as well as from Exxon Mobil and other energy companies.

The president of the American Energy Alliance, Thomas Pyle, formerly worked for Koch Industries, according to the watchdog group OpenSecrets.org. The records show that he also worked as an outside lobbyist for the Kochs’ private interests in Washington, first at Perceptum Consulting, and later at the Rhoads Group. According to Politico’s Ken Vogel, Pyle has “regularly attended” semi-annual political meetings run by the Kochs, including one this past winter in Indian Well, California, where the Kochs raised over a hundred and fifty million dollars to be directed to groups working against the Democrats in the 2012 general election. At a previous such political summit, Charles Koch described the 2012 election as “the mother of all wars.”

Pyle has a colorful political résumé as well. He worked as a top aide to Tom DeLay, the former Republican Majority Leader of the House of Representatives who was later convicted of money laundering, and he was identified by the Washington Post as a participant in the so-called “Brooks Brothers Riot,” in which Republican operatives from Washington stormed vote-counters in Florida during the hotly contested 2000 Bush v. Gore Presidential election. (“Tom Pyle is not running from his record at all,” Cole said, when asked about these ties. “It’s regrettable that the President is running from his.”)

The Kochs have blazed the trail for this sort of secretly funded, independent campaign. The ads attacking Obama for high gas prices follow an even larger ad buy last January made by Americans for Prosperity, an advocacy group founded and partly funded by David Koch, that, according to the Journal aired six million dollars’ worth of ads criticizing the President’s handling of Solyndra, the solar-energy firm that went bankrupt after receiving grants from the government. Those ads, interestingly, ran in many of the same key Presidential-battleground states earmarked for the new anti-Obama gas ads—specifically Ohio, Iowa, North Carolina, Virginia, Michigan, and Wisconsin.

So, whose money is behind the American Energy Alliance? The most striking feature of the 2012 Presidential campaign is that, at least for now, neither viewers of the ads, nor voters, nor virtually anyone else can tell.

Read more http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/newsdesk/2012/03/funders-behind-new-antiobama-ad-blitz.html#ixzz1rSpUvkYv

---

The American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity, whose members include Peabody Energy Corp. (BTU) in St. Louis and Southern Co. (SO) in Atlanta, is trying to reach voters with its campaign to promote coal and warn about the economic impact of the EPA’s rules.

Earnhardt Sponsorship

Last month it announced it would sponsor Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s JR Motorsports team. An 18-wheel, mobile classroom will also be featured at NASCAR events to showcase the benefits of the fossil fuel, said Miller, the group’s spokeswoman, in an interview.

Meanwhile, the American Energy Alliance, which spent $3.6 million on a campaign targeting Obama on gasoline prices, produced a 4 1/2 minute long YouTube video describing the economic risks to Craig, Colorado, presented by state and federal policies that would limit coal use.

Coal’s complaints play into the Republican narrative that Obama administration regulations are hurting the economy.  bloomberg

---

BTU Tax

In 1993 Burson-Marsteller led a $1.8 million campaign to

defeat a proposed tax on fossil fuels. President

Clinton’s BTU Tax was the most ambitious measure to

combat climate change yet proposed by an American

government. The BTU Tax was to be levied on fossil

fuels, specifically on the heat generating capacity of

fossil fuels – a BTU (British Thermal unit) is a measure

of how much heat will be released by a given mass of

fuel. The tax would have added 25 cents to the price of

a gallon of petrol.

The tax was at the centre of Clinton’s plans to reduce

greenhouse gas emissions, which he aimed to reduce to

1990 levels by 2000.

Big business was unhappy with the plans however. The

National Association of Manufacturers (a sponsor of the

Global Climate Coalition), the American Petroleum

Institute, over 1,600 companies, large and small, and

farmers organised themselves to create the American

Energy Alliance (AEA), specifically to derail the BTU

tax[37].

The AEA hired B-M to orchestrate the campaign. Deploying

around 45 staff in 23 states, B-M organised a ‘grass

roots’ letter writing and phone-in campaign. They placed

anti-BTU articles and editorials in the press,

commissioned sceptical economists to write reports and

obtained media access for businessmen to express their

views. Naturally they also lobbied against the Tax in

Washington D.C.[38]

Congressional support for the BTU tax quickly withered

away and Clinton’s plan was defeated. Congress voted for

the tax to be kept below the five cents level. Treasury

Secretary Lloyd-Bentsen described the campaign as “one

of the most sophisticated jobs I've seen by lobbyists in

a long time.”

---

possible dupl:

oddly text invisible in webbrain?

---

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/elliott-negin/the-koch-brothers-are-sti_b_4396033.html

...

So who signed the AFP letter? About half of the signatories are local tea party affiliates and anti-wind NIMBY groups of indeterminate size and funding. The other half are, for the most part, relatively obscure national groups, but there are a few that have attractedattention over the years for their contrarian views on climate science and renewable energy. Like AFP, those groups are awash in petrodollars. The American Energy Alliance (and its parent, the Institute for Energy Research), Competitive Enterprise Institute, Freedom Works, Frontiers of Freedom and Heritage Action (and its parent, the Heritage Foundation) collectively have received millions of dollars from Koch family foundations, ExxonMobil and the American Petroleum Institute, the oil and gas industry's premier trade association.

The Institute for Energy Research's Questionable Research

On December 3, the Institute for Energy Research and its political arm, the American Energy Alliance, sponsored what they dubbed the "wind welfare" summit in Washington, D.C., featuring IER founder and CEO Robert Bradley Jr., a Koch network veteran. AEA announced it would spend $40,000 on print and digital ads calling for an end to the PTC and is flying in anti-PTC advocates for meetings on Capitol Hill.

Bradley presumably highlighted the findings of a report IER released the day before claiming that a small number of states with wind resources -- Iowa, North Dakota, Oklahoma and Texas -- are reaping the benefits of the PTC while 30 states and the District of Columbia are "losing millions" to fund it.

The report's findings, however, don't hold up to scrutiny. Mike Jacobs, a senior energy analyst at the Union of Concerned Scientists, pointed out in a recent blog that IER ignored the fact that a number of the states it identified as "net payers" are home to wind industry manufacturing facilities. There are 62 companies in Ohio making turbine components, for example, 40 in Michigan and 21 in California. Jacobs also discovered that IER downplayed the fact that "the PTC benefits consumers where wind-generated electricity adds to the supply and lowers the price of electricity, landowners who receive lease payments from the wind turbines, and local communities that collect tax payments on installed wind farms."

Jeff Spross, blogging on the Center for American Progress' ThinkProgress website, alsochided IER, pointing out that most industries are not equally distributed across the country. "The oil and gas industries, for instance, benefit from a wealth of federal tax carve-outs," he wrote, "but the economic activity they generate is concentrated in just a few key states."

In other words, it's disingenuous to single out the wind industry....

==

a front for front? IER?

---

The Center for Public Integrity used 990s obtained by CRP as it looked into the American Energy Alliance's claim that the $1.3 million it spent on ads in the 2012 elections were not actually political. In another rundown of new filings, CPI also cited tax documents and data from CRP.  :

Swing state voters in Virginia and Ohio last fall were bombarded with television advertisements encouraging them to "stand with coal" and "vote no on Obama's failing energy policy."

But the sponsor of these ads — a pro-business nonprofit advocacy group called the American Energy Alliance — says the messages weren’t designed to aid Republican Mitt Romney in his bid to unseat President Barack Obama.

In a new tax return filed Friday and first obtained by the Center for Responsive Politics, the American Energy Alliance, led by former Koch Industries lobbyist Thomas Pyle, told the Internal Revenue Service that it did not "engage in direct or indirect political campaign activities on behalf of or in opposition to candidates for public office" last year.

The group made an even more explicit pledge to be nonpartisan when it applied for tax-exempt status in 2008, telling the IRS that it had "no interest in supporting the agenda or any particular political party or political candidate."

While it acknowledged “the possibility that some of AEA's publications and communications may be considered ‘political,’” the group asserted that it was a “nonpartisan policy-oriented organization,” not a “‘political’ organization.”

The new tax documents also show that American Energy Alliance spent more than $5 million on "media and advertising," with vendor Mentzer Media, a media buying firm that works primarily with Republicans, receiving $3.9 million of that amount.

The “stand with coal” ads cost at least $1.36 million, according to disclosures the American Energy Alliance filed with the Federal Election Commission.

Because these broadcast ads came within 60 days of the November election and mentioned the president, the American Energy Alliance was required to report the spots to the FEC as “electioneering communications” — a special type of issue-based advertising that comes with enhanced disclosure requirements.

The group also engaged in a host of other pre-election activities that often included battleground presidential states and attacked Obama.

Marcus Owens, an attorney who previously headed the IRS’ tax-exempt division, said the American Energy Alliance’s new filing “certainly raises a red flag.”

“It’s a politically active organization,” he said, adding that the pre-election advertisements were veiled in what “sounds like a lobbying message on its face.”

Benjamin Cole, a spokesman for the American Energy Alliance, rejected accusations that his group behaved improperly.

Cole told the Center for Public Integrity that the ads were “designed to inform the American public about President Obama's energy policies… not his re-election efforts.”

“We could just as easily run those same ads today,” Cole continued, adding that all of the group’s ads are vetted by lawyers to “ensure that nothing we do runs afoul of federal election or tax laws.”

One element of the new IRS documents that’s for sure: The American Energy Alliance’s footprint has grown substantially. In all, the American Energy Alliance spent $7 million last year.

That's a nearly seven times what it spent in 2010 — and more than 300 percent above the roughly $1.7 million it spent during its inaugural year in 2008, according to a Center for Public Integrity review of IRS records.

It’s unclear who precisely has funded this surge, although the American Energy Alliance’s new annual report does show that just three donors — who each gave at least $1 million — accounted for three-fourths of the American Energy Alliance’s total $7.3 million haul last year.

=-=

Fri, 2010-05-28 20:04

Brad Johnson over at The WONK ROOM reports:

The American Energy Alliance (AEA), a new polluter front group, is touring the nation to smear President Barack Obama’s clean energy reform agenda. Employees riding the “American Energy Express” bus are spreading the conservative lies that the American Clean Energy and Security Act will “cripple our sluggish economy.” AEA is the 501 c(4) offshoot of the Institute for Energy Research, a right-wing oil-industry think tank run by Robert Bradley, a former speechwriter for Kenneth Lay. E&E News reports that AEA’s “Energy Town Hall” bus tourpictures workers in hard hats:

The American Energy Alliance, which is affiliated with the conservative Institute for Energy Research, has begun a four-week bus tour to county fairs, sporting events and public meetings in several coal-reliant states. Representatives of the group will travel in a large blue bus carrying the slogan “Stop the National Energy Tax, Save American Jobs” and a picture of workers in hard hats. They will cross Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, West Virginia and Virginia. Yesterday, AEA officials participated in a rally with another group, Americans for Prosperity, in Zanesville, Ohio; a day earlier, they visited a county fair in western Pennsylvania.In fact, by attacking legislation that addresses climate change and our national dependence on fossil fuels, AEA is preventing a clean-energy economic boom. Laughably, AEA claims it has “no ties to any political party“:

American Energy Alliance staffers Kevin Kennedy, Patrick Creighton, and Laura Henderson on tour in Pennsylvania. All are former House GOP staff.

AEA may be telling the truth that it has “no interest in supporting the agenda of any particular political party” — its only interest seems to be blocking progressive reform by spreading lies and distortions. However, AEA is tightly connected to the Republican Party and right-wing oil interests. In fact, all of its employees are former House Republican staffers:

Thomas J. Pyle, AEA President, Is A Oil Lobbyist And DeLay Operative. Before joining the Institute for Energy Research and the American Energy Alliance, Pyle worked as a lobbyist for the right-wing oil giant Koch Industries, first in-house starting in 2001, and then at the Rhoads Group. In 2008 Pyle became a lobbyist for the National Petrochemical and Refiners Association. Previously, Pyle served as policy analyst for Rep. Tom DeLay (R-TX), Majority Whip of the U.S. House of Representatives and as staff director for the GOP Congressional Western Caucus. Pyle started as a legislative assistant for radical anti-environmentalists Rep. Richard Pombo (R-CA) and Rep. George Radanovich (R-CA). [Institute for Energy Research, Center for Public Integrity]

Patrick Creighton, AEA Communications Director, Worked For Bush And Pennsylvania Republicans. Patrick Creighton was the special assistant to Samuel T. Mok, the chief financial officer at the Department of Labor from 2004 to 2006. He then worked as a spokesman for oil and natural gas advocate Rep. John Peterson (R-PA) from 2006 to 2009, worked to elect Rep. Glenn Thompson (R-PA), then joined Thompson’s office until May 2009. [Institute for Energy Research, Legistorm]

Kevin Kennedy, AEA Federal Affairs Director, Promoted Alaska Drilling Under Don Young. After graduating from Union College in 2004, Kevin Kennedy worked for the Astroturf organization Arctic Power, which advocated drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. In 2007, Kennedy became a legislative assistant for the corrupt Rep. Don Young (R-AK) and the House Committee on Natural Resources. He joined the Institute for Energy Research and American Energy Alliance in 2009. [Institute for Energy Research]

Laura Henderson, AEA Spokesperson, Served Shelby, Dole, And Tiberi. Laura Henderson was a former press secretary for offshore drilling advocate Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL) from 2005-2009. Previously, she worked for former Sen. Elizabeth Dole (R-NC) and Rep. Pat Tiberi (R-OH). [Institute for Energy Research]

Daniel R. Simmons, AEA State Affairs Director, Is A Koch-Funded GOP Staffer. Simmons was the Director of the Natural Resources Task Force at the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), a right-wing network funded by Koch Industries, the American Petroleum Institute, and other corporate and right-wing organizations. Previously, Simmons was a Research Fellow at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, also funded by Koch. From 2001 to 2005, Simmons served on the staff of Rep. George Nethercutt (R-WA) on the House Natural Resources Committee. Simmons holds a B.A. in Economics from Utah State University and a J.D. from George Mason University School of Law, also supported by Koch Industries. [Institute for Energy Research, Legistorm]

Furthermore, AEA’s EnergyTownHall.org website is run by yet another former GOP House staffer:

GOP.gov Webmaster Nathan Imperiale Runs EnergyTownHall.Org.AEA’s EnergyTownHall.org was designed by NJI Media Group, part of Endeavour Global Strategies. Endeavour’s head, Sean Spicer, is a long-time GOP operative, including communications work for the House Republican Conference and the Bush White House. NJI Media Group’s president, Nathan Imperiale, served as Director of New Media for the House Republican Conference, building its GOP.gov website. [Twitter,2/13/09; Endeavour Global Strategies]

AEA’s “American Energy Express” joins a field crowded by conservative oil and coal propaganda — the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity’s “Factuality” bus tour, the American Petroleum Institute’s “Energy Citizens” oil rallies, and the Americans For Prosperity “Hot Air” balloon tour.

Update At Free Advice, Institute for Energy Research economist Bob Murphy writes that Paul Krugman doesn't understand tea party protesters because he doesn't care about checks on government power like they do, and continues:

So, by symmetry, I think people on "our side" should realize that the great masses of Americans who are for health care reform and climate legislation (and it pains me to not put scare quotes around those phrases) aren't actually closet socialists who want to bring America to its knees.

By Brad Johnson at The WONK ROOM.

==

Conservative group launches broad anti-carbon tax campaign

By Zack Colman - 07/16/13 05:00 AM ET

A conservative energy group is rolling out a multi-pronged push ahead of the August congressional recess that aims to put the carbon tax in its deathbed.

“We’re hoping to put the final nail in the coffin on the carbon tax. The proposal should be dead on arrival by the time lawmakers come back from August recess,” Benjamin Cole, a spokesman with the Institute for Energy Research and its advocacy arm, the American Energy Alliance, told The Hill in an interview detailing the plan.

The effort includes a new poll of American opinion on a carbon tax and an advertising campaign centered on five House members, among other elements.

As early as Thursday, AEA will launch a two-week radio advertising campaign that targets five House lawmakers — four Democrats and one Republican.

The ad blitz, which will cost between $120,000 and $150,000, targets Democratic Reps. Bill Owens (N.Y.), Kyrsten Sinema (Ariz.), Patrick Murphy (Fla.) and William Enyart (Ill.), along with GOP Rep. Chris Smith (N.J.).

AEA chose to focus on members who have been “soft on the carbon tax issue” and reside in “marginal districts,” Cole said.

“We obviously are ones to apply pressure in any way we can,” he said.

The timing of the IER and AEA operation is designed to get energy issues on the agenda when lawmakers meet with voters in their congressional districts, Cole said.

Cole compared the upcoming recess to the summer of 2010, when the House had recently passed ObamaCare, the national healthcare law.

He said the climate change plan Obama unveiled last month — which relies on a suite of executive actions that industry, Republicans and coal-state Democrats say will slow the economy — will draw fire from voters across the country.

“We know that there’s going to be town halls that congressmen go back to their districts to hear from their constituents. We want to make sure that energy is on the plate,” he said.

The effort will attempt to blunt any possible momentum for a carbon tax, Cole said.

Of that, there appears to be little.

Taxing carbon emissions has support from some environmentalists, as well as a collection of conservative economists and advocates who say it should be coupled with lower personal tax rates. But the idea has little political traction.

Carbon tax proposals are a non-starter in the GOP-controlled House. And Republicans combined a bloc of centrist Democrats threaten to thwart a carbon tax in the Senate. On top of all that, the White House has said it won’t pursue a carbon tax.

The concept has fueled intense opposition from the right.

The IER and AEA campaign has the support of several conservative outfits, including Americans for Tax Reform, FreedomWorks and the Competitive Enterprise Institute.

The first piece of the rollout is an IER-commissioned poll of 800 registered voters conducted last week by The Tarrance Group that says Americans reject the idea of a carbon tax.

Fifty-nine percent of respondents said they oppose a carbon tax “paid by businesses of all sizes,” compared with 35 percent of those who favored the concept.

The poll doesn't take into account different schemes for a carbon tax — for example, there’s variability in policy circles when deciding whether to apply a fee at the point of carbon emissions or fossil fuel extraction.

Still, the responses differed greatly among parties. A majority of Democrats — 54 percent — favored a carbon tax, while 80 percent of Republicans rejected it.

The results of that poll will be discussed at a carbon tax event IER is hosting Wednesday. Then comes the radio ad launch.

IER will also give lawmakers a point-by-point critique of the climate change plan Obama unveiled last month before they head home.

“It’s teeing up August recess interaction with constituents,” Cole said.

Cole said that IER and AEA plan to keep the heat on lawmakers until the heads of the congressional tax-writing panels, Rep. Dave Camp (R-Mich.) and Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.), formally declare a carbon tax is off the table.

The two committee heads have demonstrated a desire to overhaul the federal tax code — and for both, time is of the essence. Baucus isn’t running for reelection in 2014, and Camp’s term as chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee is up after next year.

“There’s nothing that motivates a politician more than building his own legacy,” Cole said.

Read more: http://thehill.com/blogs/e2-wire/e2-wire/311159-conservative-group-launches-broad-anti-carbon-tax-campaign#ixzz2bz7bE8Qk

Follow us: @thehill on Twitter | TheHill on Facebook

---

backed down grover http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2012/11/13/1182511/grover-norquist-abruptly-reverses-position-on-carbon-tax-after-facing-criticism-from-koch-backed-group/

---

Grover Norquist Abruptly Changes Position On Carbon Tax After Facing Criticism From Koch-Backed Group

By Stephen Lacey on Nov 13, 2012 at 1:27 pm

Anti-tax crusader Grover Norquist raised a lot of eyebrows on Monday when he told National Journal that a carbon tax might be on the table if it were swapped with a cut to the income tax.

“It’s possible you could structure something that wasn’t an increase and didn’t violate the pledge,” he reportedly said.

As president of Americans for Tax Reform, Norquist has convinced hundreds of members of Congress to sign a pledge that they will never raise taxes. While his influence appears to be waningin Washington, Norquist’s tax pledge is still considered gospel for many Republicans. That’s why his willingness to consider a tax on global warming pollution is a big deal in political circles.

But one day later, after being criticized by the American Energy Alliance, the advocacy arm of a Koch-supported energy think tank devoted to promoting fossil fuel development, Norquist has completely reversed his statement, saying there virtually “no conceivable way” he could support a tax on carbon....http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2012/11/13/1182511/grover-norquist-abruptly-reverses-position-on-carbon-tax-after-facing-criticism-from-koch-backed-group/

---

==

Koch Industries Climate Denial Front Group

Institute for Energy Research (IER)

On this page

Read more about the Institute for Energy Research

Find more recipients of Koch foundation money

$175,000 received from Koch foundations 2005-2011 [Total Koch foundation grants 1997-2011: $235,000]

IER supported and promoted the "Spanish" and "Danish" studies critical of clean energy jobs, both of which have been debunked by credible sources. IER also argues that efforts to curb global warming would accomplish little at too great a cost, promotes ACCF/NAM and Heritage Foundation studies that exaggerate the costs of climate policy, and discourages U.S. leadership on the international stage.

Robert Bradley, a former Enron executive, is the CEO of IER and one of its founders. Thomas Pyle, a former Koch and oil-industry lobbyist, is the President of IER and the American Energy Alliance, the 501c4 counterpart to IER. Politico reports that IER and AEA still receive Koch money in support of a $3.6 million anti-Obama gas price advertising campaign, although Koch foundations appear to have stopped supporting IER after 2007. The most recent available Koch foundation tax filings to IRS are for the year 2010, indicating the Kochs picked IER back up in 2011 or are funneling money through other avenues.

AEA was founded by the National Association of Manufacturers and the American Petroleum Institute to fight the BTU tax proposal in 1993, and in recent years funded by ExxonMobil and Koch Industries. AEA has been active in the climate debate, from running ads repeating false claims about the costs of climate legislation to trashing clean energy at town halls around the US.

http://www.greenpeace.org/usa/en/campaigns/global-warming-and-energy/polluterwatch/koch-industries/institute-for-energy-research/

==

The romance between ALEC and fracking continued at this year's ALEC meeting in Utah -- an appropriate location for the frack-friendly ALEC crew. In May, the U.S. Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar approved a major shale gas project by Texas-based Anadarko Petroleum Corp. in Utah's Uinta Basin -- expected to develop more than 3,600 new wells over the next decade.

In another industry-friendly move, Utah's Governor Gary Herbert, who spoke the ALEC conference's opening luncheon, signed a bill into law in March demanding that Congress hand over 30 million acres of federal land to the state by 2015 or the state will sue. According to the Associated Press, Lawmakers in Utah and Arizona have said the legislation is endorsed by ALEC. As documented by the Center for Media and Democracy's ALEC Exposed Project, ALEC drafted the "Sagebrush Rebellion Act," which was "designed to establish a mechanism for the transfer of ownership of unappropriated lands from the federal government to the states." According to the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, the governor's initiative would open up millions of acres of the "Wilderness Study Areas and proposed wilderness areas to oil and gas development" but in the process would cost Utah taxpayers enormously.

At the meeting, the CEO of the Institute for Energy Research (IER) Dr. Robert Bradley was one of the featured speakers. Bradley, formerly a director of policy analysis at Enron, also spoke at the 2011 ALEC conference in New Orleans. He is also an "adjunct scholar" at the right-wing think tank the Cato Institute and specializes in "global warming alarmism." IER is a non-profit group focused on global energy markets that pushes for deregulation, advances climate change denial, and attempts to discredit renewable energy sources. The group's 2010 IRS 990 form said that its focus was narrowed in on "impediments to domestic energy production, including government restrictions on access, burdensome regulations, and the favoritism of energy sources that are unsustainable in the marketplace."

The PR Bus of AEA and Koch's AFPIER received some $307,000 from Exxon Mobil between 2003 and 2007, according to the publicly traded company's "Corporate Giving Reports." IER also received a total of $235,000 from Koch Family foundations between 1997-2010, according to a Greenpeace report. Koch Industries, an ALEC member, also profits from the expansion of fracking. Unlike Exxon, because Koch is not a publicly-traded company, any corporate donations to groups like IER, AEA, or AFP are not publicly disclosed.

IER is a "partner" organization of the American Energy Alliance, a 501(c)4 organization which calls itself the "grassroots arm" of IER. Thomas Pyle is president of both organizations, and is a former lobbyist for Koch Industries and former energy policy aide for former House Majority Leader Thomas D. DeLay, who resigned from the leadership following his indictment on conspiracy charges. Wayne Gable, also a former lobbyist for Koch Industries and former president for two of the Koch Family foundations, is on the board of both IER and AEA.

In 2011 IER and AEA launched "Energy for America" as a joint initiative with a laser point in on fracking, with an aim to "educate" the public on the practice. In October 2011, AEA and IER, in partnership with Koch Industries' astroturf group Americans for Prosperity, started a "Energy for America" bus tour to encourage the expansion of domestic exploration of oil, gas and coal, targeting U.S. Senate battleground states for the upcoming 2012 elections.

Additionally, Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck is one of the three chairs of the ALEC Energy, Environment, and Agriculture Task Force. One of its clients is Freeport LNG, which owns and operates one of the first liquefied natural gas import terminals built in the United States. According to the law firm's website, "For the last nine years, Brownstein has been the lead counsel in the structuring, strategy and development of the $1.2 billion receiving and regasification facility with commercial output capacity of more than 2.0 billion cubic feet of natural gas per day."

---

March 30, 2012

Funders Behind New Anti-Obama Ad Blitz Stay Hidden

Posted by Jane Mayer

A new and highly aggressive multi-million-dollar anti-Obama ad campaign has started airing on television stations in eight key political swing states—but for now at least, the funders are staying hidden in the shadows.

The ads in question have a distinctly oily aura, which is unsurprising, perhaps since the group sponsoring them has been funded in the past by major fossil-fuel companies. The group defines itself as a non-partisan nonprofit, but exemplifies the growing role that secret money is playing in the 2012 Presidential campaign. Technically, the ads have been produced and aired by the Washington-based American Energy Alliance, a 501c-4 social-welfare organization under the Internal Revenue Service’s tax code, whose activities, under the law, have to be largely non-political. This group shares office space and personnel with a sister organization, the Institute for Energy Research, a 501c-3, whose tax status is typically reserved for charities. Its activities have to be strictly non-partisan and non-political. Both groups hide the identities of their funders. All that Benjamin Cole, director of communications for both groups would say is that the ads are funded by “individuals, foundations, and corporations.”

Cole says that the $3.6 million ad campaign “is not election related at all. We’re not seeking to influence the elections.” It is, he says, only a coincidence that most of the eight states that the ads will air in—Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Michigan, New Mexico, Nevada, Ohio, Virginia—are considered hotly contested swing states that could decide the outcome of the election. He says these states were chosen only because they are all places where energy is an issue. He explained, for instance, that offshore oil drilling is an issue in Virginia, and the high price of gasoline is an issue in Florida—a definition that would, it seems, allow for the group to chose any state.

He acknowledges, however, that the ads will directly blame Obama for recent increases in gas prices, despite the fact that even such conservative and libertarian voices such as Cato Institute scholars and Rupert Murdoch’s Wall Street Journal have protested that this is specious.

So who is behind the advertising campaign to push the line that Obama is to blame? Bill Burton, senior strategist at the pro-Obama Super PAC Priorities USA believes that it comes from a familiar source. “The Koch brothers and other oil barons are using profits from high gas prices to fund false political attacks benefitting Governor Romney,” he says.

Cole retorts that there is “not a single penny of Koch money” paying for the two-week ad campaign. But he declined to confirm or deny reports, including one by Politico, that the Koch brothers, whose privately owned conglomerate, Koch Industries, is a major domestic-oil refiner, have steered funds to both the American Energy Alliance and the Institute for Energy Research. A spokesperson at Koch Industries did not respond to questions on the Kochs’ ties to the groups.

The ties, though, appear to be extensive. In the past, according to National Public Radio, the Energy Research Institute has received funds from the Claude R. Lambe Charitable Foundation, which is controlled by the Kochs, as well as from Exxon Mobil and other energy companies.

The president of the American Energy Alliance, Thomas Pyle, formerly worked for Koch Industries, according to the watchdog group OpenSecrets.org. The records show that he also worked as an outside lobbyist for the Kochs’ private interests in Washington, first at Perceptum Consulting, and later at the Rhoads Group. According to Politico’s Ken Vogel, Pyle has “regularly attended” semi-annual political meetings run by the Kochs, including one this past winter in Indian Well, California, where the Kochs raised over a hundred and fifty million dollars to be directed to groups working against the Democrats in the 2012 general election. At a previous such political summit, Charles Koch described the 2012 election as “the mother of all wars.”

Pyle has a colorful political résumé as well. He worked as a top aide to Tom DeLay, the former Republican Majority Leader of the House of Representatives who was later convicted of money laundering, and he was identified by the Washington Post as a participant in the so-called “Brooks Brothers Riot,” in which Republican operatives from Washington stormed vote-counters in Florida during the hotly contested 2000 Bush v. Gore Presidential election. (“Tom Pyle is not running from his record at all,” Cole said, when asked about these ties. “It’s regrettable that the President is running from his.”)

The Kochs have blazed the trail for this sort of secretly funded, independent campaign. The ads attacking Obama for high gas prices follow an even larger ad buy last January made by Americans for Prosperity, an advocacy group founded and partly funded by David Koch, that, according to the Journal aired six million dollars’ worth of ads criticizing the President’s handling of Solyndra, the solar-energy firm that went bankrupt after receiving grants from the government. Those ads, interestingly, ran in many of the same key Presidential-battleground states earmarked for the new anti-Obama gas ads—specifically Ohio, Iowa, North Carolina, Virginia, Michigan, and Wisconsin.

So, whose money is behind the American Energy Alliance? The most striking feature of the 2012 Presidential campaign is that, at least for now, neither viewers of the ads, nor voters, nor virtually anyone else can tell.

Read more http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/newsdesk/2012/03/funders-behind-new-antiobama-ad-blitz.html#ixzz1rSpUvkYv

---

The American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity, whose members include Peabody Energy Corp. (BTU) in St. Louis and Southern Co. (SO) in Atlanta, is trying to reach voters with its campaign to promote coal and warn about the economic impact of the EPA’s rules.

Earnhardt Sponsorship

Last month it announced it would sponsor Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s JR Motorsports team. An 18-wheel, mobile classroom will also be featured at NASCAR events to showcase the benefits of the fossil fuel, said Miller, the group’s spokeswoman, in an interview.

Meanwhile, the American Energy Alliance, which spent $3.6 million on a campaign targeting Obama on gasoline prices, produced a 4 1/2 minute long YouTube video describing the economic risks to Craig, Colorado, presented by state and federal policies that would limit coal use.

Coal’s complaints play into the Republican narrative that Obama administration regulations are hurting the economy.  bloomberg

---

BTU Tax

In 1993 Burson-Marsteller led a $1.8 million campaign to

defeat a proposed tax on fossil fuels. President

Clinton’s BTU Tax was the most ambitious measure to

combat climate change yet proposed by an American

government. The BTU Tax was to be levied on fossil

fuels, specifically on the heat generating capacity of

fossil fuels – a BTU (British Thermal unit) is a measure

of how much heat will be released by a given mass of

fuel. The tax would have added 25 cents to the price of

a gallon of petrol.

The tax was at the centre of Clinton’s plans to reduce

greenhouse gas emissions, which he aimed to reduce to

1990 levels by 2000.

Big business was unhappy with the plans however. The

National Association of Manufacturers (a sponsor of the

Global Climate Coalition), the American Petroleum

Institute, over 1,600 companies, large and small, and

farmers organised themselves to create the American

Energy Alliance (AEA), specifically to derail the BTU

tax[37].

The AEA hired B-M to orchestrate the campaign. Deploying

around 45 staff in 23 states, B-M organised a ‘grass

roots’ letter writing and phone-in campaign. They placed

anti-BTU articles and editorials in the press,

commissioned sceptical economists to write reports and

obtained media access for businessmen to express their

views. Naturally they also lobbied against the Tax in

Washington D.C.[38]

Congressional support for the BTU tax quickly withered

away and Clinton’s plan was defeated. Congress voted for

the tax to be kept below the five cents level. Treasury

Secretary Lloyd-Bentsen described the campaign as “one

of the most sophisticated jobs I've seen by lobbyists in

a long time.”

---

possible dupl:

webodec3

Explore

Account

Logout

Support

Download

WebofDCeit

GLOBAL WARMING

SKEPTIC/DENIER

FUNDER$

FRONTS

POLITICIANS

INDUSTRIE$

LOBBYIST$

MEDIA

FLACKS

HACKS

DIRTY TRICKS

REVOLVING DOOR

Europe

Institute for Energy Research IER

api, Denier, enron, Exxon, Front, Koch

Institute for Energy Research IER

alec, api, revolving door, Uber, xl

American Petroleum Institute API

Berman, CoC, crypto, evil, GMOnsanto

Berman, R

Koch

American Energy Alliance

api, astroturf, GMOnsanto, PR, tobacco, Uber

BURSEN-MARSTELLER BM

api, cheney, DCI, Exxon, SLAPP, Uber

EXXON MOBIL

bank, coal, Uber

BANK OF AMERICA BofA

B2, cheney, Denier, gop, lobbyist, revolving door, tobacco

Barbour, BGR

coal, CoC

COAL

American Energy Alliance

Pyle, T

1994 Newt Revo, alec, Christian, enron, gop, tobacco

DeLay

aei, hub, Koch, revolving door, TP, Uber, xl

KOCH

Denier, enron, heartland, Koch, PR

Bradley, Robt

B2, enron

Brooks Bros Riot

1994 Newt Revo, aei, B2, lobbyist

ABRAMOFF

PR

FLACKS

Mod, Uber

LOBBYIST$

Christian, coal, CoC, Denier, gop

Blunt, R

coal, Defunct, gop, Koch, revolving door

Pombo R Rep

B2, Koch, lobbyist, revolving door, Staffer, xl

INTERNATIONAL

Defunct, gop

Radanovich rep

Rhoads Group

USC

texas

WIND

Solyndra

aei, api, coal, CoC, hub, Koch

Aspen/KOCH

coal, democrat

Obama

Pyle, T

api, CoC, Koch, xl

Keystone XL Pipeline

Search

Pyle, T

Edit

BROOKS BROS No. 1. Tom Pyle, who had worked for Rep. Tom DeLay (R-Tex.), went private sector a few months later, getting a job as director of federal affairs for Koch Industries.

---

Thomas J. Pyle, AEA President, Is A Oil Lobbyist And DeLay Operative. Before joining the Institute for Energy Research and the American Energy Alliance, Pyle worked as a lobbyist for the right-wing oil giant Koch Industries, first in-house starting in 2001, and then at the Rhoads Group. In 2008 Pyle became a lobbyist for the National Petrochemical and Refiners Association. Previously, Pyle served as policy analyst for Rep. Tom DeLay (R-TX), Majority Whip of the U.S. House of Representatives and as staff director for the GOP Congressional Western Caucus. Pyle started as a legislative assistant for radical anti-environmentalists Rep. Richard Pombo (R-CA) and Rep. George Radanovich (R-CA). [Institute for Energy Research, Center for Public Integrity]

---

sw stub

Thomas J. Pyle, a former energy policy aide for former House Majority Leader Thomas D. DeLay, is director of federal affairs for Koch Industries. [1][2]

Affiliations

"Team DeLay"

External links

Al Kamen, "Miami 'Riot' Squad: Where Are They Now?" Washington Post, January 24, 2005. Shows Pyle in photo.

"Political Contributions by DeLay Alumni During the 2003-2004 Election Cycle," Tech Politics (CQ Weekly, Federal Election Commissiondownloaded March 2005.)

Categories:

Politics

Scandals

Corruption

---

Pyle has a colorful political résumé as well. He worked as a top aide to Tom DeLay, the former Republican Majority Leader of the House of Representatives who was later convicted of money laundering, and he was identified by the Washington Post as a participant in the so-called “Brooks Brothers Riot,” in which Republican operatives from Washington stormed vote-counters in Florida during the hotly contested 2000 Bush v. Gore Presidential election. (“Tom Pyle is not running from his record at all,” Cole said, when asked about these ties. “It’s regrettable that the President is running from his.”)  jm nyer

---

Note lack of details here:

Thomas J. Pyle is the president of the Institute for Energy Research (IER). In this capacity, Pyle brings a unique backdrop of public and private sector experience to help manage IER’s Washington, DC-based staff and operations. He also helps to develop the organization’s free market policy positions and implement education efforts with respect to key energy stakeholders, including policymakers, federal agency representatives, industry leaders, consumer entities and the media.

Previously, Pyle was the founder of his own consulting firm, Pyle Consulting, Inc., an active public affairs consulting firm with a wide range of private and not-for-profit customers. Prior to starting his own firm, Pyle served as vice president of the Rhoads Group in Washington, DC where he represented and advised a variety of association and corporate clients in meeting their strategic public policy goals and priorities. Additionally, he also served as director of federal affairs for a major integrated manufacturing and services company focusing on energy, environment, regulatory and transportation issues.

Before coming to the private sector, Pyle held numerous positions on Capitol Hill including serving a policy analyst for the Majority Whip of the U.S. House of Representatives and as staff director for the Congressional Western Caucus, as well as other legislative staff positions.

Pyle holds a B.A. in Political Science from the University of Southern California.

--

---