harbin, c
swamp thing trifecta: koch, trump, alec<div>
</div><div>=</div><div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"></font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/2018/03/29/christine-harbin-anti-wind-koch-department-energy">
</a></font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/2018/03/29/christine-harbin-anti-wind-koch-department-energy">https://www.desmogblog.com/2018/03/29/christine-harbin-anti-wind-koch-department-energy</a></font></div><div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden" style="min-height: 280px;"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b>Until February, <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/christineharbin/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Christine Harbin</a> spent much of this decade fighting against state and federal clean energy initiatives for organizations with close ties to the <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/koch-family-foundations" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">petrochemical billionaire Koch brothers</a>. Now, however, <a href="https://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2018/02/02/stories/1060072775" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">she has joined the Trump administration</a> </b>as a senior adviser for external affairs in the <span class="caps">U.S.</span> Department of Energy's (<span class="caps">DOE</span>) Office of Electricity Delivery and Energy Reliability, which deals primarily with the electricity grid.</font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Before joining <a href="https://corporatepresidency.org/koch/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">a number of other Koch network alum in the Trump administration</a>, Harbin served as vice president of external affairs at <a href="http://www.kochvsclean.com/americans-for-prosperity/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Americans for Prosperity</a>, </span>a Koch-funded group with nearly three dozen active state chapters pushing for conservative legislation at the state and national levels. She had worked for Americans for Prosperity since 2012.</font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Before that, she was employed for a year with the <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/american-legislative-exchange-council" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">American Legislative Exchange Council (<span class="caps">ALEC</span>)</a>,</span> a Koch-funded and founded group that writes so-called “model legislation” for state governments and cultivates relationships with mainly <span class="caps">GOP</span>state legislators through its meetings and summits in the interest of advancing “limited government, free markets, and federalism at the state level.”</font></p><h3 style="line-height: 1.28205em; margin-top: 1.28205em; margin-bottom: 1.28205em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Chrissy Harbin's History of Clean Energy Attacks at Americans for Prosperity</font></h3><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">While working at Americans for Prosperity, Harbin often criticized the Obama administration's clean energy policies, <a href="https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=6&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwjgzZ3L0OnZAhVrxoMKHdOJAPMQFghGMAU&url=https%3A%2F%2Famericansforprosperity.org%2Fafp-praises-clean-power-plan-repeal%2F&usg=AOvVaw1QXk7KjMSTwx_RijQ-jTch" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">including, repeatedly, the president's signature <b>Clean Power Plan</b></a><b>,</b> which proposed reducing carbon dioxide emissions from the electricity sector, including coal-fired power plants.</font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">She also used her position in Americans for Prosperity's national office to coordinate local “grassroots” groups in campaigns and messaging against wind power. The first of these efforts came to light in 2012, as <a href="http://www.energyandpolicy.org/george-david-banks-trump-wind-power/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">David Anderson explained on the Energy and Policy Institute blog</a>:</font></p><blockquote style="margin: 1.5em 30px;"><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">“[I]t was Christine Harbin of the Koch-backed Americans for Prosperity that organized <a href="https://noauglaizewind.files.wordpress.com/2012/11/wind-ptc.pdf" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">a 2012 letter</a> signed by a number of local anti-wind groups and national organizations backed by the Koch brothers, according to <a href="https://noauglaizewind.files.wordpress.com/2015/01/archive.docx" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">a document</a> found on the website of one of the signers, Auglaize Neighbors United. Among the signers were <span class="caps">AWED</span>, Freedomworks, and the American Energy Alliance.”</font></p></blockquote><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Evidence of Harbin's coordination can be seen in the draft letter that was circulated to the local groups:</font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><img class="alignnone size-large" height="523" src="https://slack-imgs.com/?c=1&url=https%3A%2F%2Fpbs.twimg.com%2Fmedia%2FDVijdaLW4AMSgka.jpg" width="664" style="border: 0px; max-width: 100%; width: auto; height: auto !important;" /></font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">And also in the final product, which was signed by dozens of national and local groups and <a href="http://americanenergyalliance.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/WindPTC_letter.pdf" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">published online</a>:</font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">[img]</font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In June 2014, a <a href="http://www.energyandpolicy.org/americans-for-prosperity-anti-wind-letter-analysis/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">similar letter was published as a full page ad in Politico</a>. Further investigation by<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> The Energy and Policy Institute found that some of the “organizations” that signed the letter were little more than names on paper, with no online presence or formal organizational structure.</span></font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">In December 2015 and January 2016, Harbin penned a pair of op-eds for<em> </em>The Hill in which she bashed the production tax credit (<span class="caps">PTC</span>) for wind power, which Congress was in the process of extending through 2020 in a massive omnibus spending bill. Though she called the <span class="caps">PTC</span> “corporate welfare” and “forced investment” for American taxpayers, she neglected to mention the much larger and permanent tax breaks and subsidies that are enjoyed by the fossil fuel industries, such as the <a href="http://i.bnet.com/blogs/dbl_energy_subsidies_paper.pdf" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">$4.86 billion</a> (on average, in today's dollars) that the oil and gas industry has received every year since 1918.</font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">In February 2018, Harbin left Americans for Prosperity to join the Department of Energy, where she will work alongside a <a href="http://www.kochvsclean.com/daniel-simmons-new-head-eere-worked-groups-tried-eliminate/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">number</a> of <a href="http://www.kochvsclean.com/trump-picks-renewable-energy-hater-run-renewable-energy-office/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">fellow Koch network alums</a>.</font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But if a genuine concern of Harbin's is seeking “energy solutions that can make it on their own in the marketplace — not ones that need to be propped up by government indefinitely,” she may get a shock at the <span class="caps">DOE</span> under Secretary <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/rick-perry" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Rick Perry</a>.</font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Last fall Secretary Perry <a href="https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2017/10/4/16407278/rick-perry-doe-plan-coal-nuclear-energy-markets" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">proposed a controversial rule</a>, which sought to prop up ailing coal and nuclear plants by guaranteeing to pay them for all of their power, whether or not it was needed, in the name of grid “resiliency.” Perry's plan <a href="https://www.utilitydive.com/news/silverstein-if-id-written-the-doe-grid-study-recommendations/506274/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">contradicted the conclusions of his own agency</a> about the state of the American power grid, and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/08/climate/trump-coal-nuclear.html" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">was ultimately rejected</a>.</font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The <span class="caps">DOE</span>'s Office of Electricity Delivery and Energy Reliability, where Harbin now works, is charged with “[developing] new technologies to improve the infrastructure that brings electricity into our homes, offices, and factories, and the federal and state electricity policies and programs that shape electricity system planning and market operations.” </font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R44357.pdf" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Under the Obama administration</a>, this office focused greatly on electric grid reliability and promoting the “next generation” of transmission technology.</font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">If Harbin's recent work history in Koch-funded organizations is any indication, she will use the office to promote fossil fuel generation as a sort of “cure all” for electric system reliability issues, and to bash wind and solar power as “unreliable.”</font></p></div></div></div><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="print-link" /></font></p><div class="field field-name-taxonomy-vocabulary-14 field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above" style="padding: 1.5em 0px; border-top: 1px solid rgb(0, 0, 0); margin-top: 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /><div class="field-label" style="text-transform: uppercase; display: inline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">TAGS: </font></div><div class="field-items" style="display: inline;"><div class="field-item even" style="display: inline-block; margin-right: 0.5em;"><a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/topics/christine-harbin">christine harbin</a></div><div class="field-item odd" style="display: inline-block; margin-right: 0.5em;"><a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/topics/crissy-harbin">crissy harbin</a></div><div class="field-item even" style="display: inline-block; margin-right: 0.5em;"><a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/topics/koch-vs-clean">koch vs clean</a></div><div class="field-item odd" style="display: inline-block; margin-right: 0.5em;"><a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/directory/vocabulary/2797">Department of Energy</a></div><div class="field-item even" style="display: inline-block; margin-right: 0.5em;"><a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/directory/vocabulary/4022">americans for prosperity (AFP)</a></div><div class="field-item odd" style="display: inline-block; margin-right: 0.5em;"><a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/directory/vocabulary/7825">American Legislative Exchange Council ALEC</a></div></div></div><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> </font></p></div></div><div>=</div>