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Extolling the virtues of coal, oil, and gas may seem like an odd way to mark the one day of the year dedicated to environmental awareness around the globe, particularly considering the Independence Institute purports to be “agnostic on energy resources.”

A tax-exempt 501(c)(3) organization, the anti-government group has an annual revenue of about $2 to 3 million. Though they are not required to disclose their donors, public records show much of their money comes from several of the most infamous donors to the nation’s right wing and climate science denial movements.

A ThinkProgress review of the Independence Institute’s funders (according to data provided by Conservative Transparency, Guidestar, and CitizenAudit) revealed that since 2001, its funders included at least:

“The Independence Institute’s position on tackling climate change is about as independent as a fox’s view on protecting the hen-house,” Nick Surgey, research director at the Center for Media and Democracy, told ThinkProgress via email. “It’s really a corporate-backed fake think tank with a track record of opposing renewable energy development in Colorado.”

For its part, the Independence Institute has both sponsored events and hosted rallies attacking the Clean Power Plan — an Obama-era proposal to cut carbon emissions from the power sector nationwide. The Trump administration is actively planning to dismantle the landmark policy. It applauded Colorado Attorney General Cynthia Coffman’s (R) move to sue over the CPP (Coffman also received substantial funding from Koch-backed organizations during her campaign).

[7 out of 10 Americans want their states to comply with the EPA’s climate plan]

Amy Cooke, executive vice president and director of the Energy Policy Center at the Independence Institute,has beencritical of Colorado’s renewable energy standard,arguing that clean energy sources should be expanded to include clean coal, natural gas, hydroelectric power, and nuclear.Late last year, Cooke wasnamed to the Trump administration’s EPA “landing team,” and wrote of her excitement for the future of the EPA under Trump and Administrator Scott Pruitt (both have been clear about their intent to cripple the agency, slashing its budget and immediately gutting policies to fight climate change).

Cooke told ThinkProgress that the organization’s fossil fuels art contest is rooted ininclusivity. “Fossil fuels seem to get left out of the Earth Day celebration,” she said via email. “As an energy feminist — pro-choice in energy sources — I feel it’s important to have hydrocarbons equally represented.”

In regard to Independence Institute’s donors — and their history of working against climate action — Cooke avoided specifics.“In general, people and organizations support us because of the work we do includingbeing energy agnostic,” she said. “We encourage innovation instead of over regulation. It’s actually kind of liberating because we aren’t boxed in by an either-or cynical choice paradigm.”

Cooke did not immediately respond to a follow-up question regarding whether she or Independence Institute had advocated for wind and solar as viable energy choices.

#CLIMATE, #CLIMATE CHANGE, #DONALD

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Amy Oliver Cooke is an energy policy expert and blogger for the Independence Institute, Colorado’s free market State Policy Network think tank since 2004, also covering spending and transparency. Lawmakers frequently request Cooke’s testimony on energy and transparency in legislative committee hearings.

She collaborated with William Yeatman of the Competitive Enterprise Institute to expose the high cost of Colorado’s “new energy economy,” a supposed model for renewable energy for the rest of the country, questionable behavior at the Public Utilities Commission, and collusion between lawmakers, bureaucrats and special interest groups. Their work resulted in five pieces of legislation introduced during the 2011 legislative session.

She is also the host of the award winning Amy Oliver Show heard on News Talk 1310 KFKA in Greeley, Colo. In 2008, the Colorado Broadcasters Association recognized her with the Award of Excellence for Best News Talk Personality in a major market. Cooke was recognized again in 2011 with an Award of Merit for Best News Talk Personality in a major market.  Cooke has been published in the Denver Post, Pueblo Chieftain, Greeley Tribune, Denver Business Journal, Denver Daily News, Liberty Ink Journal, The Daily Caller and on Save Our States. She has written numerous opinion editorials, issue papers and issue backgrounders.

particulate holocaust:

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intercept

The top-billed witness scheduled to provide testimony at the House hearing on Tuesday is a lawyer named Jeffrey Holmstead, who has has worked to block the EPA’s efforts to limit mercury pollution while representing coal companies including Duke Energy, Progress Energy, and Southern Company. Meanwhile,Lamar Smith, the Texas Republican chair of the House Science Committee who has been zealously promoting the“secret science” bill, is also in the pocket of the energy companies. Though he’s also received funding from Koch Industries and iHeartMedia (formerly Clear Channel Communications), Smith’s biggest contributors are oil and gas companies, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Also testifying on Tuesday will be Kimberly White of the American Chemistry Council, the chemical industry trade group.

This bald industry bid to subvert public health-based regulations that can cut into profit isn’t new. What’s new is that this upside-down environmental attack, in which those who benefit directly from polluting industries are policing the independent scientists who can show the harms of their products, could now succeed. Although the House passed the secret science bill in 2014 and 2015, it never made it to the Senate floor. After it passed the House in 2015, Barbara Boxer called the bill “insane,” Bernie Sanders called it “laughable,” and President Obama promised to veto it. This time, it’s not a joke. With a Republican majority in both houses and Trump in the White House, the secret science act could easily become law

The small group of lawyers and PR strategists orchestrating the secret science effort are closely tied to those attacking the EPA from within. All have connections to either big tobacco, oil, or both — and almost all have been affiliated with a small, right-wing group called the **Energy & Environment Legal Institute**. It’s interesting that E&E should fixate on transparency since the group has gone to great lengths to conceal its donors. Nevertheless, public records document some of the group’s ties to big coal companies, including the now bankrupt Alpha Natural Resources, Peabody Coal, and Arch Coal.

E&E senior policy fellow Steve Milloy, a former tobacco industry attorney, has perhaps written the most — at least publicly — about the secret science strategy, both in an ebook and for Steve Bannon’s Breitbart News. Milloy calls Myron Ebell, who oversaw Trump’s EPA transition team, his “friend and hero.” In the late 1990s, Milloy and Ebell were both members of the American Petroleum Institute’s Global Climate Science Communications Team, which laid out the oil industry’s strategy to undermine the science of global warming. Meanwhile, three of Milloy’s colleagues from E&E are also members of the EPA landing team. Among them are David Schnare, E&E’s general counsel, who is perhaps best known for harassing Michael Mann and other environmental scientists with FOIA requests, andAmy Oliver Cooke, an energy industry think tanker who created MILF,Mothers In Love with Fracking.:(style="background-color:#ffff66;"/maxresdefault.jpg).

[vid]:amy Oliver Cooke describes her love for fracking.

Two other E&E associates have been wrapped up in the secret science strategy for years. The first is Christopher Horner,a senior fellow at both E&E and the Competitive Enterprise Institute, who is also a member of Trump’s EPA landing team. Back in the 1990s, Horner worked for Bracewell LLP, the law firm (formerly known as Bracewell & Giuliani)supplying the top witness at Tuesday’s hearing. The dawning awareness of the dangers of second-hand smoke was putting tobacco companies on the defensive, including Horner’s client, the R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company. In a 1996 memo, which seems to be the earliest known reference to the secret science strategy, Horner laid out a plan to fight back....