Competitive Enterprise Instit CEI

SEE CEI2

see HORNER

32 red 6/13 (9/14 2x aei?)

 ===

EVIL BUT

10/14 sued off of sci and technol policy about polar vortex in 2 min, FOIA'd, prsonal opinion of Holdren they say

Competitive Enterprise Institute to sue RealClimate blogger over moderation policy

By Joe Romm on Nov 25, 2009

Gavin Schmidt has done a wonderful job at RealClimate patiently explaining the context of the stolen emails. He’s made it perfectly clear that the claims of scientific malpractice are without foundation. He must be doing a really good job, because the Competitive Enterprise Institute intends to sue him.

That’s computer scientist Tim Lambert aka Deltoid explaining (here) the latest tactics the anti-scientific disinformers are pursuing to stifle real climate scientists from communicating with the public.  The CEI, of course, runs ad campaigns aimed at destroying the climate for centuries; generally spreads disinformation (see “Santer, Jones, and Schneider respond to CEI’s phony attack on the temperature record“) and embraces the efforts of other groups to sow confusion (see “Deniers go ape for Scopes climate trial“).

But CEI’s current tactics, which they proudly announce here, have become truly extemist in nature:

[CEI seeks documents] relating to the content, importance, or propriety of workday-hour posts or entries by GISS/NASA employee Gavin A. Schmidt on the weblog or “blog” RealClimate, which is owned by the advocacy Environmental Media Services and was started as an effort to defend the debunked “Hockey Stick” that is so central to the CRU files. RealClimate.org is implicated in the leaked files and expressly offered as a tool to be used “in any way you think would be helpful” to a certain advocacy campaign, including an assertion of Schmidt’s active involvement in, e.g., delaying and/or screening out unhelpful input by “skeptics” attempting to comment on claims made on the website.

==

Most recently, Michael Mann, who himself has a long history being on the receiving end of abusive letters and death threats, as he detailed in his book, has been rather viciously defamed by the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) and National Review.  CEI is a right-wing think tank with a long history of denying the health effects of smoking and human-caused climate change, having received major funding from the tobacco and oil industries (i.e. over $2 million from ExxonMobil, and more recently funding from the Koch Brothers and other groups whose wealth is based in fossil fuels like the Scaife Foundations).

Recently, Ryan Simberg published a post on CEI's blog accusing Mann of

"engaging in data manipulation to keep the blade on his famous hockey-stick graph"

The CEI blog post proceded to compare Mann to Jerry Sandusky, a convicted serial child molester.  This extraordinarily inappropriate and offensive comparison has been removed from the CEI blog, but it remains in a National Review article written by Mark Steyn, which quotes Simberg's post.  We will not reproduce this reprehensible quote here.

strat ignor: 2002 epa projected 3-9 degree F c21, panicked WH who secret talk to CEI

Ebell Cooney June 3  highest rank EPA for fall guy; b2 dismissed rept as bureaucracy; 

cei sued on basis of computer models; ashcroft asked by 2 state AG to look at cei, but no 164

CEI lost on arsenic but won on superfund 227

wapo:

Anatomy of a Washington dinner: Who funds the Competitive Enterprise Institute?

By Juliet Eilperin, Updated: June 20, 201

People have plenty of conspiracy theories about the libertarian Competitive Enterprise Institute: that it’s merely an extension of the Koch brothers’ empire, or a subsidiary of Exxon-Mobil Corp.

While the group does not disclose its donors as a general rule, it does reveal which companies and interest groups sponsor its annual fundraising dinner– which takes place Thursday night at the J.W. Marriott — along with how much they contribute. CEI provided a copy of its dinner program to the Fix, ranking donors according to the value of five metals— chromium, tungsten, nickel, copper and tin — which ecologist Paul Ehrlich bet economist Julian Simon would be more scarce in 2005 than in 1980, the year of the wager. (Ehrlich lost the bet.)

The lineup of sponsors both confirms certain stereotypes about the right-leaning think tank and challenges others. The energy sector donated $110,000 to the event, the same amount given by conservative foundations (three of which are associated with the billionaires Charles and David Koch). But the biggest single donor is Google, which gave $50,000, and Facebook kicked in $25,000.

Lawson Bader, CEI’s new president, said the list shows his group has “a pretty diverse group of supporters.” The fact that fossil fuel firms — and a number of rail companies that transport coal and oil — rank as generous donors makes sense, Bader said, because CEI has “been working on energy and environmental issues longer than other” Washington groups.

At the same time, CEI ranks as a strong defender of privacy and civil liberty. “We are very committed to the idea of free enterprise and individual liberty,” he said. “CEI does see itself as more libertarian than conservative.”

The dinner’s keynote speaker is Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), whose political stock is particularly high at the moment. “I have no doubt that having Rand Paul as the keynote speaker probably helped drive some of the increased interest in the dinner,” Bader observed. “It’s hard to test that theory.”

Another reason for the impressive turnout may be Bader’s own sales skills: he managed to convince both his mother Jeannie and his brother Cole to buy tickets to the event, at $250 each. When asked whether he thought his mother should have made a bigger donation, Bader replied, “No comment.”

Want to know who shelled out the most to support CEI’s annual fete? Read the gritty details, below, with donors listed according to sector.

Energy

Murray Energy Corporation $45,000

Marathon Petroleum $25,000

Devon Energy $15,000

Phillips 66 $10,000

American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity $5,000

American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers $5,000

Emerson Electric $5,000

Transport

Association of American Railroads $5,000

BNSF Railway $5,000

Canadian National Railway $5,000

CSX Corporation $5,000

Norfolk Southern $5,000 coal

Union Pacific Corporation $5,000

Auto Industry

Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, Inc. $15,000

Ford Motor Company $5,000

Volkswagen Group of America $5,000

Alcohol/Tobacco/Beverage

Altria Corporate Services $10,000

American Beverage Association $5,000

Distilled Spirits Council of the United States $5,000

Pepsico, Inc. $5,000

Foundations/Advocacy Groups

JP Humphreys Foundation $40,000

Claws Foundation $25,000

Koch Companies Public Sector $15,000

Charles Koch Foundation $10,000

Dunn’s Foundation $10,000

Americans for Prosperity $5,000

The Beach Foundation $5,000

Communications/Entertainment

Comcast-NBC Universal $10,000

National Cable & Telecommunications Association $10,000

News Corporation $10,000

Verizon Communications $7,500

The American Conservative $5,000

Motion Picture Association of America $5,000

White House Writers Group $5,000

High-Tech

Google $50,000

Facebook $25,000

Consumer Electronics Association $10,000

GTECH $5,000

Microsoft Corporation $5,000

Pharmaceuticals/Health/Biotech

PhRMA $25,000

Glaxo-SmithKline $15,000

American Optometric Association $10,000

Generic Pharmaceutical Association $10,000

Biotechnology Industry Organization $10,000

Chemical/Agriculture/Business

Monsanto $10,000Syngenta $10,000FMC Corporation $5,000

U.S. Chamber of Commerce $5,000

Construction/Real Estate

Miller & Long D.C., Inc. $5,000

Old Boston Restorations $5,000

Financial

MasterCard $25,000

Cash America $10,000

Credit Union National Association $25,000

National Association of Credit Service Organizations $7,500

American Bankers Association $5,000

Law Firms/Lobby/Consulting Firms

Bracewell & Giuliani $7,500

Baker & Hostetler LLP $7,500

DCI Group $5,000

Dezenhall Resources $5,000

Wiley Rein LLP $5,000

Individuals

Ambassador C. Boyden Gray $25,000

Stanford Rothschild $25,000

Stephen Modzelewski $25,000

Fred Young $15,000

Jean Claude Gruffat $10,000

Robert Luddy $10,000

Jack France $7,500

Lester Weindling $5,000

Arcadio Casillas $5,000

James Curley $5,000

Forrest G. Hoglund $5,000

Angelo Puglisi $5,000

http://thinkprogress.org/politics/:{2008:(style="background-color:#ffff66;"):}:/03/10/20172/cei-attacks-gore/

Tomorrow, the ultra conservative Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) will launch a new round of television ads attacking former Vice President Al Gore for his leadership on climate change. The right-wing Washington Times gleefully reported on CEI’s ad buy on Saturday:

Al Gore’s opulent lifestyle and his virtuous plea to save the planet from global warming don’t mesh, according to the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI), which announced plans yesterday for a new national advertising campaign to showcase the contrast before the American public.

In fact, Al Gore has worked diligently to reduce his own carbon impact. After a thorough renovation of his house — complete with a fight to obtain zoning permission for solar panels — Gore has one of the first 14 homes in the United States to receive the LEED gold certification for efficiency and green practices. The renovations “cut the home’s summer electrical consumption by 11 percent compared with a year ago.”

CEI’s campaign simply recycles old partisan smears. According to the Times, CEI is relying on “research released last year by the Tennessee Center for Policy Research,” a conservative group founded by Drew Johnson, who previously worked for the right-wing National Taxpayers Foundation and interned for the Exxon-funded American Enterprise Institute.

CEI is hardly a neutral player either:

– The Washington Monthly reported, “The Competitive Enterprise Institute has been a particularly aggressive advocate of the notion that global warming is a ‘theory not a fact.’” [LINK]

– CEI “adjunct analyst” Donald Boudreaux said in 2006: “the bestpolicyregarding global warming is to neglect it– and let capitalism continue to make us healthier and wealthier.” [LINK]

– CEI has received more than $2 million from ExxonMobil since 1998. [LINK]

– CEI’s global-warming denying position is so radical that last year, ExxonMobil announced it had ceased funding CEI, in an effort to improve its corporate image. [LINK]

– CEI belongs to the State Policy Network, a “voluntary and by invitation-only” coalition of free-market think tanks that includes both the Tennessee Center for Policy Research and the Heartland Institute, which ran last week’s global warming denial conference. [LINK, LINK]

This is not the first time CEI has tried to distract attention from global warming science in order to attack Gore. Last year, it produced two ads asserting the of. The ad campaign had the Orwellian title, “They call it pollution. We call it life.”

UPDATE: Desmog blog notes that CEI is trying to fundraise off its Gore campaign.

--

w Nichols-Dezenhall, stop eco violence www

CEI lost on arsenic but won on superfund 227 strat ignor

OIRAJG ~ Joe  Lieb; OIRA could ask agency to repeal laws; rejects 58 RR; 16 BC; 316 B2 2001 (CTT and trade gp input) 64  dioxin no safe level, but ok to spread on crops and parks 64  nrdc found 34-56 mill ppl had arnsenic; BC browner went for 10 ppb (CTT said pvt well shd do something if 5 ppb) but ~ 1oppb at epa; Rvoe and Karen Hughes ~  b/c NMex close election, backed by CEI arsenic "an essential ingredient" and good for us 67 CEI angela logomasini  NAS backed Browner and B2 caved, also on other BC rules allowed, based by CEI Jon Adler.

--

eg bs on cap and trade, picked up by drudge and cbs/cnet:

1. The memo never mentions the amount of $1,761. Wherever that number came from, it isn't in the document that is supposedly behind this story.
2. In any case, this memo from 9 months ago about a hypothetical bill has been superseded by three independent studies of the bill that actually passed the House.The non-partisan**Congressional Budget Office**, the independent**Energy Information Administration**, and the**Environmental Protection Agency**all conclude that climate legislation will cost American households less than a postage stamp per day.

http://www.:{sourcewatch.:(style="background-color:#ffff66;"):}:org/index.php?title=Competitive_Enterprise_Institute

The Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) is a advocacy group based in Washington DC. It calls itself "a non-profit, non-partisan research and advocacy institute dedicated to the principles of free enterprise and limited government. We believe that individuals are best helped not by government intervention, but by making their own choices in a free marketplace."^[1]

Until August 2007 CEI's website CEI stated that it served "as both a think tank—creating intellectual ammunition to support free markets—and an advocacy organization—putting that ammunition to use in persuasive ways."^[2]

It postures as an advocate of "sound science" in the development of public policy. However, CEI projects dispute the overwhelming scientific evidence that human induced greenhouse gas emissions are driving climate change. They have a program for "challenging government regulations", push property rights as a solution to environment problems, opposed US vehicle fuel efficiency standards and been a booster for the drug industry.

See also:

• **The Competitive Enterprise Institute And Global Warming**; and
• **CEI Programs & Projects** for more details.

Alliances

CEI belongs to various conservative alliances, including the Alliance for America, Get Government Off Our Backs, Townhall.com, the National Consumer Coalition (a pro-corporate front group headed by Frances B. Smith, the wife of CEI founder Fred Smith), and the Environmental Education Working Group (EEWG), a national umbrella group for organizations working to undermine environmental education in schools. It is linked to the UK-based rightwing think tank, the International Policy Network, via shared staff and an identical US contact address. It also sponsors several other subsidiary organizations, including:

• The Center for Private Conservation, a green-sounding front group that opposes environmental regulations by claiming that "free market" solutions work better.
• The Cooler Heads Coalition, chaired by former CEI director Marlo Lewis and directed by Myron Ebell, CEI's Director of Global Warming and International Environmental Policy. The Cooler Heads Coalition was formed on May 6, 1997, "to dispel the myths of global warming by exposing flawed economic, scientific and risk analysis." In March 2001, the nonprofit Clean Air Trust named Ebell its "clean air villain of the month," citing his "ferocious lobbying charge to persuade President Bush to reverse his campaign pledge to control electric utility emissions of carbon dioxide."
• Michael Sanera's Center for Environmental Education Research, based in Washington, D.C.

History

CEI was founded in March 1984. In 1986, it began its "free market legal program," which seeks to overturn government regulations that the CEI regards as inappropriate, such as regulations pertaining to drug safety, rent control, and automobile fuel efficiency (see the case study, Fuel efficiency standards and the laws of physics).

By 1992, CEI's annual budget had reached $765,000. That year it helped coordinate "Earth Summit Alternatives" to counter the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, generating anti-environmental commentary that appeared on the MacNeil/Lehrer News Hour, National Review, Washington Times, Detroit News, Investor's Daily, Inside EPA's Clean Air Report, CNBC, C-SPAN, CBS Radio and Voice of America. It also published its first book, titled Environmental Politics.

In 1992, Jonathan Adler, CEI's director of environmental studies, wrote Implementing the U.S. Clean Air Act in Arizona in conjunction with the Barry Goldwater Institute for Public Policy Research, a small think tank headed by Michael Sanera, a former professor of political science at Northern Arizona University and an adjunct scholar at the conservative Heritage Foundation.^{[3]^}(http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Competitive_Enterprise_Institute#cite_note-2) The following year they wrote another report "Reforming Arizona's Air Pollution Policy"

In 1994 CEI began working on a book with the Alabama Family Alliance and the Arizona Institute for Public Policy Research (also founded and headed by Sanera). Tentatively titled An Environmental Primer for Parents: How to Talk to Your Children About Environmental Issues, the book was eventually published under the title Facts Not Fear, with Sanera and Jane S. Shaw listed as the authors. It claims that environmental education in the classroom is a politicized effort to indoctrinate kids into becoming activists. Sanera was also instrumental in gutting a previously strong environmental education mandate in Arizona. He and CEI have become leading forces behind an ongoing, industry-funded campaign to eliminate funding for environmental education throughout the United States.^{[4]^}(http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Competitive_Enterprise_Institute#cite_note-3)

In 1995, CEI joined several other think tanks in attacking Our Stolen Future, the book about environmental endocrine disruptors by Theo Colborn, Dianne Dumanoski and Peter Myer. Just prior to the book's release, CEI released two separate studies belittling "the hypothetical risks to human health" discussed in Colborn's book. On the same day that CEI's reports came out, Consumer Alert (run by Frances B. Smith, the wife of CEI founder Fred Smith) issued its own news release labeling the book "a scaremongering tract."^{[5]^}(http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Competitive_Enterprise_Institute#cite_note-4)

In March 1996, CEI's Michelle Malkin and Michael Fumento published "Rachel's Folly," which claims that dioxin is good for you.^{[6]^}(http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Competitive_Enterprise_Institute#cite_note-5) CEI's Jonathan Tolman (who holds a bachelor's degree in political science), published a study that month titled "Nature's Hormone Factory," claiming that naturally-occurring chemicals produced by plants and other living organisms are as dangerous as industrial chemicals.^{[7]^}(http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Competitive_Enterprise_Institute#cite_note-6) In December of that year, CEI submitted comments opposing the EPA's proposed air quality rule to limit particulate emissions, claiming that "the EPA has failed to consider whether the proposed standard may actually increase mortality due to reductions in disposable income that compliance efforts may produce. ... At all times regulation imposes costs that mean less real income to individuals for alternative expenditure. That deprivation of real income itself has adverse health effects, in the form of poorer diet, more heart attacks, more suicides."^{[8]^}(http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Competitive_Enterprise_Institute#cite_note-7)

In 1997 Boston Globe reporter Jeff Jacoby described CEI as "one of Washington's feistiest think tanks." The same year CEI's Adler lobbied Congress to cut off federal funding for the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation.^{[9]^}(http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Competitive_Enterprise_Institute#cite_note-8)

In July, it participated in an anti-environmental summit sponsored by the conservative Western States Coalition in Spokane, Washington. Under the theme of "Responsible Legislation Through Education: Solutions That Work," the conference showcased Michael Sanera's attacks on environmental education. Ironically, while much of the conference focused on the alleged indoctrination of school children by environmentalists, the event featured a "trade show" of industry-sponsored K-12 curricula and materials.^{[10]^}(http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Competitive_Enterprise_Institute#cite_note-9)

CEI was also active in opposing the 1997 international global warming negotiations in Kyoto. CEI staff including Fred Smith, James Sheehan, Jonathan Adler and Marlo Lewis featured prominently in a list of "experts" provided to reporters by the industry-funded Global Climate Coalition. "The campaign against the 1997 Kyoto global warming treaty waged by right-wing think tanks has been another area where corporate America has heavily invested in right-wing policy groups that advance its interest" noted author David Callahan in 1999."The Competitive Enterprise Institute has been a particularly aggressive advocate of the notion that global warming is a 'theory not a fact.' Since 1991, CEI's budget has grown from less than $1 million to over $ 4 million."^{[11]^}(http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Competitive_Enterprise_Institute#cite_note-Callahan-10) Callahan also noted that although the extent to which conservative think tanks rely on corporate funding support varies widely, CEI and the American Enterprise Institute "have two of the highest levels of corporate support, with both getting roughly 40 percent of their 1996 revenues from corporations."^{[11]^}(http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Competitive_Enterprise_Institute#cite_note-Callahan-10)

On October 29, 1999, CEI and Consumer Alert [berman] submitted comments opposing a proposed rule by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms banning makers of alcoholic beverages from labeling their products with statements about the alleged benefits of "moderate consumption" of alcohol.^{[12]^}(http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Competitive_Enterprise_Institute#cite_note-11) In March 2001, CEI joined other similar think tanks and experts for hire (including the American Council on Science and Health, Steven J. Milloy, Dennis Avery, Consumer Alert and the National Council on Public Policy Research) in an open letter criticizing Starbucks for its decision to serve milk products only from cows not treated with genetically-engineered bovine growth hormone."Your action is unfounded, and harms consumers and the environment," they stated.^{[13]^}(http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Competitive_Enterprise_Institute#cite_note-12)

CEI has also worked to cultivate a relationship with John Stossel, the controversial correspondent for ABC-TV's 20/20 program. When Stossel came under fire in August 2000 for citing nonexistent scientific studies on a 20/20 segment bashing organic foods, CEI set up a "Save John Stossel" website to help him keep his job.^{[14]^}(http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Competitive_Enterprise_Institute#cite_note-13) Stossel returned the favor the following year by working with Michael Sanera to put together a program titled "Tampering With Nature" that focused on attacking environmental education. In March 2001, a pesticide industry front group known as Responsible Industry for a Sound Environment (RISE) sent out an action alert memorandum to its members. "Mr. Sanera has been contacted by ABC News," the memo stated." A producer for John Stossel is working on a program on environmental education. He needs examples of kids who have been 'scared green' by schools teaching doomsday environmentalism in the classroom. ... He has some examples, but needs more. Would you send out a notice to your group and ask if they know of some examples. Then contact Mr. Sanera ... Let's try to help Mr. Stossel. He treats industry fairly in his programs."^{[15]^}(http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Competitive_Enterprise_Institute#cite_note-14)

Apparently neither Stossel nor CEI applied similar standards of fairness toward the schoolteachers and students they interviewed. Prior to the program's air date in July, several California parents of children interviewed by Stossel filed a complaint with ABC, stating that they had been misled about the nature of the program and the types of leading questions their kids would be asked. Seattle teacher John Borowski also reported being approached] by ABC producer Ted Balaker, who attempted to trick him into appearing on camera by claiming that he was making a documentary about Earth Day, while denying that he was working with Stossel and Sanera.^{[16]^}(http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Competitive_Enterprise_Institute#cite_note-15)

CEI's commentaries frequently appear in media venues such as ABC's 20/20, American Spectator, Christian Science Monitor, Consumers' Research, Crossfire, Forbes, Good Morning America, Larry King Live, MacNeil/Lehrer News Hour, Moneyline, New York Times, Policy Review, PBS, Reader's Digest, USA Today, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post and Washington Times.

Personnel

CEI employs approximately 40 office people, including support staff and in-house and adjunct policy analysts. The personnel list is so extensive it has been shifted to **Competitive Enterprise Institute/Personnel**.

Funding

CEI's Budget

Since 1991, CEI's budget has grown from less than $1 million to over $ 4 million." David Callahan also noted that although the extent to which conservative think tanks rely on corporate funding support varies widely, CEI and the American Enterprise Institute "have two of the highest levels of corporate support, with both getting roughly 40 percent of their 1996 revenues from corporations." [1]

In its IRS Form 990 for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2004, CEI reported revenues totalling $2,919,537 almost all of which were in the form of contributions from unspecified sources. Its net assets were $1,670,808. [2] (Pdf)

CEI's Foundation Funders

Media Transparency lists CEI as receiving a total of $4,296,645 (unadjusted for inflation) in 123 grants from a range of foundations in the period 1985 through to 2004. [3]

• Armstrong Foundation
• Barre Seid Foundation
• Castle Rock Foundation
• Carthage Foundation Scaife Foundations
• Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation (Koch Family Foundations)
• Claude R. Lambe Charitable Foundation (Koch Family Foundations)
• David H. Koch Charitable Foundation (Koch Family Foundations)
• Earhart Foundation
• Gordon and Mary Cain Foundation
• Jacqueline Hume Foundation
• JM Foundation
• John M. Olin Foundation
• John Templeton Foundation
• Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation
• Philip M. McKenna Foundation, Inc.
• Randolph Foundation
• Rodney Fund
• Roe Foundation
• Sarah Scaife Foundation (Scaife Foundations)
• Scaife Family Foundations
• Shelby Cullom Davis Foundation
• William H. Donner Foundation

Other Funding Sources

The Capital Research Center (CRC) formerly had a profile on CEI in its database on non-profit groups which listed corporate foundations and other groups not identified by Media Transparency. [4] However, since its profile was linked to this page in 2004, the profile on CEI has been removed from the database.

CEI does not publish a list of its institutional donors. However, in a CEI report sent to Philip Morris, the think tank identified a range of companies and foundations as having given $10,000 or more. [5] Contributors included:

• Aequus Institute
• Amoco Foundation, Inc.
• Coca-Cola Company, contributions were $25,000 per annum for the period 1991-1995;
• E.L. Craig Foundation
• CSX Corporation
• Fieldstead and Co.
• FMC Foundation
• Ford Motor Company Fund
• Curtis and Edith Munson Foundation
• Philip Morris Companies, Inc.
• Pfizer Inc.
• Precision Valve Corporation
• Prince Foundation
• Sheldon Rose
• Texaco, Inc.
• Texaco Foundation
• Alex C. Walker Foundation

In a 2006 profile of CEI and other global warming skeptics, Washington Post reporter Joel Achenbach noted that "the most generous sponsors" of CEI's 2005 annual dinner were "the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, Exxon Mobil, the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, and Pfizer. Other contributors included General Motors, the American Petroleum Institute, the American Plastics Council, the Chlorine Chemistry Council and Arch Coal." [6]

joel a: CEI has 28 people on staff, "half a platoon," Smith likes to say. They're in the persuasion business, fighting for the free market. They lobby against government regulations of all kinds. Smith writes articles with titles such as "Eco-Socialism: Threat to Liberty Around the World." These promoters of capitalism don't really operate a commercial enterprise; like any think tank, CEI relies on donations from individuals, foundations and corporations. The most generous sponsors of last year's annual dinner at the Capital Hilton were the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, Exxon Mobil, the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, and Pfizer. Other contributors included General Motors, the American Petroleum Institute, the American Plastics Council, the Chlorine Chemistry Council and Arch Coal.

...

They see economic growth as an all-purpose cure for environmental problems. Rich societies are environmentally resilient; poor societies have dirty power plants and sooty huts. Government regulations aren't necessary. I ask Lewis if he thinks the Clean Air Act is a good idea. "It depends," he

answers. There follows a complicated riff from Smith about common law property rights and English fishermen suing upstream polluters in the 19th century.

Smith takes an abrupt detour into the issue of endangered species. The solution is to let the private sector handle it. They should be privatized, like pets or livestock. Dogs, cats, chickens, pigs: These creatures won't ever go extinct.

I want to make sure I understand what he is saying, so I begin to ask a question: "For endangered species, people should --"

"-- own them," Smith says.

But isn't there a difference between animals that live in zoos and animals that live in the wild?

"Yes and no," Smith says. " 'Zoo' is a pejorative term that PETA has turned into an animal slavery community. A zoo is nothing more than an elaborate ark."

What's unnatural, Smith says, is wilderness. The so-called wilderness of early America used to be inhabited by Indians, and they changed their environment. "They burned down trees, they burned forests, they ran buffaloes over cliffs. They were not dancing with wolves," he says. "Wilderness is the least natural part of this planet."

...

Tobacco Industry Funding

A listing of documents specifically about contributions and support from tobacco companies to CEI:

• 1991 - $10,000 donation to CEI from Philip Morris (PM) [7]
• Feb. 9, 1993 - letter from Fred Smith of CEI to Thomas Borelli at PM thanking PM for support.[8]
• 1995: PM gives $200,000 grant to CEI for "general operating support" [9]
• 1995 : PM gives another $10,000 to CEI [10]
• 1997: PM gives $120,000 to CEI [11]
• 1998 PM Public Policy Contributions list. Says PM paid CEI $25,000 via check no. 390006 [12]
• (Non-financial item) 1998: Activity Report of Beverly McKittrick of PM states, "Worked on plan for mobilization of third--party conservative groups. Met with CSE, ATRA, Chamber of Commerce,Frontiers of Freedom, and Competitive Enterprise Institute." [13]
• 1999 Public Policy Contributions (PM): $5,000 paid via check No. 20601 [14]
• 1999 Activity report of PM's Thomas Borelli states: "Secured policy group committee funding to support the Competitive Enterprise Institute dinner" [15]
• Undated Brown & Williamson document listing pro-business organizations BW contributes to. CEI is on the list: [16] (see top of page 5, "Policy Organizations :Total $325,000")
• In 1999 PM budgeted $25,000 for CEI: [17]

Senior Staff Salaries

Salaries and benefits to its top employees for the year to September 30, 2004 were reported as follows:

• Fred L. Smith, president, $175,000
• Marlo Lewis, Senior Fellow, $100,000
• Sam Kazman, general counsel, $98,000
• Jody M. Clarke, Vice President, $85,000
• Myron Ebell, Director of Global Warming, $82,000
• Martha Hutto, Vice President, $80,000
• Angela Logomasini, Director of Risk & Environment, $67,000
• Emily C. Duke, Vice President, $65,000
• Iain Murray, Global Warming Policy, $65,000
• Clyde Wayne Crews, director, competition & regulatory policy, $54,5000. [18] (Pdf)

Case Studies

• Fuel efficiency standards and the laws of physics
• Smoking as a civic duty
• The Competitive Enterprise Institute And Global Warming

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=American_Spectator

Hyping New Book, CEI's Chris Horner Routinely Uses "Facts" Debunked 7 Months Ago

Promoting a new book, the Competitive Enterprise Institute's Chris Horner has written a series of blog posts on conservative websites.  Each one cites a cap-and-trade cost estimate snatched from a Freedom of Information Act request.  The documents recovered analyzed a policy not included in any clean energy bill proposed in Congress, rendering them meaningless. In fact, CEI's claims were widely debunked in September 2009.

CEI  exxon map http://www.exxonsecrets.org/maps.php  (custom emaillable versions http://www.exxonsecrets.org/index.php?mapid=1587

EMAIL: teamexxonmobil@wdc.greenpeace.org

The database behind this website builds on the anti-environmental research of CLEAR, the Clearinghouse on Advocacy and Environmental Research.  Programming and design by Josh On and Amy Balki

Other than CLEAR's web site, there are a couple of other places where raw data and polished information for opposition research are available. The Data Center (http://www.igc.apc.org/datacenter/) has great files on the broader right wing political movement, which are available to researchers. The Council on Economic Priorities in New York (http://www.cepnyc.org) keeps track of corporations.

465$m from exxon 2003 war on sci p 95

2004 270K cei, 250 to F of F, 170 GMI

CEI sued over nat'l assessment in 2000 p 96, w/ CEI sued clinton admin on nat'l asess

climategate:

Inhofe is now attempting to use the hacked emails and IPCC references to run ‘McCarthy-style’ ‘criminal

investigations’ on a list of 17 of the world’s top climate scientists and lead authors in the IPCC. He is using 

the (non) scandals to question not only the IPCC’s conclusions, but also to challenge the scientific basis of new US EPA rules on regulating greenhouse gas emissions126.

On 16 February 2010, the Competitive Enterprise Institute, along with Fred Singer, filed a lawsuit to the US

EPA,127 demanding that, on the basis of the hacked emails and so called ‘flawed datasets’, the EPA drop all

its proposed regulation on CO2 and other greenhouse gases.

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Myron_Ebell

Myron Ebell directs the Global Warming and International Environmental Policy project at the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) and the Cooler Heads Coalition, which was formed on May 6, 1997, "to dispel the myths of global warming by exposing flawed economic, scientific and risk analysis." Ebell formerly worked at the Frontiers of Freedom, on issues including "property rights, the Endangered Species Act, federal-lands policies, and global warming," and as a legislative assistant to Representative John Shadegg. He's also worked for the American Land Rights Association and National Taxpayers Union. ^{[1]^}(http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Myron_Ebell#cite_note-0) Both CEI and Frontiers of Freedom have received funding from ExxonMobil. ^{[2]^}(http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Myron_Ebell#cite_note-1) ^{[3]^}(http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Myron_Ebell#cite_note-2)

"Though he likes to bash scientists for working outside their degreed fields, Ebell, it turns out, isn't a scientist at all," a Vanity Fair article on Ebell stated. "He majored in philosophy at the University of California in San Diego, then studied political theory at the London School of Economics and history at Cambridge." Ebell retorted, "Every interview I do, when I'm asked about scientific issues, I say I'm not a climate scientist. I'm just giving you the informed layman's perspective." ^{[4]^}(http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Myron_Ebell#cite_note-3)

On global warming

Ebell is a speaker at the International Conference on Climate Change (2009) organized by the Heartland Institute think tank. ^{[5]^}(http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Myron_Ebell#cite_note-4)

In September 2003, Greenpeace obtained evidence in the form of a [http://www.greenpeace.org/international/news/investigation-of-exxon-front-g memo] to Philip A. Cooney dated March 2002, outlining their strategy for dealing with the problems caused by scientifically-based "Climate Action Report 2002", which the US government had submitted to the UN. The crucial paragraph of this memo reads:

"As I said, we made the decision this morning to do as much as we could to deflect criticism by blaming the EPA for freelancing. It seems to me that the folks at the EPA are the obvious fall guys, and we would only hope that the fall guy (or gal) should be as high up as possible. I have done several interviews and have stressed that the president needs to get everyone rowing in the same direction. Perhaps tomorrow we will call for (Christine Todd Whitman) to be fired. I know that that doesn't sound like much help, but it seems to me that our only leverage to push you in the right direction is to drive a wedge between the President and those in the Administration who think they are serving the president's best interests by publishing this rubbish."

On air pollution

In March 2001, the nonprofit Clean Air Trust named Ebell its "clean air villain of the month," citing his "ferocious lobbying charge to persuade President Bush to reverse his campaign pledge to control electric utility emissions of carbon dioxide."

Biography

According to his biographical note on the the CEI website, "Prior to coming to CEI, Mr. Ebell was policy director at Frontiers of Freedom, a public policy advocacy organization founded by former Senator Malcolm Wallop. While at Frontiers of Freedom, he worked on a range of environmental and constitutional issues, including property rights, the Endangered Species Act, federal lands policies, and global warming." [1]

"He previously served as senior legislative assistant to Rep. John Shadegg, and before that as Washington representative of the American Land Rights Association. .... Mr. Ebell holds a BA from Colorado College and an MSc from the London School of Economics. He did graduate work at the University of California at San Diego and at Peterhouse, Cambridge University," his biographical note states. [2]

Quotations

"Higher fuel efficiency standards costs lives... in 1993 alone higher [Car Efficiency Standards] cost 1300 to 2600 lives. Multiply that by 20 years and you've got a lot of people who've died because of fuel efficiency standards... because consumers have not had the choice to buy safer cars that they want." [3]

"[A]s previous studies have concluded, the Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets are probably thickening rather than melting." [4]

"The US consumes about 25% of the energy in the world, and we produce between 25 and 30% of the wealth created in the world, so, in fact, the answer for the world is not to assume that by cutting back on American production and productivity, that you're going to get richer, the answer is the emulate the institutions and the policies that the United States has persued to become as wealthy and as productive as we are." [5]

Contact information

Email: mebell AT cei.org

Articles and resources

Related SourceWatch articles

• Competitive Enterprise Institute
• Cooler Heads Coalition
• Global warming
• Heartland Institute
• International Conference on Climate Change (2009)

References

1. ↑ "Myron Ebell," Competitive Enterprise Institute website, accessed March 2009.
2. ↑ "Factsheet: Competitive Enterprise Institute," ExxonSecrets.org, accessed March 2009.
3. ↑ "Factsheet: Frontiers of Freedom," ExxonSecrets.org, accessed March 2009.
4. ↑ Michael Shnayerson, "A Convenient Untruth: For the obligatory 'opposing view' on climate change, the media often turn to Myron Ebell, policy analyst, sound-bite artist, and oil-industry mouthpiece. While mainstream experts see global warming as a major crisis, the hotter it gets, the better Ebell likes it," Vanity Fair, May 2007.
5. ↑ "Speakers," Heartland Institute website, accessed January 2009.

External resources

• List of Ebell's publications, on the Competitive Enterprise Institute site.
• Myron Ebell factsheet," ExxonSecrets.org.

External articles

• "With the Queen in Germany worrying about climate change, will we see any change in George Bush's attitude over the next four years?", Radio 4, BBC, November 4, 2004. (The relevant section on how Bush's climate change policy is not going to change, and all the climate scientists have it wrong starts at 3:44).
• Joel Achenbach, "The Tempest: As evidence mounts that humans are causing dangerous changes in Earth's climate, a handful of skeptics are providing some serious blowback", The Washington Post Magazine, May 28, 2006.
• Michael Shnayerson, "A Convenient Untruth: For the obligatory 'opposing view' on climate change, the media often turn to Myron Ebell, policy analyst, sound-bite artist, and oil-industry mouthpiece. While mainstream experts see global warming as a major crisis, the hotter it gets, the better Ebell likes it," Vanity Fair, May 2007.

boiling pt

...

While Inhofe attempted to disguise the administration's fossil fuel-friendly policies under the cloak of "sound science," the White House worked to scuttle the most thoroughly researched projections of coming climate impacts inside the United States.

The report, known as the "U.S. National Assessment of the Potential Consequences of Climate Variability and Change," is a meticulously peer-reviewed document, drafted during the Clinton administration. The National Assessment details a range of anticipated, mostly harmful, impacts across U.S. geographical regions and ecosystems.

When previous Bush administration efforts failed to discount and discard the document, the politically conservative Competitive Enterprise Institute, which is partly funded by ExxonMobil, sued the White House Council on Environmental Quality to remove the National Assessment from circulation. In a press release, the CEI dismissed the assessment as "junk science" being used "by global warming alarmists" to hamstring business.

Then, in August 2003, the attorneys general of Maine and Connecticut made an extraordinary discovery. Through a Freedom of Information Act request, they unearthed emails indicating that the White House had secretly urged the private, right-wing CEI to sue it -- the White House -- in order to have the National Assessment withdrawn.

"It appears that certain White House officials conspired with an anti-environmental special interest group to cause the lawsuit to be filed against the federal government," said Maine Attorney General Steven Rowe, who complained to the U.S. Department of Justice along with Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal...

http://www.grist.org/article/gelbspan-boiling/

http://www.iwatchnews.org/2008/09/30/3047/global-warming-heated-denials

Making denials global

In May, the Competitive Enterprise Institute held its annual fundraising dinner at the Hyatt Regency on Capitol Hill. Tickets costed anywhere from $250 to $2,500 a plate, depending on the level of sponsorship. The event raised about $400,000, said CEI’s Kazman. The keynote speaker was none other than Václav Klaus, the president of the Czech Republic.

Klaus has been a prominent denier and was also a featured speaker at the Heartland Institute’s conference earlier this year.

A longtime friend of the CEI, Klaus founded his own think tank in 1998, the Center for Economics and Politics, in Prague. His Center has published a book in Czech on global warming featuring the work of prominent deniers, as well as a Czech-language translation of “Global Climate Change: Facts Instead of Myths,” by the National Center for Policy Analysis. The think tank describes itself as pro-market, with a mission of formulating and promoting policies based on “free enterprise, limited government, individual freedom, and Trans-Atlantic relationship.”

While the group doesn’t disclose its funding sources, saying that it relies on private support, The Cato Institute and The Foundation for Economic Education are featured partners on their website.

Reaching out to international groups to spread climate change skepticism will only increase, said Davies of Greenpeace. At the Heartland Institute’s conference, a number of the event’s co-sponsors were from abroad, including think tanks in India, China, Australia, Europe, and Canada.

The Civil Society Coalition on Climate Change is composed of many of these international groups. In 2007, it published a 100-page book titled Civil Society Report on Climate Change, written by 46 groups in 36 countries. In April, India’s Liberty Institute, a member of the coalition, launched the report at a press conference in New Delhi.

The U.S. Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow (CFACT), which has received over $542,000 from the ExxonMobil Foundation, has also created a European group of the same name. In January, CFACT-Europe published “The Climate Catastrophe — What Is It All About? — The Nairobi Report on Climate Change, Climate Madness, and Climate Hoax.”

In Canada, the Friends of Science Society and the Natural Resources Stewardship Project have some key members in common, and both groups have been active in the cause of global warming skepticism. Friends of Science made the film Climate Catastrophe Cancelled: What You’re Not Being Told About the Science of Climate Change in 2005, and subsequent reporting has revealed that the group receives about a third of its funding from the petroleum industry.

...

CEI’s latest ad campaign attempts to reach the younger generation by using old video footage of a Wendy’s hamburger commercial in which elderly women lament that a burger lacks meat. “Where’s the beef?” they ask. In CEI’s version, three younger women order a burger and a man wearing an Al Gore mask heats the burger in a microwave labeled Al Gore’s Global Warming Machine. He then wraps the burger up with a picture of the earth and hands it to her, saying, “Careful now; this is very hot.” When the young woman opens the package, she says: “This isn’t very warm.” The ad ends with the same young woman asking, “Where’s the warming?” and splices of a song from the Long-Island hip-hop group 857 titled “Where’s the Beef?” (Click here to watch the video.)

carlin mccullagh:

Pete Altman’s Blog

The Treasury Memo: Classic Spin-Job by Clean Energy Opponents

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Posted September 16, 2009 in Solving Global Warming

Tags:CEI, climate, competitiveenterpriseinstitute, globalwarming, smears

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UPDATE:Politico issued a correctionto their initial take on this, noting (as we do) that the spin is far greater than the actual content of the memo.

The clean-energy opponents at the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) are back from their August vacation with a new "smoking gun" document that they say reveals the true costs of federal climate policy.

As reported by Declan McCullough, CEI dug up a memoby a Treasury Department staffer who evaluated the economic impacts of a proposal for federal climate legislation that would auction 100% of the pollution allowances. According to Declan (who has been confused by CEI-generated information before) the plan would costconsumers $100-$200 billion per year, or $1,761 per household.

CEI of course has a long history of combatting efforts to address global warming as discussed at ExxonSecrets and Sourcewatch.

But the claims about the memo don't really measure up to whats inthe memo:

1. The memodoes notsay climate legislation will cost the public $100-$200 billion. It says "Given the administration's proposal to auction all emission allowances, a cap-and-trade program could generate federal receipts on the order of $100 to $200 billion annually." [emphasis mine]
2. In fact, the memo appears to argue for auctions, saying
   • "One advantage of auctioning allowances is the potential for generating large revenues...that could be used to offset distortionary taxes on labor or capital, improving the economic efficiency of the tax system and reducing overall compliance costs to the economy."

3. No one is talking about 100% auction anymore anyway, as Media Matterspoints out.
4. The memo never mentions the amount of $1,761. Wherever that number came from, it isn't in the document that is supposedly behind this story.
5. In any case, this memo from 9 months ago about a hypothetical bill has been superseded by three independent studies of the bill that actually passed the House.The non-partisan**Congressional Budget Office**, the independent**Energy Information Administration**, and the**Environmental Protection Agency**all conclude that climate legislation will cost American households less than a postage stamp per day.

So one thing is clear - that opponents of clean energy legislation are claiming this memo says things it doesn't.

Just for the record, this appears to be the second in a series by McCullagh and CEI, who earlier this summer tripped over themselves attempting to explain another memo purportedly showing the EPA was hiding evidencethat global warming isn't so bad.

And of course, this is just the latest in the string of "tax" accusations which all rely on the same faulty logic that moneys raised by a climate policy are the same as a tax levied on each American household. See previous discussions of the $1,300 tax and the $3,100 tax by my colleague Laurie Johnson.

An anti-regulation lobby group at the centre of the global warming misinformation campaign.

In May 2006 it ran a television advertising campaign in 14 US states featuring two 60 second films which claimed that increasing the levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide is good for us, and included the statement: “carbon dioxide: they call it pollution; we call it life!” See http://www.cei.org/pages/co2.cfm, http://tinyurl.com/ltb9w and http://tinyurl.com/j45yg. The campaign was the subject of a complaint by Professor Curt Davis, whose studies one of the films had quoted. He said the advertisement had intentionally misrepresented his research, and called it a “deliberate effort to confuse and mislead the public” – see http://tinyurl.com/r62fk.

In August 2003, the CEI sued the US Federal Government (see http://tinyurl.com/38w8e3) in order to suppress two major scientific reports concerning the current state of scientific knowledge about global warming. The CEI action failed, and the report was published to worldwide headlines focussing on the fact that the Bush administration was now admitting the science of climate change.

Subsequently a copy of an email was obtained by Greenpeace under the Freedom of Information Act (see analysis at http://tinyurl.com/34vsoa and the email itself at: http://tinyurl.com/2m5sku), which was sent on June 03, 2002 by Myron Ebell, a Director of the CEI, to Phil Cooney, who at the time was the Chief of Staff for President George W. Bush’s Council on Environmental Quality. Despite holding a position that one might assume would require scientific training, Cooney is a lawyer and holds a bachelors degree in economics, with no known scientific qualifications (see Wikipedia: http://tinyurl.com/2l9cz6).

Before taking that position, Cooney was a lobbyist for the American Petroleum Institute, the main US trade association for the oil and natural gas industries (see page 145 [of the full complaint], and Wikipedia: http://tinyurl.com/39gllu and http://tinyurl.com/2l9cz6).

The email from Ebell to Cooney appeared to show Federal Government collusion with the CEI over trying to dampen down the headlines over the report’s publication. It also appeared to show collusion over trying to force the resignation of the then head of the Environmental Protection Agency, Christine Todd Whitman. (She subsequently did resign in May 2003: see news report at http://tinyurl.com/yqtgzz).

Disclosure of this email led the Attorneys General of Maine and Connecticut to write to US Attorney General John Ashcroft calling for an investigation (see http://tinyurl.com/2erpof).

In late 2003, the CEI withdrew its lawsuit, but only after the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) added a caveat to the website hosting one of the reports, stating that it had not been subjected to the OSTP’s Information Quality Act Guidelines– without mentioning that these guidelines did not exist when the report was written, and that had they existed at that time, the report would have met them. The CEI then distorted the meaning of this caveat in a press release – see http://tinyurl.com/3cjokm and http://tinyurl.com/34v5n2 (PDF).

In 2005, after media attention on the whole affair, and leaking of documents, Phil Cooney resigned from the White House and went to work for ExxonMobil.

On March 19, 2006, The Washington Postreported: “The Competitive Enterprise Institute, which widely publicizes its belief that the earth is not warming … because of the burning of coal and oil, says Exxon Mobil Corp. is a ‘major donor’ largely as a result of its effort to push that position.” (see http://tinyurl.com/mvod4).

The CEI has received $2,005,000 from ExxonMobil since 1998 (see ExxonSecrets: http://tinyurl.com/yvbmtz) as well as receiving funding from Ford and General Motors (see DeSmogBlog: http://tinyurl.com/j45yg).