The Wonk Room

Green Jobs Now, Or Newt’s Two-Cent Solution?»

In a new video, Green Jobs Now compares Newt Gingrich’s “Drill Here, Drill Now, Pay Less” propaganda to the Green Jobs Now green recovery agenda. Newt fares poorly. Watch it:

The Green Jobs Now Day of Action is this Saturday, September 27. Thousands of Americans will be calling for investment in renewable energy, energy efficiency, and job training for people who are ready to get to work building a more just and sustainable economy.

Newt Gingrich’s “Solutions Day” is this Saturday, September 27. He’ll be calling for more drilling, privatizing health care and Social Security, and slashing corporate taxes.

Who will you join this weekend?

UPDATE: Adi at 1Sky reports: “We’re up to 558 events in all 50 states!” At SolveClimate, David Sassoon writes: “And the coalition now has a secret weapon: Patrick, and his caulk gun. Shock and Awe has met its match.”

ASWF: Gingrich’s Right-Wing Game Plan For ‘Solutions Day’ On September 27»

Newt Gingrich’s coal-and-billionaire fueled K-Street 527 corporation, American Solutions for Winning the Future (ASWF), is gearing up the next phase in its campaign to continue the extreme Bush agenda for four more years. Newt’s front group has risen to prominence through his “Drill Here, Drill Now” campaign to redefine energy policy, but he now plans to roll out his right-wing agenda on education, the economy, and health as well. The Wonk Room has obtained Newt’s game plan for “Solutions Day,” September 27, in the form of a 12-page “Action Pack for Activists.”

“Solutions Day” should really be called Pollution Day. The game plan recommends that volunteers to “invite local elected officials” and reach out to “key, state-level bloggers,” and “taxpayer groups, such as Americans for Prosperity” to gather people at “workshops” listening to Newt Gingrich speak (webcast, DISH Network—219, and Direct TV – Channel 577). Americans for Prosperity, as readers of the Wonk Room know, is yet another fossil-fueled right-wing front group.

On September 27, Newt will sell this radical right-wing agenda using talking points designed by propaganda master Frank Luntz:

Energy Gingrich’s Drill, Baby Drill plan to continue our suicidal pollution-based economy will be bolstered by Regnery Publishing’s “Drill Here, Drill Now” book and “We Have the Power,” a movie by Newt’s wife being distributed by Citizens United, the right-wing hate group run by Whitewater hit man David Bossie.

Economy Gingrich claims to be in favor of “real investments for long-term growth to create the best jobs, with the best take-home pay, and with the greatest prosperity for safe pensions and retirements.” However, the economic agenda of ASWF and its allies in fact includes defeat of the Employee Free Choice Act, which would restore bargaining rights to workers against corporate intimidation; the abolishment or slashing of taxes that only affect the superwealthy, such as the estate tax (”death tax”) and corporate tax; and the privatization of Social Security (”Personal Social Security Savings Accounts”).

Education ASWF is promoting Bob Compton’s documentary “Two Million Minutes” and calling for increased science and technology education. This emphasis hides Newt’s radical agenda of privatizing government services, bringing religion into schools and forcing all immigrants to learn English.

Health Under Newt Gingrich’s drug company-funded Center for Health Transformation, ASWF will push its agenda to protect corporate malpractice (”tort reform”), to break down Medicare and Medicaid, and to make health insurance more expensive (”consumerist health care“).

Download Newt’s “Action Pack” here. To fight back on Newt’s day of pollution, join the Green Jobs Now Day of Action, for real solutions, not more pollution.

Gingrich ‘Drill Here Drill Now’ Book Blames ‘Left-Leaning Politicians’ For Energy Crisis»

As the Wonk Room reported yesterday, Newt Gingrich’s “Drill Here, Drill Now, Pay Less” campaign will soon include the launch of a book, inventively titled Drill Here, Drill Now, Pay Less: A Handbook for Slashing Gas Prices and Solving Our Energy Crisis. Drill Here, Drill Now was ghostwritten by American Solutions for Winning the Future (ASWF) official Vince Haley, formerly Newt’s research director at the American Enterprise Institute, the premier Exxon-Bush think tank. It’s being published by Regnery Publishing, the right-wing organ that distributed Jerome Corsi’s Unfit For Command.

Newt’s book oozes with false sympathy for working Americans:

The suffering of Americans due to high energy prices is bad enough. But there’s more: powerful people believe that Americans — everyday folks just trying to earn a living, feed their families, and help others — are actually the root cause of the energy crisis. These influential people — many of them the very same individuals who helped create the energy crisis in the first place — have little compassion for the suffering of their fellow countrymen.

Who are the “influential people” who “helped create the energy crisis in the first place” Gingrich and Haley blame? Is it Bush, Cheney, Halliburton, Enron, Exxon Mobil, Peabody Coal, Tom DeLay, John McCain, hedge-fund speculators, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich himself, or others in the conservative elite who have profited from skyrocketing energy prices and prevented change while American families suffered?

Nope! The villians in Newtland are “anti-energy, left-leaning politicians.”

Gingrich Repeats Big Oil Lie, Reveals Propaganda Plan On Tavis Smiley»

On the Tavis Smiley Show Monday, Newt Gingrich revealed the propaganda strategy of American Solutions For Winning The Future (ASWF), the 527 corporation funded by right-wing billionaires to sell a Big Oil agenda to the American public. First, he repeated the central falsehood of his campaign:

Well, we launched at American Solutions a petition drive called “Drill Here, Drill Now, Pay Less” to make the obvious point that if you used America’s energy resources and you didn’t have to buy oil from Venezuela or Saudi Arabia it’d be a lot less expensive.

Gingrich’s “obvious point” is an obvious lie. The United States has only two percent of the world’s oil and gas reserves but uses 24 percent of production. Under Bush, domestic drilling has surged — but so have oil prices. The only sufficient American energy resources to get off foreign oil are efficiency, wind, solar, and other unlimited, renewable energy.

He then outlined the next roll-out of his propaganda campaign, building on the current petition drive and YouTube contest with a book release on September 22 and a movie release coinciding with “Solution Day” on September 27.

Watch it:

The book, Drill Here, Drill Now, Pay Less, blames “anti-energy, left-leaning politicians” for the energy crisis, absolving Gingrich, Bush, Cheney, Halliburton, Enron, Exxon Mobil, Peabody Coal, Tom DeLay, John McCain, hedge-fund speculators, and others in the conservative elite who have profited from skyrocketing energy prices and blocked reform while the rest of us suffer.

The movie, We Have The Power, extols the virtues of nuclear power in a visit to Three Mile Island and stars Newt’s wife Callista as she talks with industry lobbyists.

Gingrich’s false “Solution Day” coincides with the Green Jobs Now Day of Action. Go to the website — GreenJobsNow.com — to fight for real solutions, not more pollution.

Gingrich Falsely Claims Palin Is ‘The First Journalist Ever To Be Nominated’»

In an August, 30, Today Show interview, former Speaker of the House and American Solutions For Winning The Future mastermind Newt Gingrich (R-GA) praised the “courage” and “experience” of Gov. Sarah Palin (R-AK), whom Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) had announced as his running mate. Newt claimed:

Interestingly, she’s the first journalist ever to be nominated, I think, for the president or vice president. She was a sportscaster on local television, so she has a lot of interesting background.

Watch it:

Gingrich, a Ph. D. historian, should know that claim is laughably false. There have been at least two presidents and two vice presidents who were professional journalists before being elected to office, most recently Vice President Al Gore:

Albert Gore, Jr. 45th U.S. Vice President (1993-2000), and Democratic nominee for president, 2000. Gore served as an Army journalist at Fort Rucker and in Vietnam from 1969 to 1971 and became an investigative reporter for the Tennesseean upon his return. [Biography.com]

Warren G. Harding 29th U.S. President (1921-1923). Harding was the publisher and editor of the Marion Daily Star (Ohio), before entering political office. [Grolier]

William Howard Taft 27th U.S. President (1909-1912). Taft worked briefly as a legal reporter with the Cincinnati Times and the Cincinnati Commercial. [Encyclopedia Britannica]

Charles W. Fairbanks 26th U.S. Vice President (1905-1908). Fairbanks co-edited The Western Collegian at Ohio Wesleyan University and worked for the Associated Press in Pittsburgh after graduation. [1904 Republican National Convention]

This was, of course, a much smaller confabulation by Newt Gingrich than those of his billionaire-funded “Drill Here, Drill Now” 527 campaign to place American energy policy deeper in the clutches of Exxon Mobil.

(HT: Richard Cohen)

UPDATE: Gingrich repeated the false talking point on Fox News the same day, without any equivocation:

She didn’t go to an elite school, she’s not from Princeton or Harvard or Yale, she went to the University of Idaho. On the other hand, she’s the first journalist ever to be named to a national ticket. I think, as a journalism major, she’s going to raise some very interesting questions for a lot of reporters.

Watch it:

Van Jones: ‘We’re Getting Totally Rolled By The Happy Meal Politics’ Of Drill Here, Drill Now»

The Wonk Room sat down with Van Jones, founder of Green For All and a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, in the Big Tent at Denver for an interview on the energy fight, what the right wing is selling, and what progressives need to do about it.

Van didn’t mince words. He called it “disgusting” when right-wing politicians only talk about hurricanes Katrina and Rita to falsely claim they didn’t cause oil spills. He reminds us that “we didn’t stop offshore drilling for the duckies and the fishies,” but because coastal communities were suffering. And he discusses how now we have to make the choice between a “pollution-based suicidal economy” and a green economy that lifts everyone up. Van also calls Newt Gingrich’s American Solutions for Winning the Future campaign “Happy Meal politics”:

First of all, I’m mainly focused on spreading the word about the need for green-collar jobs and green communities, as usual. But, I’m also very concerned about the way that we’re as progressives getting totally rolled by this happy meal politics of “drill here, drill here pay less,” this false solution to this gas price debate. I think it’s really important for us to push back on that.

Watch it:

Van Jones concluded by discussing the Green Jobs Now day of action taking place September 27, the day after the first presidential debate. Go to the website — GreenJobsNow.com — and join the fight.

Report: King Coal And Big Oil Unite To Buy The Future, Spending More Than Two Million Dollars A Day»

As Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) sets foot on a drilling rig off the coast of Louisiana, his “drill everywhere” message is being amplified by political spending of more than two million dollars a day by the oil and coal industries. The Public Campaign Action Fund has released a major report finding that King Coal and Big Oil have united in an attempt to buy the future:

We estimate that the coal and oil industries spent an astounding $427.2 million over the first six months of 2008 to influence public opinion and public policy.

These industries are on track to spend about a billion dollars influencing energy policy this year, with their “clean coal” and “drill drill drill” messaging. They are supporting pollution-friendly candidates and spreading false doubt about the seriousness of global warming.

This total includes the $12.2 million dollars spent in six months by Newt Gingrich’s billionaire-and-coal-funded 527 corporation, American Solutions for Winning the Future (ASWF), on its “Drill Here, Drill Now” campaign, and the $40 million that coal industry front group Americans for Balanced Energy Choices (now part of the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity) pledged to spend influencing the public. It also includes John McCain’s million-dollar haul from the oil and gas industry.

The Public Campaign Action Fund’s estimate of $427.2 million fails to include the expenditures of pollution-agenda front groups that are “organized under sections of the Internal Revenue Code that do not require the public disclosure of their spending.” These groups include the likes of:

• Alliance for Energy and Economic Growth
• American Council for Capital Formation
• American Energy Alliance
• American Enterprise Institute
• Americans for Prosperity
• American Future Fund
• Business & Media Institute
• Coalition for Affordable American Energy
• Competitive Enterprise Institute
• FreedomWorks
• Heartland Institute
• Institute for Energy Research
• National Association of Manufacturers
• U.S. Chamber of Commerce

Therefore the Public Campaign’s estimate is rather conservative.

American Solutions For Winning A Gas Card»

Newt Gingrich’s billionaire-funded 527 organization, American Solutions for Winning the Future (ASWF), has announced an exciting new contest: “Drill Here, Drill Now, Pay Nothing.” Claiming that “common sense is losing out to political posturing,” Newt introduces his YouTube contest for “a short video why we must adopt a ‘Drill Here, Drill Now, Pay Less’ approach” with the prize of “free gasoline for an entire year.” Watch it:

For the first time, there will a beneficiary of the ASWF propaganda campaign who isn’t a right-wing millionaire or oil executive. But checking the contest details reveals the meager prize:

The contest winner will receive a $2,500 gift card, or a series of gift cards totaling $2,500 from a major gasoline provider in the United States.

So the prize is really $2,500 that goes to an oil company. Is it even, as Newt promises, worth “free gasoline for an entire year”? Probably not.

The average American’s gas bill in 2006 was $2,227 — when gas was $2.58 a gallon. But a gallon of gas is now $3.80, a nearly 50% increase. ASWF’s $2,500 gas card won’t pay for a year of gas unless prices fall back to $3 a gallon — or the winner cuts back driving significantly. If gas stays at $4 per gallon in 2009, the average household will be looking at a bill of about $3,500 $3,300. So Newt’s propaganda contest is really more likely to turn out to be “Drill Here, Drill Now, Drive Less” for its one “winner.”

Just like the hoax that offshore drilling would help Americans pay less at the pump, or the absurd claim that conservative propaganda has affected the price of oil, even Gingrich’s YouTube contest is built on cheap promises. If Newt wanted to offer a genuine prize, he’d give away a Tesla electric sportscar. If Newt actually cared about Americans, he’d support relief for every driver, such as a “reliefbate” paid for by closing oil subsidy loopholes or by implementing a windfall profits tax on oil companies.

Of course, filling the gas tank isn’t an issue for the backers of ASWF’s agenda. It takes Sheldon Adelson, the right-wing kingpin who’s given ASWF more than $3 million, less than ten seconds to make $2500 from his Chinese casinos, and it takes Exxon Mobil less than two seconds.

Digg it!

UPDATE: $4 gas, as kiweagle notes in the comments, translates to an average gas bill of approximately $3,300 a year. $4.30 gas gives a gas bill of approximately $3,500 a year.

CNN’s Velshi Went On Arctic Refuge Tour With Right-Wing Representative Bachmann»

After a presentation on opening the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to drilling, CNN anchor Ali Velshi hosted a discussion between Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) and Rep. Frank Pallone (D-NJ). Velshi started the interview by making the startling admission that Bachmann joined him on his expedition to northern Alaska:

Congressman [sic] Bachmann, I want to talk to you first about this because those pictures we just showed, we took from an airplane. You were with us on that airplane. You went up there to get a sense for yourself about the impact of drilling in ANWR.

Watch it:

During the interview, Velshi asked Bachmann what lesson she learned from their joint trip. Her response:

Ali, I came away with the idea that this is the most perfect place on the planet to drill.

Bachmann’s bizarre response — she also called the ecologically unique refuge the “most convenient, quickest place” to drill, despite also saying it is “permanently frozen in darkness three months of the year” — comes as no surprise, as she is one of the biggest boosters of Big Oil propaganda in Congress. Just in the past two months, she’s claimed that caribou love pipelines, falsely blamed Democrats for blocking renewable energy incentives, and repeated the lie about China drilling for oil off the Florida coast. In this segment, Bachmann introduces a new lie, claiming “this area was specifically set aside for drilling by President Jimmy Carter for drilling.”

This is simply false. As Carter explained in a 2000 New York Times column calling for expanded protections of Alaskan lands from drilling:

Then, even more than today, much attention was focused on high energy prices; oil companies — playing on Americans’ fears — sought the right to drill in protected areas. While the House held firm, the Senate forced a compromise, without ever putting the fate of the refuge to a vote. Thus, the law I signed 20 years ago did not permanently protect this Arctic wilderness. It did, however, block any oil company drilling until Congress votes otherwise. . . The simple fact is, drilling is inherently incompatible with wilderness.

Velshi did not question Bachmann about any of these false statements. Velshi also failed to mention global warming even once, despite the extreme warming taking place in northern Alaska, driving wildlife toward extinction and threatening a global climate meltdown.

Freshman representative Bachmann is a hard-line conservative funded primarily by right-wing organizations like the Club for Growth ($92,630), TCF Financial ($38,400), and Koch Industries ($17,500), the right-wing corporate polluter. She has also received $20,250 from right-wing billionaire Stanley Hubbard, one of the the top funders of Newt Gingrich’s “Drill Here, Drill Now” organization, American Solutions for Winning the Future (ASWF).

CNN’s campaign coverage continues to be funded by the coal industry front group American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity (ACCCE).

UPDATE: Velshi’s Arctic Refuge piece first aired July 24, but he did not disclose that the trip was with a delegation of 11 conservative representatives led by Rep. John Boehner (R-OH). However, prior to the trip, he did say in a July 15 interview with Rep. Bachmann:

I should tell you, I’m hoping to join you on that trip this weekend. We’re still trying to work that out.

Evidently, his wish was granted.

The Coal Time Bomb Is Ticking»

King Coal’s front groups — Americans for Balanced Energy Choices (ABEC) and the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity (ACCCE) — are continuing to spread misleading propaganda about its dirty and expensive fuel:

Coal is affordable and reliable. Electricity from coal costs about half as much as electricity from other energy sources. In fact, twenty-two of the nation’s 25 lowest-cost power plants use coal to generate electricity. And the price of coal has remained stable over the years, especially when compared to other energy sources. The cost of electricity from coal has risen only four percent since 1979, while costs for energy from oil have risen over 50 percent and the costs for energy from gas have increased more than 200 percent during the same time period.

Unfortunately, it is an dirty illusion that coal is our “cheapest power source” — even if the terrible costs of its pollution are ignored. A time bomb of a price explosion is ticking, with massive increases in the cost of coal-powered electricity to come, year after year after year. In the coal spot markets, high-quality Appalachian coal has nearly tripled in price in the past year:

Average Weekly Coal Commodity Spot Prices (Dollars per Short Ton) Business Week Ended August 8, 2008

These price increases in the spot market are driven by surging international demand, the collapse of the dollar, fuel surcharges in transporting coal, investor speculation, and climate-change-related “wild weather” that played havoc with Australian exports of coal. These seemingly disparate influences are are all tightly interlocked by our global dependence on fossil fuels.

Because coal contracts are purchased on a multi-year basis, changes in the market can take years to hit the consumer. But the first signs of this massive price shock are starting to appear. Coal-country utility American Electric Power, a backer of ACCCE, stated on Thursday that it “must raise electricity rates 45 percent for its nearly 1.5 million customers in Ohio over the next three years, to cover soaring coal prices and the cost of modernizing its systems to keep them reliable.” Joe Hamrock, AEP Ohio president and chief operating officer declared:

The fact is that coal has doubled in cost in the last year alone, dramatically affecting AEP Ohio’s costs.

The coal companies who also fund ACCCE — when they talk to investors, not consumers — are gleeful about how the high prices of coal will guarantee “significant earnings increases for many years to come.” As Gregory H. Boyce, the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Peabody Energy, the world’s largest coal company, explained when he announced record second-quarter profits last month:

The structural changes driving demand much higher than supply, across all coal markets, look to be very long-lived. We are just beginning to benefit from the repricing of legacy coal supply contracts at higher levels, which could drive significant earnings increases for many years to come.”

As it revels in record profit, King Coal is bankrolling a fossil-dependent future of energy poverty and pollution: Peabody Energy is also the top corporate funder of Newt Gingrich’s “Drill Here, Drill Now” 527 corporation, American Solutions for Winning the Future.

McCain Says He’d End His Vacation From Congress To ‘Drill Here, Drill Now’»

In eastern Pennsylvania yesterday, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) repeatedly argued, “We need to drill here and we need to drill now.” His invocation of the slogan of Newt Gingrich’s right-wing 527 corporation, American Solutions for Winning the Future (ASWF), was coupled with the following call for Congress to “come back to town and come back to work”:

Congress should come back into session, and I’m willing to come off the campaign trail.

McCain’s call for action on behalf of Big Oil and right-wing billionaires hardly jibes with his record of absenteeism on major votes. In fact, McCain has been on the campaign trail and fundraising circuit a tremendous amount this session, missing far more votes than any other member of Congress. His vacation from his elected duty has included some of the most important legislation considered by Congress:

– 4/26/07: Iraq War funding (passed 51-46)

– 6/7/07: Immigration reform (filibustered 34-61)

– 6/11/07: Condemning Attorney General Alberto Gonzales (filibustered 53-38)

– 7/26/07: Homeland Security (passed 85-8)

– 8/3/07: Wiretapping (FISA) authorization (passed 60-28)

– 9/27/07: Children’s health insurance (passed 69-30; vetoed)

– 2/6/08: Stimulus package with support for renewable energy (filibustered by one vote)

– 4/23/08: Fair Pay Act (filibustered 56-42)

– 5/22/08: The 21st-Century GI Bill (passed 75-22)

– 6/6/08: Global warming legislation (filibustered 48-36)

Voteskipper McCain shirked votes supporting renewable tax credits four times this session, letting them be filibustered every time. Twice the bill was blocked by a single vote. In the past month alone, he missed every single energy vote brought to the floor. Sen. McCain stayed on the campaign trail while his conservative allies filibustered each proposal — on energy speculation, low-income heating bills, and renewable energy and energy efficiency incentives — and he drilled for cash from the oil industry.

Last week, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) already laid down the challenge to McCain and his conservative colleagues:

So if they want to stay here and work during the August recess, it’s fine with us. I’m not sure it’s fine with the Republican senators who have these challengers with them. But we’re here. I have no problem. If they — if they think that it’s going to hurt us in any way, I’m not concerned at all, because it won’t hurt us one bit.

Digg it!

(H/T Bill Scher)

UPDATE: Obama spokesman Bill Burton released this statement: More »

McCain Embraces Newt’s Big Oil Lie, Chants ‘Drill More, Drill Now, Pay Less’»

This is the third post in our investigative series on American Solutions for Winning the Future (ASWF).

Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) has completed his journey from “maverick” to the heart of the right-wing/Big Oil movement. His travels began last month when he abandoned his longheld opposition to offshore drilling. With increasing ease, McCain is shilling for the oil industry’s agenda. In today’s appearance before the Urban League, McCain said:

Last month, the President finally lifted the executive ban on offshore oil and gas exploration, and called on Congress to lift its ban as well. Lifting that ban could seriously lower the price of oil — and Congress should get it done immediately. We need to “drill more, drill now, and pay less at the pump.”

McCain is being “cruelly misleading” when he pretends ending the moratorium on Outer Continental Shelf drilling “could seriously lower the price of oil.” Only a month ago, McCain was honest about how useless it would be, saying “I don’t see an immediate relief,” just “a psychological impact that I think is beneficial.”

The old, straight-talking McCain has hopped a ride on the low-road express. McCain is raking in the Big Oil millions, and oil-industry lobbyists such as Nancy Pfotenhauer have taken control of the campaign. He’s using the “Drill Here, Drill Now, Pay Less” slogan of Newt Gingrich’s 527 corporation American Solutions for Winning the Future — the type of organization McCain once tried to ban — while Gingrich is in closed-door meetings with right-wing representatives and attacking Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV) on Fox News. Rush Limbaugh counseled McCain to embrace the AWSF campaign on June 13, four days before McCain announced his support for offshore drilling:

It’s that simple. Drill here. Drill now. Pay less. We’re the United States of America. We can do it.

The day after McCain flipped, Rush gave his approval:

All right, all right, all right, drill here, drill now, pay less. Drill here. Drill now. Pay less. Folks, this is the issue.

Behind this common agenda is the same network of right-wing financiers that propelled Bush into office. There are 14 Bush Pioneers — the top fundraisers who bundled over $100,000 in contributions for George W. Bush in 2000 and 2004 — backing Newt Gingrich’s ASWF:

Fourteen Bush Pioneers, who funneled over $2 million to Bush’s election, have contributed over $4 million to Newt’s ASWF. Eight of those same right-wing money men are top McCain fundraisers, channelling $2 million into his coffers. Four — including top ASWF contributor Sheldon Adelson — are billionaires. Their agenda is all about “Winning the Future” for themselves.

UPDATE: In the question-and-answer period at the Urban League, John McCain dismissed the truth that lifting the offshore drilling moratorium couldn’t “seriously lower the price,” appealing to his talks with “the actual people that do the work, that are in the business”:

So I disagree with those experts and I’ve talked to the actual people that do the work, that are in the business that say within months and certainly within a very short time, we could have additional oil supply for this nation. So we ought to drill now.

Watch it:

Friends of the Earth: “By all appearances McCain has lost touch with reality.” The Sierra Club: “Senator McCain may ‘disagree with the experts,’ but that doesn’t make the facts go away.”

Newt’s ‘American Solutions’ Is A Front Group For King Coal»

This is the second post in our series of investigative pieces looking into ASWF. See the first post here.

Peabody Energy, the world’s largest coal company, became one of the top funders for Newt Gingrich’s American Solutions for Winning the Future (ASWF) this June, with a contribution of a quarter of a million dollars. IRS documents reveal that Peabody’s donation of $250,000 on June 9 — days after fossil-industry senators blocked global warming legislation — came on top of an April contribution of $25,000 from Peabody’s top Washington lobbyist, Fredrick Palmer:

Peabody, World’s Largest Coal Company, #4 Backer Of American Solutions For Winning The Future. Newt Gingrich’s 527 organization, American Solutions for Winning the Future, has received $275,000 in contributions from Peabody Energy, Inc. As of July 1, 2008, the world’s largest private-sector coal company is ASWF’s fourth highest contributor. [IRS, $250,000 6/16/08, $25,000 4/30/08]

Last year, a front group backed by Peabody smeared Kansas Governor Kathleen Sibelius (D) as a supporter of Russian President Vladimir Putin, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for denying an air permit to new coal plants because of their potential global warming pollution. When challenged, Peabody declared, “We are pleased to support the message.”

On July 23, Peabody reported record profits of $242.6 million and record sales of $1.53 billion for its second quarter, on surging coal prices. Its 59.8 million tons of coal sold are responsible for about one percent of the world’s total global warming emissions that quarter.

Peabody Energy’s vision for “America’s Energy Future,” with U.S. coal consumption doubling by 2025, is shared by ASWF, as its “Platform Of The American People” attests:

– To combat the rising cost of energy and reduce our dependence on foreign energy sources, we support the United States using more of its own domestic energy resources, including the oil and coal it already has here in the U.S.

– We believe the United States should increase its use of coal because it is a domestically available energy source, is less expensive than imported foreign oil, and new technologies have dramatically reduced emissions from burning coal, as well as making it much less harmful to the environment.

– We believe that if research indicates we could build clean coal plants in the United States with no carbon emissions, it would be important to build such plants as rapidly as possible.

– We believe in using United States domestic energy sources such as clean coal and oil, even if it means drilling off our coasts and in Alaska, as well as offering tax credits for American businesses that develop new energy sources.

The fossil-fuel-dependent future that Peabody Energy is promoting through Newt Gingrich’s “Drill Here, Drill Now” billionaire-backed front group is catastrophic, as it “ignores the nightmarish damages that would be caused to our air, water and climate.”

In the words of NASA climate scientist Jim Hansen, “Instead of moving heavily into renewable energies, fossil companies choose to spread doubt about global warming, as tobacco companies discredited the smoking-cancer link.” ASWF is just the latest of these fossil-fueled front groups. Hansen concluded:

CEOs of fossil energy companies know what they are doing and are aware of long-term consequences of continued business as usual. In my opinion, these CEOs should be tried for high crimes against humanity and nature. Conviction of ExxonMobil and Peabody Coal CEOs will be no consolation, if we pass on a runaway climate to our children.

The Billionaires Behind Newt’s ‘American Solutions For Winning The Future’»

The same old men that propelled George W. Bush into office in 2000 and 2004 are behind Newt Gingrich’s multimillion-dollar front group, American Solutions for Winning the Future (ASWF). ASWF has capitalized on the energy crisis caused by the Bush presidency to promote a “Drill Here, Drill Now, Pay Less” campaign. Although the campaign’s priorities are just a rebranding of an oil-company agenda, ASWF’s well-funded drill-drill-drill message has achieved significant success, with 1.3 million people signing their petition:

We, therefore, the undersigned citizens of the United States, petition the U.S. Congress to act immediately to lower gasoline prices (and diesel and other fuel prices) by authorizing the exploration of proven energy reserves to reduce our dependence on foreign energy sources from unstable countries.

The Wonk Room has covered in depth how the “solutions” promoted by “environmentalist” Newt Gingrich: increased offshore drilling, oil shale mining, coal-to-liquids, and tar sands — would be ecological disasters without economic benefit, except for Big Oil executives and their even wealthier investors. That group has likewise prospered richly under Bush, while the rest of the nation falls into disrepair.

So who is behind ASWF? The key funder is right-wing casino kingpin Sheldon Adelson, who has pumped over $3 million into the organization since its beginning in 2006. Adelson is flanked by 56 other such donors who have given at least $10,000. Donors can give unlimited amounts to this 527 corporation, making it an ideal mechanism for the superrich to influence the presidential season. In the first of a Wonk Room series, we discuss the seven right-wing billionaires bankrolling this “non-partisan” organization:

SHELDON ADELSON

Net Worth: $26.0 billion
Donations to ASWF: $3,066,340
Bush Pioneer

The Casino Kingpin

BACKGROUND: The third richest man in America, Adelson made his first millions with the dot-com trade show Comdex, then purchased the Las Vegas Sands Hotel and Casino, tearing it down to construct the Venetian in 1999. Since he took the Sands Corporation public in 2004 and began establishing casinos for the Asian market in Macao, his wealth has ballooned at a rate of “almost $1 million an hour” to $26 billion, mostly in China. A major GOP donor, Adelson sits on the board of the “conservative Republican Jewish Coalition.” Armed with, in his language, a “big pair of brass monkeys,” Adelson “is fiercely opposed to a two-state solution” in Israel. In addition to supplying over $3 million to ASWF, Adelson co-founded Freedom’s Watch, a “big neoconservative slush fund” with ties to the American Enterprise Institute.

QUOTES:

“You know, I am the richest Jew in the world.” [New Yorker, 6/30/08]

“We’re the largest investor of any kind in the history of China.” [New Yorker, 6/30/08]

On AIPAC’s support for aid to Palestinians: “If someone is going to jump off a bridge, it is incumbent upon their friends to dissuade them.” [Jewish Telegraphic Agency, 11/15/07]

“Why is it fair that I should be paying a higher percentage of taxes than anyone else?” [New Yorker, 6/30/08]

CARL LINDNER

Net Worth: $2.3 billion
Donations to ASWF: $650,000
Bush Pioneer

The Banana Republican

BACKGROUND: Carl Lindner, Jr., “a Cincinnati businessman with international interests ranging from banking to bananas, is one of the nation’s wealthiest men” and “gives heavily to political campaigns.” He built a dairy empire into the holding company American Financial Group, making giant profits off the savings and loan industry, junk bonds, and Chiquita Brands International Inc., where he “oversaw the payment of roughly $1.7 million to a Colombian paramilitary group.” Using political connections in the 1990s, “Lindner opened European markets for Chiquita bananas,” but “it came at a high cost: more expensive goods for American citizens; the threat of fewer jobs in industries that buy American-manufactured steel; and certain economic instability for Caribbean and African nations and its citizens.”

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