The Wonk Room

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.

Framing Of Polls On Energy Solutions Guides Coverage»

Our guest blogger is John Wihbey, an environmental journalist writing for the Yale Forum on Climate Change and the Media.

Opinion polls are fueling politicians and candidates to push for more U.S. offshore oil drilling, with the media looking on intently. Since the issue became a political focal point in June, polling has been relentless: Zogby. Rasmussen. Field. Gallup. Quinnipiac. CNN. Bloomberg. The list goes on. All point to an increasing public desire to lift a moratorium on more domestic drilling.

It’s a rough reality check for the climate change movement: the American public increasingly seems willing to walk - or drive - away from climate change concerns, as high gas prices trump principle. But as with all polls, the framing is paramount and the media’s interpretation crucial.

Notably, a Gallup poll widely cited by the press beginning in June - precisely the time President Bush, Senator John McCain, and Governor Charlie Crist of Florida all began advocating for more drilling - did not ask respondents to choose from alternatives. It simply asked if they would favor or oppose drilling to “attempt to reduce the price of gasoline.” And 57 percent said they were in favor, a factor alluded to by Crist in his decision to reverse his position and support more drilling. Another influential, and crucially timed, poll by Zogby, released June 20, asserted that 74 percent of Americans favor offshore drilling, but it too did not present options.

Media outlets cite the Gallup and Zogby polls often, and often without qualification, despite Gallup’s note:

The responses to this type of question do not provide information about the relative acceptability of the idea of each of the alternative proposals taken separately, but rather more simply reflect a forced-choice preference.

Some polls, though, do show nuance when they ask multi-part questions. Keith Johnson, a longtime energy reporter who now writes the Environmental Capital blog for The Wall Street Journal, said in an e-mail interview that survey questions should be parsed carefully:

In polls in which the question is something like, “Do you prefer more drilling or more investment in alternative energy?,” alternative energy usually comes out ahead.

For example, a new poll by the Public Policy Institute of California showed that 51 percent of state residents support more drilling; but it also showed that 83 percent want more federal funding for wind, solar, and hydrogen technology. A new Quinnipiac poll bolsters that case, polling Ohioans to find that “57 percent call for renewable energy sources” such as solar power, wind power and fuels as the best way to address the energy crisis, but only “20 percent support drilling in Alaska and currently protected offshore sites,” with similar results in Florida and Pennsylvania.

Read more at the Yale Forum on Climate Change and the Media.

UPDATE: Progress Illinois’s Josh Kalven notes that in “a July poll by Belden Russonello & Stewart, 76 percent of respondents said that ‘investing in new energy technology including renewable fuels and more efficient automobiles’ was a more important government priority than ‘expanding exploration and drilling for more oil’:

The Huffington Post’s Sam Stein reviews other polls, noting that 63 percent of the Belden poll respondents said that opening up public lands to oil and gas drilling was “more likely to enrich oil companies than to lower gas prices for American consumers” and that similar numbers blame oil companies for high gas prices. SolveClimate’s David Sassoon has more.

McCain Adviser Steve Forbes: Cap-And-Trade Wouldn’t ‘Get Very Far’ Under McCain»

Speaking with CNN’s Glenn Beck on Friday, former GOP presidential candidate and current McCain economic adviser Steve Forbes disparaged Sen. McCain’s signature plan to put mandatory reductions on greenhouse gases with a cap-and-trade system. McCain has repeatedly pointed to his record on promoting global warming legislation as a key distinction between himself and the current president. Forbes predicted:

I think cap and trade is going to go the way of some other things, as you may remember, when he came into office, Bill Clinton had a proposal of tax carbons and stuff like that. I don’t think those things are going to get very far as people start to examine the details of them.

Watch it:

On July 9, conservative journalist Larry Kudlow reported that he was told “on deep background” by a “senior McCain official” that McCain was off cap-and-trade. The campaign publicly responded that “any notion that the senator is abandoning or minimizing his support for cap-and-trade is ‘totally false.’” Forbes is signaling that Kudlow may be right, and McCain will follow in the footsteps of George W. Bush. As a candidate in 2000, Bush pledged to impose mandatory reductions of carbon dioxide, but reversed that position once he took the oath of office. In 2001, newly elected Vice President Dick Cheney said of Bush’s pledge, “It was a mistake.”

Contrary to right-wing talking points, a cap-and-trade system is not in fact a tax (or even a “stealth tax”). Critically, cap-and-trade provides “emissions certainty” — ensuring that pollution does not exceed a certain level, whereas a carbon tax would place no such limits. At WorldChanging, Alan Durning explains how the most flexible regulatory system for managing global warming pollution would be using both policy instruments: cap-and-trade and a carbon tax. With the stark need to arrest global climate change as fast as possible, we will need all the tools in the chest.

Transcript: More »

Big Oil Stooge Glenn Beck Taking Over Larry King Live Tonight»

The Think Progress mothership reports that Glenn Beck “will guest-host CNN’s Larry King Live tonight,” the same time his 7 PM CNN Headline News show repeats. This means:

In inviting Beck to host Larry King, CNN is granting Beck a monopoly over its programming for a full prime-time hour. Counting scheduled replays of both programs, Beck will be on air for a total of eight hours between 7 PM tonight and 7 AM tomorrow morning — a full third of the two networks’ combined airtime.

Beck is one of the most notorious Big Oil apologists and global warming deniers in mainstream media today, famed for his bizarre anti-polar-bear fetish.

More substantively, in just the past few months Beck has:

– Falsely claimed that “global warming now looks like it’s going to be on hold for ten years.”

– Described the disastrous coal-to-liquid gasoline technology as “good for the nation.”

– Told America to “Be thankful for big oil.”

– Promoted false smears against former Vice President Al Gore.

Beck’s ranting against reality is consistent with his right-wing worldview. Check out Think Progress to review Beck’s sorry history of racist, sexist, and bigoted remarks.

Global Boiling: Yes, CNN, Global Warming Is To Blame For Wildfires»

More than 1,700 wildfires are burning across California, at a cost of greater than $200 million. Yesterday, CNN interrupted its breathless coverage of these catastrophic wildfires to ask, “Is this climate change? Is this global warming?” Miles O’Brien, CNN’s chief technology and environment correspondent, attempted to supply an answer, with a dithering, confusing, and chart-filled presentation, cautioning that “it’s hard to make a connect-the-dots moment here in all of this” and that his charts “will make your eyes glaze over.”

At the end, anchor Tony Harris responded:

Let me ask something crazy here. You know, nature’s been doing this, lightning strikes, whatever, for a gazillion years. Isn’t it it’s own sort of a natural pruning process? I know that we’ve got a hand in this, but this has always been the case.

As a public service for the reporters at CNN, here’s a “connect-the dots” moment. This season’s wildfires are coming on the heels of the four worst wildfire seasons in the modern era of wildfire control, begun in the 1960s with wildfire management and changes in land use and forestry. In 2006, nearly “100,000 fires were reported and nearly 10 million acres burned, 125 percent above the 10-year average.”

And global warming is at fault.

As the 2006 Science report Warming and Earlier Spring Increase Western U.S. Forest Wildfire Activity states unequivocally:

Thus, although land-use history is an important factor for wildfire risks in specific forest types (such as some ponderosa pine and mixed conifer forests), the broad-scale increase in wildfire frequency across the western United States has been driven primarily by sensitivity of fire regimes to recent changes in climate over a relatively large area.

Furthermore:

Hence, the projected regional warming and consequent increase in wildfire activity in the western United States is likely to magnify the threats to human communities and ecosystems, and substantially increase the management challenges in restoring forests and reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

What’s more, multiple federal government agencies have been sounding the alarm for at least a decade, with the evidence for the building catastrophe growing starker year by year: More »

Larry King Live Panders To Big Oil ‘Heroes’»

CNN’s Larry King Live offered a cavalcade of oil, coal, and nuclear industry apologists last night, telling watchers that “all of us” are to blame for high gas prices, oil companies are “heroes,” and that we should convert coal to gasoline, drill for oil in the North Pole, and build more nuclear plants. Not once was global warming mentioned, or how the policies advocated by the guests would lead us on a path to climate catastrophe.

Chevron’s CEO, David O’Reilly, sat with King throughout the show, defending his company’s record profits and deflecting questions about how much he personally makes. When asked by King if he feels any guilt for Chevron’s $18 billion profit last year, O’Reilly blamed “all of us” for being “too complacent about energy.” O’Reilly also pushed for lifting the offshore drilling moratorium, saying drilling in protected areas “can be done safely” but “will take some time.” He continued:

But, the reality is it can be done. It’s urgent enough that if we don’t start today, my kids and my grandkids will suffer because of it.

Unlike the O’Reilly clan, most “kids and grandkids” today do not have oil executives for grandparents to pass down their obscene profits — in the past five years, O’Reilly has pulled in $82.51 million. It’s certainly possible that the O’Reilly inheritance might “suffer” a bit if Chevron’s oil lust is kept in check.

However, all children today will suffer as they try to survive on the radically changed and deteriorated planet if fossil fuel use, as O’Reilly advocates, continues unabated for decades to come.

King’s guests also included the notorious global warming denier John Stossel, who pushed the climate-killing coal-to-liquids technology, then sucked up to O’Reilly with this spiel:

I think these oil companies are heroes. Think what it takes to bring this stuff to us, across an ocean, refine it into three types of gasoline, put it in trucks that cost 100,000 dollars each, ship that to gasoline stations that have to have this expensive equipment so we don’t blow ourselves up pumping our own gas.

O’Reilly’s response? “That’s nice to hear someone on our side.”

Watch it:

Stossel wasn’t the only one. In opposition to O’Reilly’s promotion of offshore drilling, Gov. Brian Schweitzer (D-MT) advocated drilling in his state of Montana. Larry King’s listeners also heard from Nancy Pfotenhauer, a McCain spokeswoman who repeated her claim — despite all evidence — that “Senator McCain’s plan has provisions to immediately offer some relief.” She somehow failed to mention that she is also a career hack for Koch Industries, the $90 billion right-wing pollution-industry giant. King joined in the fun by asking when Chevron would start drilling for oil in the North Pole — seemingly anxious for when global warming will have eliminated the ice that has been there since the dawn of the human race.

CNN’s other friends to their fossil-industry sponsors include Ali Velshi, a dedicated coal-industry supporter, and Glenn Beck, a global warming denier who recently told Americans, “Be thankful for big oil.”

Digg it!

UPDATE: Media Matters reports that NBC and MSNBC have aired multiple reports on offshore drilling — including segments reported live from a Chevron oil rig — without explaining “environmental concerns” or disclosing GE’s drilling connection.

Coal Industry Sponsors CNN, CNN Praises Coal»

CNN senior business correspondent Ali Velshi has been promoting coal-to-liquids technology and praising “clean coal, 99 percent clean” for an entire month. On Tuesday, CNN held a no-holds-barred coalfest, promoting coal-to-liquids and coal gasification technologies, calling coal “seductive,” and criticizing “blogs” who “go nuts” and “environmentalists” who “want to get rid of coal.”

What’s motivating CNN to closely mirror coal-industry talking points?

One hopes it has nothing to do with this:

The American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity is a $45 million front group for over 40 companies in the coal industry.

CNN’s Ali Velshi Confuses Coal With Soap»

On the date of the West Virginia primary, CNN senior business correspondent Ali Velshi appeared throughout the morning and afternoon, waving a lump of coal. In one segment yesterday morning, Velshi described the coal-to-liquids process:

It is a cleaner burning fuel in the end — now I get in a lot of trouble when I say this, because the blogs go nuts on this — I didn’t say coal was clean. I said that the fuel that is derived from coal happens to be a very clean-burning fuel. What happens prior to when it becomes gasoline can be very dirty.

As the Wonk Room reported, on April 25, Velshi said:

You see the signs for clean coal, 99 percent clean. I’m not 99 percent clean when I get out of the shower. . . I just look clean.

And then yesterday afternoon Velshi got excited:

Most people think of coal as a relatively dirty thing. You may have seen the ads on TV for 99.9% clean coal, that’s clean coal technology. Bottom line is people are split on the cleanliness of coal.

Watch it:

There are, in fact, no such ads, because even the coal industry isn’t willing to be that misleading about coal. Velshi seems to be confusing coal propaganda with the classic Ivory Soap slogan, “99 and 44/100% pure.”

Velshi asked for people to email suggestions about what “we should cover when it comes to energy.” Here are a few items not discussed in yesterday’s coalfest on CNN: More »

CNN Goes Nuts For Coal»

As primaries are held today in the coal-rich but job-poor state of West Virginia, CNN — whose presidential debates have been sponsored by the coal industry front group ACCCE — is spending significant air time promoting coal-industry spin. The Wonk Room has previously highlighted CNN senior business correspondent Ali Velshi’s exploitative promotion of coal-to-liquids technology. Today, Velshi brought the rest of the CNN team into his coal-propaganda orbit.

CNN’s American Morning show was drenched with segments promoting coal above the chyron “MAKING GAS FROM COAL: REDUCING DEPENDENCE ON OIL.” Velshi even handed out coal to hosts John Roberts and Kyra Phillips. Phillips chirpily exclaimed, “We’ve got hope. We’re going to make gas out of coal.” Roberts introduced a segment on an eccentric inventor developing coal gasification — not the same as coal-to-liquids — technology by saying “We have huge supplies of it: coal!”

On “Your World Today,” senior correspondent Allan Chernoff confused coal-to-liquids with coal gasification and intoned, “Environmentalists want to get rid of coal. That’s not happening.” On CNN Newsroom, Brianna Keilar called the “250-year supply” of coal “seductive” before begging Ali to show off his lump of coal some more.

Watch video from today’s coalfest: More »

Ali Velshi Hosts Glenn Beck To Promote Liquid Coal»

Recently, CNN’s senior business correspondent Ali Velshi has been promoting coal-based liquid fuel as a response to high oil prices, even though it leads to climate disaster. Yesterday, the Wonk Room noted that Velshi has even implied coal is cleaner than himself. This afternoon, Velshi continued his obsession with liquid coal in a discussion with CNN’s Glenn Beck. Beck is a self-described “big dumb rodeo clown” who believes the United States is a “suicidal superpower” for not turning coal into gasoline:

This can be done — coal to oil — at $55 a barrel. That’s about half of what we are paying right now for oil. We can have cheap oil that is actually good for the nation because it is all home grown. We’re sitting … just Montana is the Saudi Arabia of coal.

Montana does indeed have vast coal reserves. But coal-based fuel is in fact a dangerous and expensive prospect once the high costs of its pollution are factored in — especially its carbon dioxide global warming emissions.

Velshi then noted that his “clean coal” boosterism has raised questions about his journalistic integrity:

Well you know, South Africa, most of the gasoline it uses is produced from coal. I did something on this the other day and the number of e-mails and comments I got about how I’m shilling for the coal industry . . .

After Beck scoffed, “Oh please,” Velshi then made his most accurate pronouncement about coal to date:

I don’t think it’s clean. It’s not cleaner. It just happens to not be oil.

Glenn Beck — whose response to the threat of climate change is to complain that polar bears eat people — was terribly alarmed by Velshi’s moment of truth:

Now hang on just a second. We can sequester the CO2 now. We can make it cleaner than it has been.

In fact, there is not a single coal plant producing electricity or fuel that sequesters carbon dioxide anywhere on the planet. Although we definitely can make coal cleaner, the coal industry is doing everything it can to ensure that the American taxpayer foots the bill. If Velshi were truly interested in the economics of coal, he would host financial analysts that discuss the economic risks of coal power, not global-warming deniers like Glenn Beck.

Watch it:

Transcript: More »

CNN’s Velshi Promotes Coal: I’m Not Even As ‘Clean’ As Coal When I ‘Get Out Of The Shower’»

Previewing his interview with the CEO of Sasol, a South African company that produces coal-based liquid fuels, chief business correspondent Ali Velshi admitted on CNN’s American Morning on Friday that “There are issues with coal,” but minimized its problems:

There are issues with coal. It’s not the cleanest thing in the world. You see the signs for clean coal, 99 percent clean. I’m not 99 percent clean when I get out of the shower. . . I just look clean.

Watch it:

Velshi’s hygiene is his own business, but it’s no secret that coal is a dirty fuel and Velshi’s “99 percent clean” is false:

– The misleading “clean coal” ads from the coal-industry front group ACCCE only claim that “today’s coal-based generating fleet is already 70 percent cleaner based upon regulated emissions per unit of energy produced.”

– The “70 percent” baseline is from 1970 and only refers to air pollutants covered by the Clean Air Act, not water and land pollution or greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide.

– Because coal use has more than tripled since 1970, total pollution from coal plants has increased. In fact, in 2004 the Clean Air Task Force found coal-plant pollution “cuts short the lives of nearly 24,000 people each year.”

Velshi has now used his position to repeatedly promote coal-to-liquids technology and minimize its problems. Perhaps he wasn’t kidding when he said, “I only look clean.”

Transcript: More »

Coal-Sponsored CNN Promotes Climate Killer Coal Technology»

On CNN this morning, senior business correspondent Ali Velshi discussed the new record high oil prices reached today. American Morning co-host Kiran Chetry asked Velshi about ways to conserve, such as hybrids. His response:

I just spoke to the CEO of Sasol, the old South African oil company. They make gasoline out of coal. If oil is not $50 or higher, it doesn’t make it worth doing that. But at 112 bucks, 113 bucks, why not?

Watch it:

Why not convert coal into gasoline using coal-to-liquids (CTL) technology? After all, the United States does have abundant coal reserves, and CTL is a well-established technology, having been developed by scientists in Nazi Germany:

Liquid coal increases our addiction to fossil fuels. The way to break an addiction to fossil fuels is to figure out how to use less, not consume more. To replace ten percent of our oil consumption would require an increase in coal mining by 40%.

Liquid coal is a climate killer. The energy required to convert coal to liquid fuel doubles the amount of carbon dioxide released compared to petroleum-based gasoline, producing a “ton of carbon dioxide for each barrel of liquid fuel.”

I hope CNN’s Velshi is promoting coal-to-liquid technology unwittingly, and not because his network has been receiving millions of dollars from the coal industry to run their debates — debates where questions about global warming are rarely if ever asked.

Transcript: More »

Oil Industry Apologists Declare ‘We Like Oil,’ ‘Be Thankful,’ ‘Don’t Blame Oil’»

Following a contentious Congressional hearing on record gas prices this week in which oil executives defended their record profits by saying they “are working darned hard,” apologists for the oil industry are attempting to convince people not to invest in a sustainable future.

Mark Davis, substituting for Rush Limbaugh on the Limbaugh radio show, claimed Congressman Ed Markey was “raping these guys rhetorically” at an “obscene” hearing. Davis defends the oil industry:

And all these guys are trying to do is get us more oil because we like oil. Everybody wants to run our cars on baby shampoo or cornpone or whatever. Well, if, if a car’s developed that works the same way, runs the same way, has the same horsepower then maybe we’ll think about that. Until then alternative fuels will remain a fringe pursuit.

Listen:

That’s not quite “all these guys are trying to do.” The oil industry spends hundreds of millions of dollars a year on Congress, front groups, and public relations campaigns to block any policies that would lessen our reliance on oil or worse, reduce their tax breaks and government subsidies.

Glenn Beck used his CNN soapbox to tell America, “Be thankful for big oil,” and offered an almost entirely incoherent defense of the companies, admitting that they “make a lot of cash” but that they “get ambulances to the hospital” because of capitalism’s incentives. In Beck’s world, oil companies don’t just need record profits and multi-billion-dollar tax breaks — they should also be getting more gratitude from the American people. He goes on to attack the government:

I’ve yet to see what our government does for us with their rather large chunk of each gallon of gas we buy, and I’ve yet to see them offer to return it or suggest a gas-tax-windfall-tax-tax.

Beck’s inability to “see what our government does for us” is simply evidence of willful blindness. Our government plows all revenues from the federal gas tax into highway and mass transit maintenance and development. And “their rather large chunk” in fact isn’t– as the price of crude oil has skyrocketed but the federal gas tax has remained unchanged, the amount of a dollar of gas that goes to the government has plummeted from 32 cents in 2000 to 13 cents today.

American Petroleum Institute president and CEO Red Cavaney used a USA Today column to tell Americans: “Don’t blame oil companies.” Cavaney also argues that the Democratic plan to roll back billions in oil-company tax breaks to pay for renewable energy incentives that are under the threat of expiring this year, putting “$19 billion of investment and 116,000 jobs in the US at risk.” This plan has been filibustered repeatedly in the Senate by Big Oil’s allies, most recently by a single vote:

These taxes would move us in the wrong direction by taking away income that could be reinvested in more oil and gas.

Caveney is literally arguing that it is the “wrong direction” to take money from oil and gas development and give it to people willing to invest in renewable energy and energy efficiency — reducing our addiction to fossil fuels. The only ones for whom that is the wrong direction are the oil companies themselves, who seem determined to drill faster to climate catastrophe.