The Wonk Room

On Election Day, King Coal Celebrates Public Relations ‘Landslide’»

The American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity (ACCCE), the coal industry’s propaganda front group, is upbeat about this election day, as indicated by their press release today. ACCCE VP Joe Lucas claimed:

If “support for the use of coal for generating electricity” were on the ballot today, it would win by a landslide.

His choice of words is unfortunate, as landslides are only one of the many deadly hazards of coal mining, especially under the lax safety enforcement of the Bush administration.

ACCCE is celebrating a poll that showed their $50 million propaganda campaign influenced “adults with $80,000 or more in household income and a four-year college degree or more and a professional or managerial job title or a business owner and a high degree of involvement in politics and policy matters.”

However, all the PR spin in the world can’t affect scientific reality. America’s coal plants produce about 49 percent of U.S. electricity but account for 83 percent of power-sector emissions. And we need to reduce net emissions to zero as fast as humanly possible to preserve our civilization from catastrophic global warming.

The tobacco industry spent hundreds of millions of dollars to obscure the scientific fact that their product is an addictive, deadly drug. After decades of debate, after millions of Americans had their lives unnecessarily shortened, our government crafted policies that protected tobacco farmers and reduced the tobacco industry’s grip. Even so, the needless deaths continue, all to protect the profits of a very powerful few.

Our current situation with the coal industry is similar, but the stakes are even more grave. No matter what actions Washington D.C. takes, the 80,000 people in the coal mining industry — 0.02% of the U.S. population — should be taken care of. These workers deserve better than they are getting today, as the union-busting coal barons ignore safety regulations and cut benefits. But make no mistake — the burning of coal is burning up the planet.

The world is not going to stop using coal for decades, even if the United States were to move entirely to a fossil-free power grid. If we can develop the technology needed to economically capture the emissions of coal plants, and I hope we can, then the coal industry will have the opportunity to rake in billions of dollars in profits for a few more generations.

The saddest thing about the ACCCE campaign is not its facile dishonesty, but that we continue to have a political discourse that places more weight on perception than reality.

Lying About Energy Security, NAM Wants Virginia To Risk Flood Of Nuclear Waste»

The Wonk Room recently pointed out that Sen. John McCain’s plan to achieve energy independence by doubling our use of nuclear power is a pipe dream, since the U.S. nuclear industry must import over 90% of its uranium. The National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) shot back on its Shopfloor blog, writing about the promise of southwest Virginia’s Pittsylvania uranium deposits:

How so, with a resource like the Pittsylvania ore available? Unless, of course, you expect environmentalists to block mining and nuclear power as they have in the past, in the process guaranteeing continued energy insecurity.

NAM quotes their friends Jack Spencer and Nicolas Loris at the conservative Heritage Foundation, who claims the Pittsylvania site has “110 million pounds of uranium,” enough to “supply all 104 nuclear reactors in the United States, which provide 20 percent of the nation’s electricity, for two years.” While NAM attacks “environmentalists,” Heritage prefers blaming “government bureaucrats” for preventing access to a “safe, affordable, clean energy source” – the language right-wing wordmeister Frank Luntz constructed to describe a dangerously toxic energy source.

In fact:

NAM’s Nuclear Obsession Guarantees ‘Energy Insecurity.’ The U.S. consumes one quarter of the world oil supply, but has only two percent of global reserves. The U.S. uranium position is eerily similar: “The U.S. has about 3 percent-4 percent of the world’s known uranium and produces about 4.3 percent of the world’s supply despite operating about one-quarter of the world’s commercial power reactors.” [EIA 1/29/07, 6/9/08] [Heritage Foundation, 3/25/08]

The Threat Of Uranium Mining In Virginia Is Real. “Enormous quantities of radioactive waste are generated by uranium mining and milling, with only 2 to 4 pounds of concentrated uranium oxide yellow cake obtained from each ton of ore taken out of the ground.” “Most domestic uranium mining occurs in the arid waste, where the radioactive waste is less likely to contaminate runoff. But the Virginia uranium mining would occur in a place with four times the annual rainfall of the west – 40-60 inches annually. This rainfall dramatically increases the risk of radioactive runoff contaminating drinking water.” [Piedmont Environmental Council]

Why are NAM and Heritage promoting Pittsylvania uranium as a “safe” solution to “energy security” despite the facts? Could it be because there’s a huge pile of money at stake? The Pittsylvania deposits are worth upwards of $10 billion for Virginia Uranium, the private company that owns the mining rights — and is selling the project with an army of lobbyists as a “safe” solution for “energy independence.”

UPDATE: Jack Spencer writes in: More »

ACCCE’s $40 Million ‘Clean Coal’ Lie»

Our guest blogger is Daniel J. Weiss, a Senior Fellow and the Director of Climate Strategy at the Center for American Progress Action Fund.

Yesterday, the Wall Street Journal credited the American Council for Clean Coal Electricity’s (ACCCE) president, Stephen Miller, for convincing politicians, the media and the public that “clean coal” is a cure all for global warming pollution from coal-fired power plants:

Mr. Miller, 55 years old, is president of the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity, a Virginia group funded by the country’s major coal-burning utilities, coal producers and railroads that haul coal. Over the past year, his organization has spent nearly $40 million on television and radio spots and other outreach efforts to bolster public support for coal, and to reinforce fears that limits on its use will raise living costs.

ACCCE’s TV ads feature a diverse group of American archetypes saying “I believe” in achieving energy independence, using new technologies, and other similar platitudes. Only at the end does it mention that the ad is about “clean coal.”

What does ACCCE mean by “clean coal”? To the degree it means anything, it’s a euphemism for reducing greenhouse gases from coal-fired power plants via carbon capture and storage (CCS), a promising but unproven technology. In fact, the International Energy Agency yesterday released a report that determined that CCS is a long way from commercialization: More »

Repower America? ABC Says No»

Since September, Al Gore’s We Campaign has been running their Repower America advertisement that criticizes the “hundreds of millions of dollars” that big oil spends on lobbyists and ads to keep Americans “stuck with dirty and expensive energy.” Coverage of the presidential race by the corporate media has been fueled by this dirty money — CNN is sponsored by the coal industry, and CBS by Exxon Mobil. And following Tuesday’s presidential debate, ABC aired one of Chevron’s greenwashing “Human Energy” ads. But ABC refused to air “Repower America.”

A spokesperson for the Alliance for Climate Protection, the We Campaign’s parent organization, sent the Wonk Room ABC’s excuse:

Per our Guidelines, national buildings may be used in advertising provided the depictions are incidental to the advertiser’s promotion of the product or service. Given the messages and themes of this commercial, the image of the Capital building is not incidental to this advertising. Please replace the image with one that is not of another national building or monument. Thank you.

Here’s the offending image, on screen for one second:

While running ads calling for conservation and depicting happy children and unspoiled nature, Chevron was simultaneously expanding its operations in the tar sands of Alberta, Canada and oil fields of the Niger Delta, and lobbying to lift the offshore drilling moratorium.

Cathy Zoi, CEO of the Alliance for Climate Protection, sent the following message to the 1.6 million members of the We Campaign:

I sent a letter asking ABC to reconsider their decision and put our ad on the air, but still we haven’t heard back more than a week later. I think they need to hear from all of us. Can you help? Please send a message to ABC and tell them to air the Repower America ad this Friday on 20/20. Just click here:

http://www.wecansolveit.org/ABC

We’re working to get 100,000 public comments to ABC before 20/20’s next airing.

Our Repower America ad has a clear and simple message — that massive spending by oil and coal companies on advertising is a key reason our nation hasn’t switched to clean and renewable sources for our energy.

UPDATE 10/10/08: Cathy Zoi writes:

In just 24 hours, more than 100,000 folks sent messages to ABC in support of airing our Repower America ad. But we still haven’t heard from ABC.

Colbert Parodies Big Oil’s Greenwashing Propaganda»

In last night’s Colbert Report, Stephen Colbert eviscerated the Drill, Baby, Drill hoax (”last week, the Democrat Congress voted to lift the 26-year ban on offshore drilling, thereby ending our dependence on foreign oil by one percent ten to twenty years from now”) before training his sights on Big Oil’s greenwashing propaganda. After airing clips from advertisements of Exxon Mobil, Valero, and Chevron, Colbert asks:

A lot of people talk about loving the earth. But how many of them actually penetrate it?

Watch it:

The parody promotional video Colbert airs in this segment is from Prescott Oil, part of the fictional Prescott Group corporate conglomerate that Colbert has used to skewer pharmaceutical industries.

The fossil-fuel industry is on track to spend one billion dollars this year propagandizing oil, coal and natural gas. As the Public Campaign Action Fund found, “In the first half of 2008, the major industry players, American Petroleum Institute, BP, Chevron Texaco, Conoco Phillips, Exxon Mobil, Hess Corporation, and Royal Dutch Shell, spent $92.2 million on broadcast and cable advertising; $14.9 million on radio advertising; $57.5 million on print advertising in magazines and newspapers; $5.3 million on Internet advertising; and $4.0 million on other media.”

Al Gore: ‘Clean Coal’s Like Healthy Cigarettes’»

At the Clinton Global Initiative, Al Gore ripped apart “clean coal,” the coal industry catch-all propaganda term for advanced coal technologies, both existing ones that reduce traditional pollutants and developmental ones, like carbon capture and sequestration. Gore was asked by Bill Clinton, “Do you believe that the current economic difficulties will make it harder or easier to pass good climate legislation?” Here’s Gore’s answer:

For the first time in all of human history, we, as a species, have to make a decision. If we make the right decision then the answer to the question you asked is, the economic crisis can provide an opportunity to make the right kind of changes.

What should we do? We should stop burning coal . . . without sequestering the CO₂. The coal and oil companies have spent in the United States alone a half a billion dollars in the first eight months of this year promoting a lie that there is such a thing as “clean coal.” Clean coal’s like healthy cigarettes — it does not exist. It could theoretically exist. The only demonstration plant was canceled. How many, how many such plants are there? Zero. How many blueprints? Zero.

Watch it:

Gore continued with a discussion of how the United States and the rest of the world should build a new, smart electricity infrastructure based on wind, solar, and geothermal power “to take the energy from the places where the sun falls and the wind blows to the places where the people live” — including a link from places like Darfur to Europe:

We are now — what we should do is make a one-off investment to switch our energy infrastructure from one that depends on fuel that is dirty, dangerous, destroying the habitability of this planet, and rising in price, to a new global energy infrastructure that is based on fuel that is free forever: the sun, and the wind, and geothermal. There’s a myth that the technology is not available. It is available. Concentrating geothermal [Ed.: He means “solar”] power is competitive today. Wind is competitive, though intermittent, today. Geothermal is competitive today.

More »

‘Clean Skies’ Front Group Pushes Natural Gas Subsidies»

The American Clean Skies Foundation, a greenwashing front group for natural gas giant Chesapeake Energy, is celebrating its “newly renovated offices and studios” on Capitol Hill. And you’re invited:

ACSF is selling the message that natural gas, also known as methane, is “clean energy” on its 24-7 Internet video station, CleanSkies.TV. Launched on Earth Day, CleanSkies.TV features professional reporters interviewing politicians, energy analysts, and environmentalists on topical issues — surrounded by advertisements for natural gas. In an email interview with the Wonk Room, Sierra Club press secretary David Willett praised ACSF for “going out of their way to have the environmentalist perspective represented.” CleanSkies.TV prominently presents Sierra Club videos and documentaries in a non-exclusive deal. “If natural gas wants to foot the bill to host our completely unedited message,” explains Willett, “that’s fine with us.”

Since June 8, ACSF has been producing “Clean Skies Sunday,” a weekly infomercial in the guise of an energy news program that runs on WJLA-TV, the Washington DC ABC affiliate.

Billionaire ACSF founder and Chesapeake Energy CEO Aubrey McClendon is now using the popularity of the Pickens Plan to promote taxpayer subsidies for compressed natural gas for cars, in a joint campaign with T. Boone Pickens called CNG Now. McClendon and Pickens are making this push as California considers Proposition 10 to subsidize CNG vehicles.

The Conservation Report’s Buck Denton responds:

Undoubtedly, wind power and natural gas should be part of the energy mix of the future, but natural gas shouldn’t be a solution at the expense of cleaner renewable resources, and natural gas shouldn’t be wasted on vehicles when more efficient and cleaner technologies exist. Furthermore, cleaner gasoline engines and the almost similar greenhouse gas emissions between natural gas and diesel vehicles are factors that make an aggressive push towards natural gas seem ridiculous from a policy standpoint (more information regarding these claims can be found here).

Natural gas, like all other fossil fuels, comes with a huge health and environmental footprint, from drilling to burning. The natural gas industry is responsible for 18.6% of greenhouse gas emissions in the United States. Praising natural gas for being less cancerous and less polluting than coal should only underscore how dirty a fuel coal is — not promote the false impression that natural gas is “clean.”

The Politics Of Wired: Saucy, Ignorant Contrarianism»

Our guest blogger is journalist and author Paulina Borsook.

The June 2008 issue of Wired magazine, which counsels “rethinking everything you ever learned about being green” (with an implicit message of “don’t listen to the pieties of the left”), and has a forward by Wired co-founder Louis Rossetto, harkens back to the bad old days of its libertarian anti-progressive politics.

When Wired magazine first hit the scene fifteen years ago in June 1993, part of its gestalt was a kind of world-turned-upside-down saucy contrarianism. Information technology is sexy! And more indirectly, pious humorless liberals are repressive and not on the side of change! I should know, as I was in its early days the magazine’s in-house critic/loyal opposition.

And rather like a Rockette brought out of retirement to kick up her heels at the senior center follies, I’ll weigh in once again on the politics of Wired. It would be too tedious to argue with all ten of Wired’s inconvenient mistruths, so let me take on a typical example, “Screw Organic“:

The path to virtue, we all know, begins with organics. Meat, milk, fruit, veggies — organic products are good for our bodies and good for the planet. Except when they’re not good for the planet.

Even accepting the claim that only “cutting carbon” matters in dealing with global warming, the Wired author’s argument is nonsensical: More »

Coal Industry Launches Full-Scale Attack Against Climate Legislation»

The coal-industry front group American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity (ACCCE) has launched a major lobbying campaign against the Lieberman-Warner Climate Security Act (S. 2191). ACCCE claims it is opposed to Lieberman-Warner because it “does not adequately embrace” their “principles” and raises “just too many unanswered questions.”

Principles: ACCCE’s 12 principles for federal legislation boil down to demands that they be allowed to construct new, uncontrolled coal-fired power plants until taxpayers pony up unlimited amounts of money for carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) technology. That’s not a statement of principles — it’s a ransom note.

Lieberman-Warner, named for its two co-sponsors Joe Lieberman (I-CT) and John Warner (R-VA), would allow the United States to join the rest of the world in combatting climate change by setting a firm limit on carbon emissions while providing support to low-income families. However, the bill also makes significant concessions to polluters, particularly the coal industry:

–The bill calls for reductions in greenhouse emissions that are insufficient to avoid climate catastrophe.
–The bill gives a windfall of emissions permits to polluters, instead of auctioning all permits.
–The bill promises over $300 billion directly to coal polluters.

Strangely, that isn’t enough for ACCCE.

Questions: ACCCE’s questions boil down to pro-coal talking points, recycled attacks on “foreign fuels,” and vague fears about “unnecessarily” increased costs that have been well debunked.

Listen to the Pennsylvania radio spot:

More »

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 »

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 »

Big Oil: ‘Together, We Can’ Ignore Climate Change»

The American Petroleum Institute (API), the trade organization for the oil and natural gas industry, has just begun running a feel-good commercial that argues “America’s future” lies in drilling out domestic reserves of oil and natural gas off our coasts, in our western lands, and in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Here’s what the ad says:

Oil and natural gas powered the past. But the future? Fact is, a growing world will require more. 45% more by 2030, along with greatly expanding alternatives. We have substantial oil and natural gas resources right here. Enough to power 60 million cars and heat 160 million households for 60 years. With advanced technology and smart policies, together we can secure America’s future. Log on to learn more. [TEXT: EnergyTomorrow.org / The People of America’s Oil and Natural Gas Industry]

Watch it:

The “facts” in Big Oil’s ad are based on a thirty-six page API document entitled, “The Truth About Oil and Gasoline.” This “primer” was published last week, with numerous figures and charts on oil company profits and gas prices, but nary a single mention of climate change or greenhouse gas emissions. Here are the facts Big Oil left out:

Future With 45% More Oil And Gas Demand Involves 60% More Global Warming Emissions. The projection of “45% more by 2030″ gas and oil demand is drawn from the International Energy Agency’s (IEA) World Energy Outlook 2007 report. The API accurately describes the increase in global oil and gas demand in the IEA’s business-as-usual scenario, although United States demand is only projected to increase by less than 5%. However, API fails to mention the business-as-usual scenario also predicts energy-related carbon emissions would “increase by almost 60%” by 2030.

Business As Usual Spells Catastrophic Future. The IEA business-as-usual scenario would put the planet on a pathway to “temperature change at equilibrium of about 4.9 to 6.1 degrees C [8.9 to 11°F] compared to pre-industrial levels.” That’s five to seven times as much warming as we’ve already experienced, and would make catastrophic global change — including mass species extinction, crop devastation, and significant sea level rise — unavoidable.

Big Oil Ignores The ‘Secure’ Scenario. The IEA’s report includes a “450 Stabilisation Case,” in which greenhouse emissions are limited such that atmospheric concentrations stabilize at 450 parts per million of CO₂ equivalent — what the IPCC calculated is need to avoid catastrophic climate change. In this scenario, total global oil and gas demand only increases by 10 percent from current levels, not the 45 percent that API says the world will “require.”

The ad’s tag line, “Together, we can secure America’s future,” mimics the We Campaign climate activism spot that concludes: “Together, we can solve the climate crisis.” The path Big Oil envisions — even as warning signs increase — would instead destroy the future of America and the rest of the planet.

Dreier Says Nukes ‘Cleanest, Safest, Most Cost Effective Energy Source Known To Man’»

Interviewed on Dennis Miller’s radio show today, Rep. David Dreier (R-CA) discussed the House GOP “commonsense” attack on Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) over skyrocketing gas prices. He then went off into the following non sequitur on nuclear power:

And frankly, whatever you want to say, you know, eighty percent of the French energy comes from nuclear power and it’s the cleanest, safest, most cost effective energy source known to man. And they have a very unique way of disposing of it. We should look at coal to liquification. We should be looking at all kinds of alternative sources and what is it that they have done? They refuse to allow us to even have votes on that.

Listen:

Dreier is mimicking talking points from the nuclear lobby. In a recent column in the Washington Times, Spencer Abraham of the Clean and Safe Energy Coalition claimed nuclear power is the “most environmentally friendly source of all clean-air electricity options.” Dreier is spinning an utter fantasy:

– “…cleanest, safest, most cost effective energy source known to man…” Nuclear power requires dangerous mining, produces permanently deadly toxic waste, and may abet the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. Nuclear power is only “cost effective” to the degree these costs are ignored.

– “…they have a very unique way of disposing of it…” The truth is that France, like the United States, still has no solution for safely managing nuclear waste. [Forbes, 3/22/06]

– “…We should look at coal to liquification…” 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.” [NRDC, 2/07]

–“…We should be looking at all kinds of alternative sources…” Energy sources that are cleaner and safer than nuclear power include: energy efficiency, co-generation, wind power, solar power (photovoltaic and thermal), geothermal power, and tidal power — to name a few.

–“…They refuse to allow us to even have votes on that.” Rep. Dreier has voted against the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 and Renewable Energy and Energy Conservation Tax Act of 2008, both of which would have taken tax subsidies away from oil companies to invest in renewable energy. He was one of only 31 people to fail to vote on the Advanced Fuels Infrastructure Research and Development Act.

The truth of the matter is that this Congress has raised fuel economy standards, increased investment in renewable energy, and repeatedly attempted to reduce subsidies for oil companies. And they’ve been opposed at every step of the way by Rep. Dreier.

TRANSCRIPT: More »

Coal’s Front Group Gets A New Name: American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity (ACCCE)»

Americans for Balanced Energy Choices (ABEC), the $40 million coal-propaganda front group founded in 2000, is no more. In recent months, youth, environment, and health activists have exposed the dirty secrets of ABEC’s astroturf efforts to attack green-collar jobs and propagandize coal. ABEC and the Center for Energy and Economic Development (CEED) — the trade organization that started the front group — have now become the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity (ACCCE).

That acronym just happens to be remarkably similar to:

ACEEE — the American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy, opposing coal plant construction in Kansas

GPACE — the Great Plains Alliance for Clean Energy, also leading the fight against coal plant construction in Kansas

SACE — the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, opposing coal plant construction in Florida

ACE NY — the Alliance for Clean Energy New York, promoting renewable technologies like wind over coal

At the Switchboard blog of the National Resources Defense Council — who make the case that “there is no such thing as ‘clean coal’” — Rob Perks notes, “They say a leopard can’t change its spots. That goes double for the sooty paw prints of the coal industry’s well-fed pet.”

H/T Gristmill, who found ACCCE’s “creepy new 60-second ad.”

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.

Bank of America: Fossil Fool Or Force For Nature?»

Bank of America CEO Kenneth D. Lewis received two utterly different awards from environmental groups on Tuesday, April 1 — the Energy Action Coalition and Rainforest Action Network (RAN) voted him the “Fossil Fool of the Year,” while the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) honored him at their annual fundraising gala as a “Force for Nature.”

Rebecca Tarbotton of RAN said, “Ken Lewis faced a who’s who list of polluters, but voters deemed him the worst of a very deserving crop.”

Frances Beinecke of NRDC said, “We have the know-how to beat global warming. What we need is the leadership to make it happen, and Ken Lewis is providing that leadership.”

FOSSIL FOOL? Climate and environmental activists celebrated “Fossil Fools Day” yesterday, April 1, with actions across the globe protesting the fossil fuel industry. Heeding Al Gore’s call for “young people to engage in peaceful protests to block major new carbon sources,” they blockaded coal mines, coal plants, and energy company headquarters.

As part of the day of action, the Energy Action Coalition dedicated the Fossil Fools Awards to “the world’s biggest contributors to our global addiction to fossil fuels.” Kenneth Lewis won top honors for facilitating “nearly $1 billion in loans to Massey Energy and Arch Coal, two of the largest companies involved in the environmentally devastating process of mountaintop removal coal mining” in the last few years. Bank of America also made several billion dollars in loans and facilitated stock offerings in 2006 for Peabody Energy, the world’s largest private coal company.

FORCE OF NATURE? NRDC’s tenth annual “Forces for Nature” $1000-a-plate fundraising gala feted Ken Lewis and NYC mayor Michael Bloomberg at Cipriani 42nd Street.

NRDC honored Lewis for Bank of America’s ten-year, $20 billion environmental initiative which “addresses climate change by championing sustainable business practices through innovative lending and investing strategies, new financial products and services and operations.” The initiative was launched last year. The new Bank of America Tower in New York City, when completed in 2009, will be one of the most environmentally friendly and efficient office
buildings in the world.

GETTING CLEANER: At the NRDC gala, Lewis made the major announcement that Bank of America would adopt the Carbon Principles, “a set of guidelines that help advisors and lenders to power companies evaluate and address carbon risks in the financing of projects” drafted in January by Citigroup Inc., J.P. Morgan Chase & Co., and Morgan Stanley. According to the Wall Street Journal, “the ‘Principles’ push utilities to explore other alternatives to regular coal plants . . . Still, the banks make clear they won’t stop funding all conventional coal plants—they’ll simply want assurances higher rates will cover likely costs of carbon.”

Lewis’s announcement demonstrates the effectiveness of having both critical pressure by the Rainforest Action Network and cooperative ventures with NRDC in changing the business practices of multinational corporations. But much more effort — from many more people — is needed to compel those with great power to accept their great responsibility to be responsible stewards of this planet.

Gore Launches $300 Million Climate Action Campaign»

Today, former Vice President Al Gore and his organization, the Alliance for Climate Protection, launched a $300 million, three-year campaign with the goal of “educating people in the US and around the world that the climate crisis is both urgent and solvable.” The Washington Post reports that the “We” campaign “aims to enlist 10 million volunteers through a combination of network and cable commercials, display ads…and online social networks.” Gore told 60 Minutes he and his wife Tipper had donated the Nobel Peace Prize money and all the profits from his documentary, “An Inconvenient Truth,” to this new campaign.

The campaign’s website, wecansolveit.org, includes action alerts, blogger outreach, and the message of a “clean energy economy” fueled by energy efficiency and renewable energy.

The campaign will launch TV advertisements later this week that “will team up offbeat celebrity couples who may not have much in common but share a belief that it is important to address climate change,” including Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and former Speaker Newt Gingrich, Al Sharpton and Pat Robertson, and the Dixie Chicks and Toby Keith. Sign up for the campaign, and watch its debut ad:

The Alliance’s spending of $100 million per year on a public advocacy campaign may be without precedent. However, the public is being bombarded with propaganda from the industries whose emissions are causing global warming and thus have the most to lose — or gain — from how the United States regulates greenhouse gas pollution. Here’s a look at what Gore’s campaign is up against:

• The energy, transportation, agribusiness, chemical, and energy-intensive manufacturing sectors have spent a combined $80 million in donations to Congress and presidential candidates since 2007;
• The coal industry is sponsoring a $20 million lobbying campaign by the National Mining Association and a $40 million campaign by its front group Americans for Balanced Energy Choices;
• The American Clean Skies Foundation, a natural gas industry front group, is launching a “multi-million dollar media advocacy campaign” with a 24-7 online TV channel on Earth Day;
• The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, American Council for Capital Formation, and the energy industry front group Alliance for Energy and Economic Growth have launched a 17-state tour painting a doom-and-gloom scenario for the economics of climate change action;
• Chevron, a major exploiter of the Alberta tar sands, is running the “Power of Human Energy” campaign;
• General Motors, whose chairman recently called global warming “a total crock of shit,” is running “GMNext,” Gas-Friendly to Gas Free” and “Live Green Go Yellow” campaigns;
• ConocoPhillips, who spent $506 million to purchase oil and gas leases in polar bear habitat in February, is running ads with the tagline “So we can pass on what matters … to the ones who matter most.”