SPECIAL INVESTIGATION: Who's behind the attack on state climate policy?
HOSTILE CLIMATE
The Center for Climate Strategies wants to help states cut global warming pollution. A North Carolina think tank funded by energy interests wants to stop them.
By Sue Sturgis
Given Washington's reluctance to tackle global warming, many states have recently taken the initiative, drawing up their own plans to cut carbon emissions. For help, 25 states have turned to the Center for Climate Strategies, a nonprofit group of scientists, engineers, business strategists and policy experts who guide states in figuring out how to best reduce greenhouse gas pollution.
But in recent months, the Center has become the target of concerted attacks by the John Locke Foundation, a conservative North Carolina-based think tank that opposes strict environmental regulations. A longtime skeptic of prevailing climate science, which it criticizes as "alarmist," Locke has published a series of scathing attacks directed at the Center in its own publications and other outlets including the American Spectator, Washington Times, Washington Examiner and the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.
Why the hostility? Among Locke's criticisms is that the Center for Climate Strategies was founded by an "environmental advocacy group." In fact, it was created by a business-friendly organization, the Pennsylvania Environmental Council, whose current directors include representatives from leading energy companies like PPL Corp., Inter-Power, Exelon and Reliant.
Locke also criticizes the Center for taking money from foundations that it accuses of being "on the global warming panic train," among them the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, the Turner Foundation and the Heinz Endowments.*
But Locke's diatribes against the Center fail to disclose the potential bias in its own funding sources. According to an Institute for Southern Studies analysis of the group's tax returns, the John Locke Foundation received at least $126,500 from outfits with ties to the fossil-fuel industry between fiscal 2002 and 2005.
Looming large behind a number of Locke's funders is ExxonMobil. Since 1998, the oil giant has funneled more than $16 million to several dozen advocacy organizations in an effort that a recent Union of Concerned Scientists report described as seeking "to deceive the public about the reality of global warming" by "using seemingly independent front organizations to publicly further its desired message."
Among the fossil-fuel-tainted contributions the Locke Foundation has received:
* $70,000 from the Claude R. Lambe Charitable Foundation, one of the Koch Family Foundations operated by billionaires David and Charles Koch of Koch Industries, the largest privately owned oil company in the United States.
* $20,000 from the Cato Institute, an anti-regulatory think tank that was co-founded by Charles Koch. Cato has received at least $110,000 from ExxonMobil since 1998, according to ExxonSecrets.org, a Web site sponsored by Greenpeace USA. ExxonSecrets.org also reports that Cato has received funds from such other fossil-fuel interests as the American Petroleum Institute, Chevron and Shell Oil.
* $15,000 from the Reason Foundation, an anti-regulatory think thank that's received $381,000 from ExxonMobil since 1998, according to ExxonSecrets.org. Reason has also received funds from the American Petroleum Institute, BP Amoco and Koch Industries.
* $10,000 from the Atlas Economic Research Foundation, an anti-regulatory think tank that's received $780,000 from ExxonMobil since 1998, according to ExxonSecrets.org. Charles Koch is also a major funder.
* $6,500 from the Center for Energy and Economic Development, a Texas-based nonprofit dedicated to protecting the viability of coal-based electricity.
* $5,000 from the DCI Group, a Republican lobbying firm that has received $140,000 from ExxonMobil since 1998, according to ExxonSecrets.org.
The John Locke Foundation's biggest funder is James Arthur "Art" Pope, who founded the organization and has given it more than $8 million since 2002. A former Republican N.C. state representative, Pope has served on the boards of the Exxon-funded Atlas Economic Research Foundation, as well as Citizens for a Sound Economy, another Koch-founded group that's also taken more than $380,000 from ExxonMobil since 1998.
Aside from being a prominent politico -- his hometown paper has dubbed him "the knight of the right" -- Pope is president and CFO of Variety Wholesalers, a company operating more than 500 discount retail stores in 14 states. Though not an energy firm, Variety does have an economic interest in avoiding gas taxes -- a proposalembraced catalogued* by the Center -- since its profits depend on importing and distributing foreign-made goods as cheaply as possible.
The John Locke Foundation stepped up its crusade against the Center for Climate Strategies this September, when it teamed up with the Heartland Institute to host a conference call promising to expose the Center’s "hijacking of climate policy."
The Heartland Institute was a natural ally: The Chicago-based think tank has long fought any attempts to curtail global warming pollutants. Heartland has also taken at least $791,500 from ExxonMobil since 1998, according to ExxonSecrets.org, and the Union of Concerned Scientists found that nearly 40 percent of the funds the institute got from the oil giant were earmarked for fighting climate change regulations. In addition, Walter Buchholtz, who's listed as Heartland's government relations advisor on the group's 2005 tax return (PDF), has also served as ExxonMobil’s senior environmental advisor.
The featured speaker for the Sept. 12 conference call -- which drew state legislators, policy analysts, and a lobbyist for Peabody Energy, the world's largest coal company -- was Michael Sanera, Locke's research director. Sanera is also a member of an advisory board for the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow and a former analyst at the Heritage Foundation -- both funded by ExxonMobil.
Sanera led the attendees through a Power Point attack, accusing the Center for Climate Strategies of, among other things, peddling false assumptions such as the idea that "CO2 emission reduction is the solution to global warming." It offered participants a list of suggestions on how to counteract the Center that included "Discredit CCS's Sponsoring Organization (State environmental bureaucracy)," "Demand scientific peer review process," and "Demand cost-benefit analysis by academic economists."
The assault on the Center continued on Oct. 5, when Locke's blog announced the launch of Climate Strategies Watch, "a new watchdog Web site that scrutinizes and keeps up with new developments of the Center for Climate Strategies."
Details were scarce: The post did not say who was behind the site, the site itself had no sponsor details, and the domain was anonymously registered. Weeks later, sponsorship information was added to the site, identifying it as a "joint project of The Heartland Institute and John Locke Foundation." The site's front page warns of the Center's funding by "wealthy liberals" and features the image of a man peering through a magnifying glass at cockroaches emblazoned with the names "Rockefeller," "Heinz" and "Turner."
Then on Oct. 17, Locke released what it called a "peer review assessment" by the Boston-based Beacon Hill Institute -- who had a representative on the September call -- claiming the Center used "seriously flawed" methods in crafting climate proposals because it did not account for the costs of regulating greenhouse emissions. Beacon Hill's assessment, however, didn't consider the costs of not regulating greenhouse gases. Nor did it disclose that among Beacon Hill's clients are the CSE Foundation, DCI Group, Heritage Foundation, Manhattan Institute, Pacific Research Institute and Texas Public Policy Foundation -- which together have received at least $1,780,000 from ExxonMobil since 1998.
A week after Beacon Hill's report was released, N.C. Sen. Robert Pittenger (R-Charlotte) -- a member of the N.C. Legislative Commission on Global Climate Change -- co-hosted with Locke a press conference spotlighting the study. Following the suggestion made during the Sept. 12 call to discredit the "environmental bureaucracy," Pittenger began by complaining that the commission didn't have enough hard science because it had heard from only two climatologists, Dr. Robert Balling and Dr. Pat Michaels.
As it so happens, though, both are prominent skeptics of prevailing climate science who've taken hundreds of thousands of dollars from oil, coal and other fossil-fuel interests (for details, see here and here). Michaels -- a scholar with the Exxon-funded George C. Marshall Institute and Cato Institute and an outspoken participant in the Sept. 12 conference call -- recently left his job with Virginia's state climatology office amid criticism that his industry funding and controversial views left the office too politicized. Still not satisfied, Pittenger said he petitioned the commission's chairs to invite two more prominent climate-science contrarians -- Dr. Sallie Baliunas and Dr. Richard Lindzen.
"We've got a bunch of liberal greenies who have just enough information to be dangerous," Pittenger declared at the event. Certainly no "greenie" himself, Pittenger has received $13,300 in political contributions from electric utilities and $5,200 from automotive interests in the last three election cycles, according to the National Institute on Money in State Politics. A real-estate investor, he's also taken more than $45,000 in contributions from his colleagues in the real-estate industry, many of whom dislike the smart-growth development policies the Center promotes.
So what does the John Locke Foundation feel should be done about climate change? Most of their work simply denies there's a serious problem. But they do offer a glimpse of what they think we should be worrying about instead in a February 2006 American Spectator opinion piece titled "Bible Bending Propaganda" by Paul Chesser, Locke's associate editor and a leading critic of the Center's work.
In the piece, Chesser goes after the Evangelical Climate Initiative, a Christian group favoring strong action to reduce global warming pollution. He blasts the Initiative for claiming Christ "for their own alarmist agenda" and its members for suffering from "Biblical illiteracy" and for being "Birkenstocked" "enviro-hippies."
But instead of calls for hard science, the Locke Foundation editor veers from the skeptics' usual playbook and quotes not a dissenting climatologist, but the biblical Book of Revelation. Scripture, Chesser notes, promises us that Jesus "does not dwell on the earth but instead will return to the New Jerusalem ... after God also establishes a new heaven and a new earth." Going on to cite a letter from Christ's apostle Peter describing a coming day of judgment and destruction of the "godless" in which the elements will be dissolved by fire, Chesser concludes:
(* Disclosure: The Institute for Southern Studies has received funding from the Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation and the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, which have also supported the Center for Climate Strategies' work. For a complete list of the Institute’s recent foundation supporters, click here.)
The Center for Climate Strategies wants to help states cut global warming pollution. A North Carolina think tank funded by energy interests wants to stop them.
By Sue SturgisGiven Washington's reluctance to tackle global warming, many states have recently taken the initiative, drawing up their own plans to cut carbon emissions. For help, 25 states have turned to the Center for Climate Strategies, a nonprofit group of scientists, engineers, business strategists and policy experts who guide states in figuring out how to best reduce greenhouse gas pollution.
But in recent months, the Center has become the target of concerted attacks by the John Locke Foundation, a conservative North Carolina-based think tank that opposes strict environmental regulations. A longtime skeptic of prevailing climate science, which it criticizes as "alarmist," Locke has published a series of scathing attacks directed at the Center in its own publications and other outlets including the American Spectator, Washington Times, Washington Examiner and the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.
Why the hostility? Among Locke's criticisms is that the Center for Climate Strategies was founded by an "environmental advocacy group." In fact, it was created by a business-friendly organization, the Pennsylvania Environmental Council, whose current directors include representatives from leading energy companies like PPL Corp., Inter-Power, Exelon and Reliant.
Locke also criticizes the Center for taking money from foundations that it accuses of being "on the global warming panic train," among them the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, the Turner Foundation and the Heinz Endowments.*
But Locke's diatribes against the Center fail to disclose the potential bias in its own funding sources. According to an Institute for Southern Studies analysis of the group's tax returns, the John Locke Foundation received at least $126,500 from outfits with ties to the fossil-fuel industry between fiscal 2002 and 2005.
Looming large behind a number of Locke's funders is ExxonMobil. Since 1998, the oil giant has funneled more than $16 million to several dozen advocacy organizations in an effort that a recent Union of Concerned Scientists report described as seeking "to deceive the public about the reality of global warming" by "using seemingly independent front organizations to publicly further its desired message."
Among the fossil-fuel-tainted contributions the Locke Foundation has received:
* $70,000 from the Claude R. Lambe Charitable Foundation, one of the Koch Family Foundations operated by billionaires David and Charles Koch of Koch Industries, the largest privately owned oil company in the United States.
* $20,000 from the Cato Institute, an anti-regulatory think tank that was co-founded by Charles Koch. Cato has received at least $110,000 from ExxonMobil since 1998, according to ExxonSecrets.org, a Web site sponsored by Greenpeace USA. ExxonSecrets.org also reports that Cato has received funds from such other fossil-fuel interests as the American Petroleum Institute, Chevron and Shell Oil.
* $15,000 from the Reason Foundation, an anti-regulatory think thank that's received $381,000 from ExxonMobil since 1998, according to ExxonSecrets.org. Reason has also received funds from the American Petroleum Institute, BP Amoco and Koch Industries.
* $10,000 from the Atlas Economic Research Foundation, an anti-regulatory think tank that's received $780,000 from ExxonMobil since 1998, according to ExxonSecrets.org. Charles Koch is also a major funder.
* $6,500 from the Center for Energy and Economic Development, a Texas-based nonprofit dedicated to protecting the viability of coal-based electricity.
* $5,000 from the DCI Group, a Republican lobbying firm that has received $140,000 from ExxonMobil since 1998, according to ExxonSecrets.org.
The John Locke Foundation's biggest funder is James Arthur "Art" Pope, who founded the organization and has given it more than $8 million since 2002. A former Republican N.C. state representative, Pope has served on the boards of the Exxon-funded Atlas Economic Research Foundation, as well as Citizens for a Sound Economy, another Koch-founded group that's also taken more than $380,000 from ExxonMobil since 1998.
Aside from being a prominent politico -- his hometown paper has dubbed him "the knight of the right" -- Pope is president and CFO of Variety Wholesalers, a company operating more than 500 discount retail stores in 14 states. Though not an energy firm, Variety does have an economic interest in avoiding gas taxes -- a proposal
* * *
The John Locke Foundation stepped up its crusade against the Center for Climate Strategies this September, when it teamed up with the Heartland Institute to host a conference call promising to expose the Center’s "hijacking of climate policy."
The Heartland Institute was a natural ally: The Chicago-based think tank has long fought any attempts to curtail global warming pollutants. Heartland has also taken at least $791,500 from ExxonMobil since 1998, according to ExxonSecrets.org, and the Union of Concerned Scientists found that nearly 40 percent of the funds the institute got from the oil giant were earmarked for fighting climate change regulations. In addition, Walter Buchholtz, who's listed as Heartland's government relations advisor on the group's 2005 tax return (PDF), has also served as ExxonMobil’s senior environmental advisor.
The featured speaker for the Sept. 12 conference call -- which drew state legislators, policy analysts, and a lobbyist for Peabody Energy, the world's largest coal company -- was Michael Sanera, Locke's research director. Sanera is also a member of an advisory board for the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow and a former analyst at the Heritage Foundation -- both funded by ExxonMobil.
Sanera led the attendees through a Power Point attack, accusing the Center for Climate Strategies of, among other things, peddling false assumptions such as the idea that "CO2 emission reduction is the solution to global warming." It offered participants a list of suggestions on how to counteract the Center that included "Discredit CCS's Sponsoring Organization (State environmental bureaucracy)," "Demand scientific peer review process," and "Demand cost-benefit analysis by academic economists."
The assault on the Center continued on Oct. 5, when Locke's blog announced the launch of Climate Strategies Watch, "a new watchdog Web site that scrutinizes and keeps up with new developments of the Center for Climate Strategies."
Details were scarce: The post did not say who was behind the site, the site itself had no sponsor details, and the domain was anonymously registered. Weeks later, sponsorship information was added to the site, identifying it as a "joint project of The Heartland Institute and John Locke Foundation." The site's front page warns of the Center's funding by "wealthy liberals" and features the image of a man peering through a magnifying glass at cockroaches emblazoned with the names "Rockefeller," "Heinz" and "Turner."
Then on Oct. 17, Locke released what it called a "peer review assessment" by the Boston-based Beacon Hill Institute -- who had a representative on the September call -- claiming the Center used "seriously flawed" methods in crafting climate proposals because it did not account for the costs of regulating greenhouse emissions. Beacon Hill's assessment, however, didn't consider the costs of not regulating greenhouse gases. Nor did it disclose that among Beacon Hill's clients are the CSE Foundation, DCI Group, Heritage Foundation, Manhattan Institute, Pacific Research Institute and Texas Public Policy Foundation -- which together have received at least $1,780,000 from ExxonMobil since 1998.
A week after Beacon Hill's report was released, N.C. Sen. Robert Pittenger (R-Charlotte) -- a member of the N.C. Legislative Commission on Global Climate Change -- co-hosted with Locke a press conference spotlighting the study. Following the suggestion made during the Sept. 12 call to discredit the "environmental bureaucracy," Pittenger began by complaining that the commission didn't have enough hard science because it had heard from only two climatologists, Dr. Robert Balling and Dr. Pat Michaels.
As it so happens, though, both are prominent skeptics of prevailing climate science who've taken hundreds of thousands of dollars from oil, coal and other fossil-fuel interests (for details, see here and here). Michaels -- a scholar with the Exxon-funded George C. Marshall Institute and Cato Institute and an outspoken participant in the Sept. 12 conference call -- recently left his job with Virginia's state climatology office amid criticism that his industry funding and controversial views left the office too politicized. Still not satisfied, Pittenger said he petitioned the commission's chairs to invite two more prominent climate-science contrarians -- Dr. Sallie Baliunas and Dr. Richard Lindzen.
"We've got a bunch of liberal greenies who have just enough information to be dangerous," Pittenger declared at the event. Certainly no "greenie" himself, Pittenger has received $13,300 in political contributions from electric utilities and $5,200 from automotive interests in the last three election cycles, according to the National Institute on Money in State Politics. A real-estate investor, he's also taken more than $45,000 in contributions from his colleagues in the real-estate industry, many of whom dislike the smart-growth development policies the Center promotes.
* * *
So what does the John Locke Foundation feel should be done about climate change? Most of their work simply denies there's a serious problem. But they do offer a glimpse of what they think we should be worrying about instead in a February 2006 American Spectator opinion piece titled "Bible Bending Propaganda" by Paul Chesser, Locke's associate editor and a leading critic of the Center's work.
In the piece, Chesser goes after the Evangelical Climate Initiative, a Christian group favoring strong action to reduce global warming pollution. He blasts the Initiative for claiming Christ "for their own alarmist agenda" and its members for suffering from "Biblical illiteracy" and for being "Birkenstocked" "enviro-hippies."
But instead of calls for hard science, the Locke Foundation editor veers from the skeptics' usual playbook and quotes not a dissenting climatologist, but the biblical Book of Revelation. Scripture, Chesser notes, promises us that Jesus "does not dwell on the earth but instead will return to the New Jerusalem ... after God also establishes a new heaven and a new earth." Going on to cite a letter from Christ's apostle Peter describing a coming day of judgment and destruction of the "godless" in which the elements will be dissolved by fire, Chesser concludes:
And don't forget, God has some serious global warming of His own planned ... Christian leaders ought to be warning people about that rather than looking for ways to mitigate the questionable effects of the current heat wave.
(* Disclosure: The Institute for Southern Studies has received funding from the Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation and the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, which have also supported the Center for Climate Strategies' work. For a complete list of the Institute’s recent foundation supporters, click here.)
Labels: climate, energy policy, politics
5 Comments:
Here is a piece Heartland did on Al Gore's movie. I have to admit they make some solid points about panic. Progressives, under the banner of inclusivity, have let too many people say too many things for far too long. Some of the environmentalists are just as wacky as the religious right.
Maybe its time for true dialogue on this issue, its potential consequences to either destroy the environment or destroy economic growth are too important to dismiss.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DRaeEIN5Sh8
Might I make the comment that the photo you include on this blog displays an incredible bias. We have no idea what this picture is because there is no caption. It is probably steam eminating from a power plant or factory, but the insinuation is that it is smoke from a coal fired power plant. To further exacerbate the bias, it is obvious that the picture has been filtered or photoshopped to make everything appear yellow and polluted. It's pretty simple. There is not a coal fired power plant in the US today that emits pollution in the form of smoke like that pictured in this blog. But all the propaganda you see from environmental groups (who can take credit for making industry clean up its' act) still shows pictures from the turn of the century or from eastern Europe when the rail about "dirty coal." In my mind this is base propaganda, designed to manipulate the lazy and uninformed. If GWB ever committed such an act, they would be screaming for impeachment.
The "Greens" managed to get industry and utilities to clean up their act in the form of reducing smog and acid rain. A laudable, but costly effort. Now they are attacking "invisible pollution - i.e. CO2). I feel like their real goal is to have us all reading Noam Chomsky by soy candlight in a cave or sod house. Even if all the CO2 were captured they would complain about light pollution or mining or overpopulation. A certain segment of society is only happy when they are p#$$ed off.
Anonymous thinks it's somehow biased to accompany a story related to coal-fired power plant pollution with the image of a filth-belching smokestack. Is it really? My local coal-fired power plant (Progress Energy's Cape Fear plant 30 miles southwest of Raleigh in Chatham County) reported dumping to the air in 2005 alone more than 1.66 million pounds of pollution, including 430 pounds of ammonia, 88 pounds of barium, 250 pounds of chromium, 180 pounds of copper, 1.5 million pounds of hydrochloric acid, 120,000 pounds of hydrogen fluoride, 230 pounds of lead, 360 pounds of manganese, 82 pounds of mercury, 260 pounds of nickel, 2 pounds of polycyclic aromatic compounds, 34,000 pounds of sulfuric acid, 370 pounds of vanadium, and 650 pounds of zinc. Progress Energy's Roxboro plant 60 miles from my home dumped more than 12 million pounds of pollution that same year, while the company's nearby Mayo electric plant dumped more than 4 million pounds of toxic filth. And that's not even counting the millions of pounds of carbon dioxide these plants are spewing into the environment. I wonder what image Anonymous would have me use to represent the reality of this enormous amount of air pollution?
Oh my. After investigating many of these groups and their propaganda techniques for several years now, I can tell you that the interrelationships are dizzying. Some of these folks are in very deep with the Bush administration and the RNC--for example, the domain registration anonymity--DCI is not just a lobbying group but is primarily into propaganda and through its connections to & involvement with New Media Communications also provide the IT infrastructure for many .gov accounts, including House.gov and Department of Justice.gov. In addition, they maintain the RNC domains. How else do you think all those e-mails from the White House went missing and have stayed missing?
DCI is run by a cast of characters right out of Damon Runyon--most notably Brian McCabe who recently escaped prosecution for the New Hampshire phone jamming scandal, and Tom Synhorst who is behind every dirty propaganda campaign and technique involving big business from big Tobacco, Big Pharma and most notable BIG OIL.
See ePluribus Media's articles for more on the Mighty Big Business Wurlitzer http://scoop.epluribusmedia.org/story/2007/3/26/22612/9031
DEFuning
Sounds to me like if you don't get your funding from somewhere you wont exist. So I guess its going to be hard to be funding neutral no matter who you are? Last oil field worker I talked to had pretty strong environmentalist leading views. He worked for "big oil" but understood well the need to care for the environment and promoted that in all his work. Yet he also understood, to drive his car, and have his computer and eat his food oil needed to be used as thats what makes those things possible. Solar/wind and hydrogen simply can't make plastic or other products we use everyday, or could provide enough energy in their current forms to power cars or our lives well enough. I don't think that its that people in the oil or utility industries hate "green" technology, its just that they understand the capability and capacity of these technologies and hate that the public is often hoodwinked by groups such as CCS into thinking going green solves everything over night. It doesn't and just plain isn't realistic. Rarely do environmentalists recognize this fact. Its funny but generalizations of "big oil" being evil and bad only go to show how biased the generalizer is rather than the opposite in my book. Most everyone I know working in the utility and energy industries have a pretty good understanding of their resources capabilities, their consequences, and the knowledge of alternative capabilities. I certainly haven't ever met one yet that wanted to destroy the environment as this article and so many greenies portray.
Well its good see an environmentalist exposed for what it really is just like any other group in any industry. "Environment Inc.", as Tom Knudsen of the Sacramento Bee wrote, is just as guilty of shadowy dealings as any of the worst in any business. Having read a few pieces on CCS on the net it sounds to me like CCS has more answering to do than John Locke.
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