Face lift

Who are the faces behind FACES of Coal? 5

FACES logoYet another pro-coal group has popped up to rally folks against climate action. The Federation for American Coal, Energy and Security—or FACES of Coal—joins a growing list of “grassroots” groups formed to support fossil fuels.

The “faces” shown on the group’s website include a smiling flower vender, a child playing golf, a family with a baby, and a grandmother waving an American flag. Shockingly, no coal miners, residents of homes destroyed by mountaintop-removal mining, or asthmatic children are featured.

FACES says it’s an “an alliance of people from all walks of life” united by their belief in the importance of coal. “In addition to keeping tens of thousands of people employed in good-paying jobs, coal is the lifeblood of our domestic energy supply, generating half the electricity consumed in the United States today,” says its website.

The group intends to “make sure local, state and federal lawmakers and people around the country know the facts about coal and understand how important coal mining is to the region” of Appalachia.

The alliance grew out of a deep concern shared by business and community leaders in the region that outside groups are determined to end coal mining in Appalachia.  They worry that pressure from radical groups, combined with arbitrary government delays of mining permits, will result in severe job cuts, local and state government budget crises, and increased dependence on foreign countries for America’s energy supply.

FACES is allied with Friends of Coal, Coal Mining Our Future and the Coalition for Mountaintop Mining .

Grist tried to find out more about FACES, as the website does not list members or funders. The only contact information listed is an email address, and our email inquiry bounced back.

Are there any actual faces behind FACES?

h/t to Ken Ward

Kate Sheppard covers energy and environmental politics for Mother Jones. She was previously the political reporter for Grist and a writing fellow at The American Prospect. You can find her work here and follow her on Twitter.

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  1. biscuits Posted 12:17 pm
    20 Aug 2009

    Coal Mining Our Future is the most hilarious named group yet -- UnderMining our future or Stripmining our future would be even funnier. I'm not sure if they were going for the irony filled metaphor when they left out the comma -- "Coal Mining, Our Future" has a very different ring to it, though.
  2. ohfercleanenergy Posted 2:49 pm
    20 Aug 2009

    Another suggestion might be Friends of Coal--United! so their acronym could be FOC-U (alright, it was stretch, just trying out for the GRIST farm team...)
  3. RustyBrown Posted 6:35 pm
    20 Aug 2009

    I just wonder how many of those smiling faces belong to farmers who live near Duke Lake? 
  4. Anna Haynes's avatar

    Anna Haynes Posted 1:19 pm
    21 Aug 2009

    > "h/t to Ken Ward" [Jr]We're going to need a Wikipedia disambiguation page for Ken Ward - either that, or someone has really been messing with O'Dwyers and/or Whois. Facesofcoal.org was registered by The Adfero Group (and look at their clients...) -From O'Dwyers -Adfero Group, LLC
    1666 K St.,
    N.W.,
    #250,

    Washington,
    DC 20006
    202/333-4444;
    fax: 202/333-3231
    (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)

    //
    var l=new Array();

    var output = '';

    l[0]='>';l[1]='a';l[2]='/';l[3]='';l[25]='\"';l[26]=' 109';l[27]=' 111';l[28]=' 99';l[29]=' 46';l[30]=' 112';l[31]=' 117';l[32]=' 111';l[33]=' 114';l[34]=' 103';l[35]=' 111';l[36]=' 114';l[37]=' 101';l[38]=' 102';l[39]=' 100';l[40]=' 97';l[41]=' 64';l[42]=' 111';l[43]=' 102';l[44]=' 110';l[45]=' 105';l[46]=':';l[47]='o';l[48]='t';l[49]='l';l[50]='i';l[51]='a';l[52]='m';l[53]='\"';l[54]='=';l[55]='f';l[56]='e';l[57]='r';l[58]='h';l[59]='a ';l[60]='
  5. Anna Haynes's avatar

    Anna Haynes Posted 3:34 pm
    21 Aug 2009

    Ken Ward disambiguation: I checked with the Grist/jpGreenhouse Ken Ward, or whoever plays him on email, and he reports he is neither "poor Ken Ward, Jr. (no relation)" who authored the Faces of Coal story (linked to by Kate in the above post), nor is he the Ken Ward at Adfero.(Perhaps someone who speaks Wikipedia fluently can add this info there?  my attempts aren't good enough for them.)Adfero turns out, if Google can be trusted, to be the firm formerly known as RightClick Strategies.Along similar vein, the website of the "(climate change) Hot Air Road Tour" group Americans for Prosperity (.org) is tied in with SMARTech Corp, and appears to use the same nameservers as does the famed gwb43.com.  

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