Flurry of lobbying cash obscures U.S. climate debate 2

Photo: AMagill WASHINGTON—When it comes to the debate in the United States over what to do about climate change, cash has clouded the issue.

Lobbying groups for both the energy and environmental sides have boosted their spending this year, but the energy sector is still vastly outspending the greens.

Science and specifics are hard to find in the barrage of ads and messages about green jobs, alternative energy, and the dangers of pollution.

Energy-sector groups spent a total of $300 million through the third quarter of 2009 and were on pace for a record spending year, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, which tracks lobbyist spending.

From January to September, some of the biggest energy-lobby spenders included oil and gas ($120.7 million), electric utilities ($108 million), and alternate energy, which showed a 40 percent boost over last year with $23 million.

Environmental groups, which tend to press for reforms that the energy sector opposes, were far outspent at $16 million during the same period, a 14 percent increase from last year.

And the difference is apparent in the size of the lobbyist armies that descend on Capitol Hill each day. Overall, energy-related companies hired 2,225 lobbyists so far this year, compared to environmentalists who hired just 465.

Washington is blanketed with energy advertisements in the bus stops and Metro subway, from big oil companies touting individuals who conserve energy in small ways to dire warnings from green groups about the dangers of doing nothing.

One advertisement that ran on television in October proclaimed that “C02 is Green,” denying its effects on global warming and calling carbon dioxide “Earth’s greatest airborne fertilizer.”

Leighton Steward, a retired Texas oil man who is spokesman for the group that ran the ads and set up a website to support the claims, said his aim was to stop U.S. lawmakers from implementing costly regulations.

“We are getting ready to spend a couple of trillion dollars to try and reduce atmospheric [carbon] dioxide which I don’t believe is having any significant effect on climate change,” he told AFP.  “It is clear, it is odorless, it is tasteless, it is a total benefit,” he said, adding that “thousands of research papers have been written on the benefits of additional carbon dioxide.”

A coalition of environmental groups led by the Alliance for Climate Protection, which was launched in 2006 by former vice president Al Gore, is launching its own ads this week along with an online “wall” where people can express their support for clean energy.

“We believe that this effort, with nearly 200 organizers in 23 states, as well as the wall, will obviously have an impact in showing the support for action now and in the near term,” said the group’s president, Maggie Fox.

“This is intended to move us forward in the broadest sense.”

The group’s appeal for support reads: “I support clean energy policies that will create millions of jobs and solve the climate crisis.”

However, there is no mention of the stickier concepts that have bogged down lawmakers, such as a cap-and-trade system to punish polluters, or how to capture carbon emitted by the coal industries that produce cheap energy.

There’s a reason for the vagueness of the lobby-fueled debate, according to Bob Perkowitz, president of consumer research group EcoAmerica, which studies mainstream Americans’ beliefs on environmental issues.

“When they hear ‘cap and trade,’ they think of baseball. If you ask them what alternative or renewable energy means, they can’t describe those,” Perkowitz said. “The way most Americans are with global warming, they end up getting superficial information from different sources and forming some sort of vague opinion about it.”

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