In September, I wrote a post “Newsweek gets duped by Big Oil -- for real -- in worst Big Media story of the year.”   The Newsweek piece by Rana Foroohar was titled “Big Oil Goes Green for Real” with greenwashing lines like “So how should we take the spate of new green announcements from the world’s major oil firms?”  Not.

What I didn’t realize is that Newsweek was not getting duped by Big Oil -- it was getting cash from the American Petroleum Institute in return for “access,” as journalism and ethics experts told E&E News (subs. req’d).

Newsweek since 2007 has sold advertising packages to the oil industry’s biggest influence group that included the right to co-host forums on energy issues, including two where members of Congress sat side-by-side on panels with the association’s president.

American Petroleum Institute ranks among advertisers that have reached a spending threshold that allows them to attach their name to a Newsweek event and have their top executive as a panel speaker. API President and Chief Executive Jack Gerard was the sole industry speaker joining Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.) and Reps. Nick Rahall (D-W.Va.) and Doc Hastings (R-Wash.) at an “executive forum” the magazine and API held at the U.S. Capitol in March.

Newsweek and API have teamed on four forums so far and are planning another -- “Climate and Energy Policy: Moving?” -- for Dec. 1, when the Senate could be holding a floor debate on climate legislation. An invitation sent yesterday to lawmakers’ offices said Gerard again would be a panelist and that requests to speak were “currently pending confirmation with notable members of the United States House of Representatives and the United States Senate.” Lawmakers receiving invitations included Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.) and Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee.

I urge all lawmakers to shun this event.

TPM Muckraker also has a good story on part of this, “Newsweek And Oil Lobby Team Up To Host Climate Change Event With Lawmakers,” which noted:

In February 2008, the news weekly and the oil lobby held a panel discussion on “Globalization Trends and Energy and the Growing Competition for Resources.” That event featured Foroohar, the author of the recent Newsweek story lauding big oil, as well as Tony Emerson, the managing editor of Newsweek International, API’s then-CEO Red Cavaney, and an energy specialist for the Chamber of Commerce. Emerson, moderating, described API as “an advertising partner.”

Remember, the API is spending millions to spread disinformation about the climate bill (see here) and create fake grassroots campaigns against it (see “Leaked memo: Big Oil manufacturing ‘Energy Citizen’ rallies to oppose clean energy reform“).

The E&E story, “API’s partnership with Newsweek raises ad cash and ethics questions,” is so shocking that I will excerpt the rest of it at length below:

Newsweek said it imposes ethical safeguards for the events, including that industry sponsors have no say in who is invited as panelists or what questions will be asked by the moderator, usually a Newsweek editor. API has no direct contact with the magazine’s newsroom, which sometimes covers the forums, said Mark Block, the magazine’s director of external relations. Outside media are invited and attend, and everything said is on the record for publication.

“There’s absolutely no conflict of interest, because they’re not driving our editorial” content, Block said. “These events are transparent. They’re on the record. They’re inclusive of media. They’re inclusive of people that might disagree. There’s no concern of appearance of impropriety because it’s an open and transparent process.”

But journalism and ethics experts decried the arrangement.

“You’re selling access,” said Edward Wasserman, Knight professor of journalism ethics at Washington and Lee University in Lexington, Va. “Newsweek is using its reputation as a great news organization to convene these officeholders to talk about public policy. Then it’s renting out a space at the table for one of its customers who would not be at the table if not for giving money to Newsweek.”

John Watson, associate professor of communication law and journalism ethics at American University in Washington, agreed.

“You’re enticing them to buy these ads to get this thing of value,” Watson said.

And they aren’t just selling access to lawmakers, they are selling access to journalists.  Hence the green-washing story I critiqued, “Big Oil Goes Green for Real.”

Newsweek has had the co-presentation partnerships with advertisers since at least 2003, Block said. The relationship with API started in May 2007, when API and the magazine teamed up for a forum called “Progress on Energy Legislation in the 110th Congress.” At that forum, like the one earlier this year, API’s president had the stage along with members of Congress. Panelists were then-API President Red Cavaney, Rep. Jim Matheson (R-Utah), Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), and a Newsweek representative.

Newsweek under the program also has held events sponsored by petroleum company BP, a question-and-answer session in 2007 and a Q&A and roundtable discussion in 2008 on “the Future of Energy.” BP chose not to have an executive appear as part of either one, although it was eligible to do so. Newsweek has teamed with Ricoh and Lufthansa Airlines on more expansive leadership conferences that featured two to three 45-minute discussions. There are partnerships with others, as well.

About 20 to 30 advertisers reach the spending level where they are “afforded the opportunity to co-present an event with Newsweek,” Block said. The majority chose not to do so, he said, because they either don’t have an issue that would work with a forum or don’t want the publicity.

Block declined to reveal the level of advertising required, but said that, “they’re all at a very high level that they’d be offered that opportunity.”

Newsweek develops the content of the events, with no input from the advertising partner, he said. Of the advertisers, he said “what they are allowed to do, they will have their most senior person take part in the discussion. That is the extent of their participation.”

The person chosen to speak “must be credible and must be accredited,” Block said. He described Gerard and his predecessor Cavaney as meeting both criteria because “they’re speaking on behalf of a lot of people.”

… Newsweek and API also united for an event in February 2008 called “globalization trends and energy and the growing competition for resources.” Cavaney, API’s president at the time, spoke at that along with Karen Alderman Harbert, who at the time had just left her job as Department of Energy assistant secretary for policy and international affairs. There was another event in May 2008 at Stanford University on energy research innovation.

At the Washington events, Block said, Newsweek invites outside media, lawmakers, and people from think tanks and schools.

“The panel is very objective and does not have the editor speaking directly with the panelist before the event,” Block said. “It’s not influencing A. how Newsweek covers the story, B. how the moderator asks questions, or C. how the audience” responds and asks questions.

“There’s absolutely no conflict of interest because they’re not driving our editorial” content, Block added.

So then it was just a coincidence that, as TPM wrote (linking to me):

In September, Newsweek ran a story by Newsweek International editor Rana Foroohar entitled “Big Oil Goes Green For Real,” which infuriated environmentalists by asserting that oil industry investments in alternative energy were no longer just green-washing, but rather were “the real deal.”

Yes, as TPM notes, Newsweek has written some tough-minded stories on Big Oil, but nothing can compare to their September Big Wet Kiss to Oil [Note to self:  That is one mixed metaphor!].

Back to E&E’s story:

Asked whether the events give API and other advertisers access to lawmakers, he said that “Jack Gerard and API are sophisticated and organized enough that they have the ability to reach these people without Newsweek.”

The safeguards Newsweek puts into place at the events don’t negate the conflict, said Watson with American University.

“There should be an impenetrable wall between media fundraising, which is what advertising is, and the newsroom,” Watson said. Rules put into place “after the fact,” he added, are “bandages to cover a gaping ethical wound.”

“The firewall is there not only to prevent the quid pro quo but the appearance of quid pro quo,” Watson added. Journalists must be considered credible to convey information readers trust, he said.

“As soon as there’s any connection between income and newsroom employees, you’ve stepped off the precipice,” Watson said.

As the Old Media’s business model dies, more and more publications are selling access.

Newsweek is not the only publication that holds events sponsored by industry. Atlantic Media and the Wall Street Journal are among those that accept corporate funding. Criticism of Newsweek’s arrangement with advertisers comes not long after the magazine’s parent, the Washington Post Co., suffered a major ethical black eye.

The Washington Post this summer had planned to have a series of off-the-record dinners at the home of its publisher, Katharine Weymouth, where corporations, lobbyists and interest groups could pay $25,000 for private access with public officials and journalists. The series of “salons” was canceled after a flier on it slipped out and Politico reported the plan.

That scandal, and the partnerships that Newsweek and others have with industry, come as newspapers and magazines suffer plummeting circulation. Most media companies are looking for new sources of revenue.

“This is a crisis period for journalism,” Watson said. “Everybody is looking for a new market paradigm. The danger is that everything else of value to journalism is at risk because you have to stay alive.”

… Atlantic Media surpasses Newsweek in terms of number of events with industry. So far this year, it has hosted 54 sessions alongside corporations, advocacy organizations and sometimes nonprofit groups, said Zachary Hooper, a spokesman for the company. There are usually multiple sponsors for each event, he said, and they are “people who have a particular vested interest in a topic.” Many of those same people are advertisers, he said.

Companies sometimes directly help fund conferences, Hooper said. Other times, they buy ad packages that include funding a conference.

Last week, Atlantic Media held an event on water as an environmental concern. Agriculture and biotechnology company Monsanto Co. and Black & Veatch, an engineering, consulting and construction company, sponsored the gathering. Monsanto Co.’s CEO Hugh Grant and Dan McCarthy, president and CEO of Black & Veatch Water, spoke during a panel discussion during the event. Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and Anne Castle, Interior assistant secretary for water and science, also spoke at the summit.

Atlantic Media with the Aspen Institute co-sponsors the Aspen Ideas Forum and its D.C. counterpart, Washington Ideas Forum. Corporate sponsors of the 2009 Aspen Ideas Forum held in July included Altria, Boeing, Booz Allen Hamilton, Ernst & Young, Philips, Shell, and Thomson Reuters. Atlantic Media and the Aspen Institute charge admission for the Aspen festival.

“I don’t really think there is a conflict” of interest, Hooper said. “These are structured as an open dialogue. These are all on the record.” Outside media can attend, he said, adding “the panels are structured to encourage debate and not focus on any one particular agenda.”

The Wall Street Journal holds six forums a year that are sponsored by companies as part of an advertising package, said Robert Christie, vice president of communications for Dow Jones & Co., which owns The Wall Street Journal. Dow Jones sells tickets to the events that are restricted to certain people. To attend the chief executive officer council, for example, one must be the head of a large enough company.

The events are open to outside media, Christie said, and are covered by Dow Jones and The Wall Street Journal. The newsroom side of the company handles the content of the events, and “they meet the same standards as the stories that go into the Journal,” he said.

All of the events have members of Congress attending, Christie said. He rejected the idea that companies at the events have special access to those lawmakers.

“All of our conferences are public, whether you attend or you just view on WSJ.com,” Christie said. About the lawmakers who attend, he said “most of them just make a speech and leave.”

Again, it doesn’t matter that the conferences are public or the dialogue is on the record.  As I’ve said, the access to big time reporters is as valuable as anything else Big Oil is buying.

Media watchdogs remain vigilant to expose these cash-for-access stories, stories that were, ironically, once the stock and trade of Big Media itself.

Kudos to TPM and E&E for breaking this important story.

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The "Cajun Express" oil rig, tapping the black gold deep beneath the Gulf of Mexico.The oil field known as "Jack" is located 175 miles off the coast of Louisiana, below 7,200 feet of water and another 30,000 feet of seabed, occupying a geological layer formed in the Cenozoic Era more than 60 million years ago. This layer -- the "lower tertiary" -- lies deeper under water than any other Gulf of Mexico oil discovery, which is one reason why many in the industry initially dismissed it as too remote to exploit. But in 2006, Chevron defied the odds when its engineers drilled a test well at Jack and discovered that oil could flow from this ancient sediment at profitable rates. Their success opened up a new drilling frontier -- a monster oil patch holding between 3 billion and 15 billion barrels of crude. It was hailed as the largest discovery in the United States since 1968 -- a discovery potentially big enough to boost national oil reserves up to 50 percent.

Since then, global oil companies have been pouring billions of dollars into these so-called ultradeep waters of the Gulf in pursuit of the region's buried treasure. Jack is among a cluster of nearly a dozen new fields there -- including "Blind Faith," "Great White," and "Cascade" -- that companies are now tapping in waters from 4,000 to 8,000 feet deep and in sedimentary rock extending between 1 and 6 miles below the seabed.

Coaxing oil from such great depths poses unprecedented risks for oil drilling -- and that's why I decided to visit the area. I wanted to witness firsthand the world's most extreme drilling territory, the Mount Everest of oil frontiers, where the industry has to tackle the tallest odds and gravest circumstances to eke out new discoveries.

Little, psyching up for the two-hour trip to the rig.

I set out at dawn on an April morning in a Sikorsky S-76 helicopter. The sky above the New Orleans heliport was a pea-soup green, thick with rain and pitchfork lightning. I was traveling with a Chevron executive and three of his staffers, all of us wearing regulation jumpsuits, hard hats, and steel-toed boots. The chopper lurched and shuddered in the squalls, but my travel companions nodded to the pilot to press on -- this was typical weather for the Louisiana coast, and routine flying conditions.

The Gulf yields 25 percent of all U.S. oil production, and is home to more than 3,700 production platforms, most of them located in relatively shallow waters of under 2,000 feet. Many geologists believe that the ultradeep regions of the Gulf -- those covered by waters greater than about 4,000 feet -- hold more untapped oil reserves than any other parts of the Western world. Today, offshore rigs are capable of operating in 10,000 feet of water and boring through 30,000 feet of seabed (twice the depth they could manage a decade ago). One rig sits atop each field, thrusting its tentacles into up to a dozen wells throughout the bed. The rig pulls up oil and then pumps it back to onshore refineries via underwater pipelines.

From my helicopter window, the offshore rig known as the "Cajun Express" looked like a child's toy -- a multicolored Erector Set floating on a buoy. But once we landed and I stepped out into the salty, sunny Gulf air, the rig gave an entirely different impression, awesomely vast and imposing.

It doesn't look so small now, does it?

We entered the boxy three-story cement building that houses the dorm rooms and offices. So austere were the surroundings -- and so far removed from civilization -- that I found myself heartened by the familiar details of a Snickers wrapper crumpled on the floor, a dust bunny underneath a desk, and a family snapshot tacked to an office wall -- evidence that people actually do live and work on this floating city.

Rising from the concrete floor and up through the bottoms of my boots was a strange vibration. "The thrusters," explained Paul Siegele, then director of Chevron's offshore drilling divisions. Thrusters, he told me, are gigantic engines at each corner of the platform relentlessly pushing and pulling against the ocean currents. Picture yourself standing in shallow waters at a beach and incessantly shifting your weight to stay balanced as the waves surge and the tides ebb and flow. Thrusters do an extreme version of this in order to keep the rig "on station," meaning within six inches in any direction of the drill's charted entry point into the seabed below. Anchors can't be used to moor drilling vessels at these depths -- the motion of the ocean would strain even the strongest of moorings, and rigs need to be able to motor to safety in the event of a hurricane.

The thruster solution is ingenious, but it carries an astonishing energy burden: these 9,500-horsepower engines use a combined total of 27 megawatts of power when running at full capacity -- enough to power about 21,000 homes. The generators that power the thrusters and keep the lights on, the electric drill turning, and the computers humming in this village at sea require about 40,000 gallons of diesel per day. It's roughly the amount of fuel that 13,300 Hummers consume in a typical day of driving.

You have to burn fossil fuels to harvest them -- that's a reality in any drilling scenario -- but the ratio of energy invested to energy gained gets slimmer as the drilling conditions get more extreme. (By "energy invested" I'm referring to all fossil fuels used to discover, drill, pump, and refine the oil and transport it to market.) During the glory days of U.S. oil production in the 1930s, an investment of 1 barrel of oil would yield a return of about 100 barrels. By 1970, when oil deposits had become scarcer and more difficult to extract and refine, the ratio had shrunk by more than half: 40 barrels of oil gained for every 1 barrel invested. By 2005, as the industry faced ever-greater limits, the ratio had diminished still further: about 14 to 1. Returns will continue to diminish, some experts argue, until we reach a 1:1 ratio -- and that would spell the end of the petroleum era.

During a tour of the rig, Little gets a look at sections of the drill shaft.

Three out of four exploration wells in the ultra-deep region of the Gulf come up dry -- nerve-wracking odds when the wells cost $100 million apiece, or as much as 20 times what they cost on land.  And even if you hit pay dirt, there's no guarantee of profit: In the past decade, Chevron has abandoned nearly a quarter of the successful wells it has drilled because they wouldn't flow at profitable rates. Add to that the risks of hurricanes, powerful undersea currents that can cripple well shafts, and even routine equipment failures that can stymie operations on rigs that cost more than $500,000 a day to operate.

Given the vertiginous risks that plague ultra-deep drilling, it's sobering to think that this frontier holds the oil industry's best hope for finding new petroleum reserves. "The odds are incredibly low that we're going to hit some fabulous new discovery on land," Matthew Simmons, a leading investor and industry analyst, told me. "Everybody's looking to the deep sea for big new finds." To an outsider, it's at once impressive and baffling to watch engineers burrow five miles into the earth for oil. "It has all the audacity and technological complexity of launching a space shuttle," as Simmons put it.

If Chevron is going to throw a billion dollars into wells in this high-risk, deep-sea region -- many of them doomed to failure -- wouldn't it make more sense to invest in the inexhaustible, greener technologies that will likely replace fossil fuels? Not anytime soon, according to Siegele: "Do you fly on planes? Do you drive a car? Do you use FedEx and eat imported food?" he challenged me. "What do you think delivers those products and moves those jets?" Siegele had a point: Even as innovators have been producing breakthroughs in clean cars, green buildings and renewable energy and efficiency, American oil demand on the whole has been holding steady in recent years, not declining. And even if America were to slash its oil consumption, industrial growth in China and India is pushing global petroleum demand ever higher. "So long as people need oil," Siegele told me, "we'll find a way to supply it."

Technological breakthroughs have, decade after decade, revived the perpetually doomed oil industry: petroleum reserves often seemed too remote or too expensive to exploit over the last century, yet engineers invariably managed to come up with better, cheaper drilling methods. "Predicting peak oil," Siegele told me, "is almost like predicting peak technology" -- an exercise that to him seems inherently small-minded, even absurd. As for global warming, he believes technology will triumph here, too: we'll find a way to scrub carbon from the atmosphere, rendering fossil fuels harmless to the climate.

I found the whole enterprise of deep-sea drilling doggedly ambitious, but also seemingly desperate -- like an addict forcing a syringe into the earth's innermost veins. How did it come to this -- to scenarios as remote and arduous as the five-mile undersea wells drilled by the Cajun Express? How did a resource that is now so hard to come by in America become the basis of our economic survival?

This piece was excerpted and adapted from Amanda Little's book Power Trip: From Oil Wells to Solar Cells-Our Ride to the Renewable Future, as well as from a feature published in Wired.

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Two new documentaries show the damaging effects of the world's addiction to oil, each film from its own unique angle. Crude, which opened in New York on Sept. 9, traces the story of a lawsuit brought by 30,000 rural Ecuadorians against Chevron, which denies responsibility for turning their traditional rainforest home into a dumping ground for crude oil waste, sickening and killing generations of people. And Fuel, which opened in New York, San Francisco, and Washington, D.C. on Sept. 18, follows director Josh Tickell on his quest to convert the world to biofuels, eliminating the need for oil and thus -- hopefully -- for lawsuits like the one in Ecuador.

Oil pollutes the water sources of the Ecuadorians in Crude.Both films succeed in engaging viewers with compelling characters and stories -- from the chipper Tickell driving his sunflower-painted, biodiesel-fueled Veggie Van across the country, to the earnest and dogged Ecuadorian lawyer Pablo Fajardo visiting the grave of his murdered brother. And both expose the utter stupidity and reality-denial of Big Oil, an industry unafraid to trample anything or anyone blocking its path to profit, even as the product still driving those profits grows ever more obviously obsolete.

"It's overly simplistic to say these are greedy companies who want to make money at all costs," Joe Berlinger, who directed Crude, told me on the phone the day after his film's New York release. (His previous work includes Metallica: Some Kind of Monster). "But there's an institutional blindness to the impact of their activities on other parts of the world."

In rural Ecuador, as in many other places off the radar of American consumers, that impact manifests itself in the form of communities that "have been systematically poisoned," as Trudie Styler (wife of Sting and co-founder of the Rainforest Foundation) put it in the film. Her involvement in and support of the case make up just one part of the starry journey that ultimately led to lawyer Fajardo being featured in Vanity Fair and giving a press conference at the Live Earth concert in New York in 2007.

"Pablo Fajardo walks into a room and just reeks of authenticity and heroism," Berlinger said of his film's central character. "This guy has this incredible story. [He] pulls himself up by the bootstraps, gets himself educated with the help of the Catholic church, because he's motivated to do something about the injustices that he saw as a young man working in those fields. I mean, you can't make this stuff up."

Fajardo's story infuses Crude with what Berlinger calls "the human element," something he thinks is often missing from the environmental movement. The passion and struggle of Fajardo and other characters -- like Maria Garofalo, whose 18-year-old daughter has to travel 18 hours to receive cancer treatments, which she can only afford by continuing to work in the fields -- embody the film's larger theme of environmental justice and oppression.

"It's kind of a wake-up call as to how we treat our indigenous people," Berlinger said. "We are eradicating the knowledge and the culture of people who have lived in harmony with nature for millennia, and we should be cherishing their view of consumption and interaction with nature as opposed to eliminating it."

Berlinger acknowledged that his film is a departure from the theme -- heard more loudly in environmental conversations -- of the effects of burning fossil fuels. "This is a film about the devastating effects of the procurement of those resources," he said. "Part of the debate about renewable energy should include, obviously, the impact of production on people and the environment."

Crude tells the story of those who suffer so we can get our oil fix. Fuel explores the ins and outs of that addiction, and promotes a solution that could kick the habit: biodiesel.

Fuel director Josh Tickell and his Veggie Van.Speaking through a sometimes-fuzzy cell phone as he crossed mountains in an algae-powered vehicle on his way to Reno, Fuel director Josh Tickell explained how, from its beginnings, "diesel was based in one concept, the nexus of efficiency and sustainability." Part of his film tells the story of Rudolf Diesel, inventor of the diesel engine, whose values of social and economic justice sometimes went hand-in-hand with his engineering. His engine was created to run on vegetable oil, with the hope that this would "put power back in the hands of everyday farmers."

"This is the kind of engine we'd all be driving today had Diesel's engines been realized," Tickell said of his car, the Algaeus. But Rudolf Diesel disappeared mysteriously from a ship crossing the English Channel in 1913. Some suggest foul play on the part of competing business interests may have been involved.

Tickell remains remarkably upbeat about biofuels, despite the recent media backlash against them, which, he said, "decimated the biodiesel industry." His current tour across the country in a fleet of algae-powered vehicles focuses on dispersing information about biofuels and engaging politicians with that information.

"We're dissolving the barrier between this movement, which is largely an individualistic movement of personal choice, and what should be, needs to be, and will be a political movement," Tickell said. "We've got to get the environmentalists to get that we have allies in our local political leaders."

Tickell planned to meet with Nevada Gov. Jim Gibbons in Reno, where Gibbons would pour a gallon of algae fuel into the Algaeus. A symbolic gesture, surely, but Fuel shows how it was an accumulation of such small steps that propelled biodiesel on its original path to popularity. Although he said he's "not going to hold [his] breath for Congress" to pass sweeping climate legislation, Tickell sees the tide turning toward renewable energy.

"We're in a time of tremendous sea change," he said. "The corporate concept of a triple bottom line -- incorporating sustainability and your ecological footprint into your product -- it's that triple bottom line that's guiding the next generation of energy companies."

Put together, Fuel and Crude offer a wide-ranging look at the vast, complex system of interests swirling in the orbit of one magnetically addictive resource. Rather than being disheartened by this intricacy, though, viewers can find inspiration in both films' stories of struggle and triumph. A goofy college graduate driving a van that smells like French fries can help spark a shift to a new kind of fuel -- and all of a sudden veteran truck drivers are filling their rigs with biodiesel and calling our dependence on foreign oil "a flat-ass shame." A man born into poverty in the Ecuadorian jungle can rise up as a leader for 30,000 of his people, who marvel at his picture in the pages of Vanity Fair. These struggles are far from over, but they're stories we need to hear. Both new films tell them with spirit and compassion.

Watch the trailer for Crude:

And for Fuel:

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Cross-posted from Wonk Room.

Why is Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) behaving like an outlaw? It’s jarring to learn that Sen. Murkowski wants to take away U.S. Environmental Protection Agency authority to limit greenhouse gas emissions from oil refineries, coal-burning power plants and other smokestack industries. As reported in Environment and Energy Daily, Murkowski has filed a proposed amendment to spending legislation for EPA that would prohibit the agency from regulating greenhouse pollutants except those from cars or other “mobile” sources:

“Senator Murkowski is concerned about the economic consequences of EPA command-and-control regulation of emissions,” said spokesman Robert Dillon. The senator plans to file the amendment, Dillon said, adding that he did not know whether a decision has been made to press for a vote.

Murkowski’s amendment would thwart the 2007 Supreme Court ruling that said EPA does have authority under the Clean Air Act to deal with climate pollution, as long as the agency determines that it is a threat to health and/or the environment. EPA is moving ahead with that determination. Because the judicial branch has spoken so definitively, EPA must follow the law. By trying to block the agency through such a sneaky, back-door approach, Murkowski is bidding to become a climate outlaw.

The weird part here is that Murkowski herself has warned about the impact of global warming on Alaska -- where, as Politico put it earlier this year, “the Alaskan tundra thaws and fishing villages disappear into the ocean.” USA Today once called Alaska the “poster state” for climate concerns.

And no wonder: Alaska’s climate has warmed about 4°F since the 1950’s. That has prompted more rain, the melting of two major glaciers and permafrost melting which has caused erosion, landslides, and damaged infrastructure. Some coastal towns could be overwhelmed by flooding. Carbon-caused ocean acidification threatens fish populations.

Grotesque evidence of the problem was recently reported as scientists determined the Arctic sea ice had reached the third-lowest level ever recorded: up to 200 walruses, which appear to be mostly new calves and yearlings, were reported dead near Icy Cape on the north coast of Alaska.

We can’t wait to hear Murkowski’s argument should she proceed with this ill-considered idea. Is she going to claim that this is something better handled by Congress? If so, why has she denounced the comprehensive climate legislation approved by the House? We suspect Murkowski is responding to the big campaign contributions she has received from the oil and electric power industries, both of which oppose EPA action. One major contributor is ExxonMobil, which continues to operate in Alaska despite its notoriety over the Exxon Valdez spill.

Several hours after Clean Air Watch alerted reporters by email about the Murkowski plan, a spokesman for Murkowski argued she “is not trying to subvert the process”:

The senator has no interest in trampling on that Supreme Court decision as it relates to mobile sources.

Exactly our point: she does want to trample on the Supreme Court decision as it relates to stationary sources. Murkowski has shown no interest in being constructive on the climate debate, so her defense of waiting for congressional action is obviously a fraud designed only to kill the Clean Air Act. Which is exactly what the Big Oil companies and her other financial supporters want. Her plan to handcuff the EPA is nothing but duplicitous special-interest pandering that should be rejected out of hand.

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Cass SunsteinAfter weeks of sustained attack from the right-wing on issues that are marginal to the job the President asked him to do, Cass Sunstein has emerged from the nomination process bloody but apparently unbowed (here’s yesterday’s roll call). He is now the nation’s “regulatory czar,” Director of the White House Office of Management and Budget, Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs.  

Although Professor Sunstein has been sitting in the Old Executive Office Building for months, he has undoubtedly been preoccupied with his nomination battle. Having survived the occasionally nonsensical trial by partisan and self-serving flight of fancy that was his confirmations process, we hope he will notice that his staff at OIRA has been behaving as if the 2008 election never happened. Having paid careful attention to OIRA over these past few months, in search of evidence of a new outlook, I’m sorry to report that I’ve drawn the strong impression that Bush Administration culture and ideology remain unchanged at OIRA. To deliver change we can believe in, Cass Sunstein needs to convert OIRA from industry waiting room to objective arbiter of inter-agency disputes.

My impression that change has not yet arrived is based in great measure on a chart [PDF] compiled and released today by the Center for Progressive Reform, showing that in recent months, OMB met nine times with outsiders to discuss health and safety regulations, and that eight of those meetings were dominated by industry representatives complaining about proposals under development at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and the National Highway Traffics Safety Administration (NHTSA). For example, tire manufacturers met to discuss NHTSA’s proposals on inflating tires to increase fuel efficiency. The oil industry met to discuss EPA’s rule on the reporting of greenhouse gas emissions. And the airline industry met to discuss EPA’s rule on water discharges from airport de-icing operations. Public interest groups have met with OIRA on only one regulatory matter: amendments to an EPA rule on renewable fuels. That meeting was one in a set of four, with the other three devoted to the views of the American Petroleum Institute, the biodiesel industry, and Shell Oil. 

Now, OIRA may well take the view that when you hold an open house for the neighborhood, you cannot help who drops by. But the history of the office makes that seem like a superficial argument.  For years, and especially during the tenure of Presidents Reagan, Bush I, and Bush II, OIRA has served as a backdoor for regulated industries, giving those aggrieved by agency decisions a second, third, and fourth bite at the apple to press their case. Having failed to persuade Congress of their arguments during the legislative process and then the regulatory agency during their deliberations, industry has found a friendly hearing from OMB, and OMB has too often watered down or scuttled regulations afterwards. But even if OMB staff sit silently at the meetings, giving an audience to industry complainants but not otherwise agreeing to overturn agency decisions, the practice is questionable. As experience in the courts since before the nation was founded has convinced us, only by airing all sides of a dispute through balanced advocacy can a wise decision be made.

Even if for some elusive reason we were willing to accept OMB’s “listening post” justification for these meetings, the sad fact is that objective evaluation of OMB’s role is impossible because OMB discloses only the fact of meeting, not its outcome. While this quasi-transparency is better than nothing, it cannot allay suspicions that the regulatory czar’s job is to kill, not improve, regulation.

We look forward to working with Cass Sunstein. And we also promise to stay in his face, making sure he remembers that his biggest challenge is to revive strong government protection of environmental quality, food, drug, and worker safety, and the control of climate change, not working to appease industry. We wish him luck and success. 

This post originally appeared in the Center for Progressive Reform blog.

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A friend just alerted me to the website PlantsNeedCO2.org, which is running ads on NYTimes.com. From the site's "about us" page:

How do I say this? False.

I know you're never gonna believe who really owns the website ... Big Oil.

It's registered to Quintana Minerals Corporation:

The site's "spokesman," H. Leighton Steward, is actually an honorary director at the American Petroleum Institute. He's also a director at EOG Resources, an oil and gas company, a position in which he earned a whopping $617,151 last year. Steward is formerly head of Burlington Resources, now a part of ConocoPhillips) and former Chairman of the U.S. Oil and Gas Association and the Natural Gas Supply Association. Not a word about any of that in his bio on the site.

Yet more lies by Big Oil in an effort to protect their record profits by derailing clean energy legislation. If you've witnessed any other fraud by Big Oil, email the new Polluter Fraud Citizens Tipline at tips@polluterfraud.com.

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In today's Washington Post, David Fahrenthold's front-page story spends its first 15 paragraphs detailing Big Oil's massive campaign against clean energy while incredibly avoiding any mention of one little detail: money.

In fact, to believe the first 15 paragraphs, the reason polluters have such a strong voice in the national debate is because conservation groups are "struggling" and "slow." Not a single mention of polluters' massive money advantage in the first 540 words.

Then, almost as an afterthought, Fahrenthold drops this in as paragraph 16:

Oil and natural gas groups have always had deeper pockets. In the first six months of 2009, the Center for Responsive Politics found they spent $82.1 million lobbying Washington on various issues, including climate policy. In the same time, environmental and health groups concerned with climate change spent about $6.6 million on lobbying and clean-energy firms $12.1 million, according to two other analyst groups, the Center for Public Integrity and New Energy Finance.

But those figures don't even come close to telling the real story of the financial disparity between polluters and conservationists. Exxon Mobil alone - just one of many oil and coal giants - turned a $40 billion profit in 2007. That was the largest profit in the history of the planet (#2 on the list: also Exxon Mobil, 2006).

Of course, that's just profit. Exxon Mobil's annual revenue in 2007 was $404.5 billion. Exxon Mobil alone has an annual budget hundreds of times that of every conservation group put together.

And as we've covered, polluters are using that money not to present facts, but to push distortions, lies, and outright fraud. But again, the Post gives a free pass -- mentioning pro-polluter contacts to Congress without mentioning many of those have been proven to be phony and funded by industry front groups.

People often ask me if I'm disappointed by polls showing six in ten Americans support clean energy & climate legislation. With energy price spikes and a climate in crisis, shouldn't the numbers be higher?

But with Big Oil's big money and free passes like this from the media, my response is that I'm constantly amazed that Americans see right through the lies and misinformation to support what's right for our economy now and for our children's future. I just hope the Senate follows their constituents' lead this fall to pass a strong clean energy & climate bill.

Cross-posted from the National Wildlife Federation's Wildlife Promise

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Cross-posted from Wonk Room.

A new “grassroots” fossil fuel front group, FACES of Coal, is employing a shadowy Republican-staffed company to spread its message. The Federation for American Coal, Energy and Security — a new pro-mountaintop removal campaign that refuses to reveal its “grassroots” members — is employing a GOP Beltway shop to promote its work. At the group’s initial press conference in Charleston, West Virginia, the West Virginia Coal Association’s Bryan Brown complained about “outsiders” who don’t “appreciate America’s reliance on coal”:

Many outsiders are putting pressure here in West Virginia and nationally. We feel they don’t understand and appreciate America’s reliance on coal and the economic impact coal has on our communities, our state and our nation.

The West Virginia Coal Association and the County Commissioners Association of West Virginia are the only organizations to publicly admit being part of FACES. However, as the DeSmog Project first reported, they’re willing to rely on “outsiders” to do their actual work: The FACES website, which includes no contact information, is registered to the Adfero Group, a K-Street public relations firm. Adfero’s online communications arm was spun off as Fireside 21. Adfero and Fireside21 serve predominantly Republican and corporate clients:

What do the FACES of Coal really look like? The same inside-the-Beltway, fossil-funded conservative lobbyists behind the other “grassroots” efforts to demonize clean energy reform.

 UPDATE: JW Randolph reveals that the "FACES of Coal" are actually iStockPhotos:

UPDATE: Adfero has stopped hosting the FACES site, transferring it to Liquid Web hosting, a Lansing, MI company.

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Here's more evidence that the "Energy Citizens" rallies against climate legislation are anything but grassroots uprisings.  We already knew that the American Petroleum Institute was behind the whole idea.  Now it turns out that even the local organizers of individual rallies are oil-industry lobbyists. 

Grist obtained a copy of API's list of coordinators for the 21 planned rallies, and 15 of them are registered lobbyists, mostly for API or its state-level affiliates.

There have already been three "Energy Citizens" rallies -- in Houston, Texas, on Tuesday; in Roswell, N.M., on Thursday; and in Lima, Ohio, on Friday. Others are planned for cities around the U.S. during the rest of the August congressional recess.

Here's a list of the lobbyists organizing the "grassroots" rallies:

And in Farmington, N.M., rally organizer Wendi Schuur is the director of public and community affairs at Devon Energy, an oil and gas company.

Perhaps "Energy Lobbyists" would be a more appropriate name for the movement?

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A new coalition of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans is hoping to counter the oil industry–backed "Energy Citizens" rallies with its own call to pass a climate bill and end dependence on fossil fuels.

Under the name of Operation Free, the group aims to rally other vets to the cause. "We're a coalition of leading veterans and national security organizations who recognize that climate change is a major threat, and support fast, bold action," reads its website. "It is time for Americans to rise to the challenge, and we're taking on the fight."

In a call with reporters on Thursday, Operation Free members argued that dependence on foreign energy sources and threats posed by climate change put American military personnel and national security at risk.

"As a former U.S. Army captain and a veteran of Iraq, I understand firsthand how our dependence on foreign oil is a threat to national security," said Jon Powers, chief operating officer at the Truman National Security Project, a sponsor of Operation Free. "We're looking to Washington to take this threat seriously and come up with policy that reduces the threat to national security."

Maine State Rep. Alex Cornell du Houx, an Iraq War veteran and Operation Free's campaign coordinator, said that his time in Iraq made him realize the hazards of being dependent on other nations and on a single major energy source like oil. He criticized the American Petroleum Institute, which is organizing the "Energy Citizens" rallies: "It is really disheartening how a front group is watering down any meaningful debate," he said. "The Energy Citizens is making America less secure."

Operation Free's first major event will be in Washington, D.C., on Sept. 9 and 10, when 100 veterans will come to the capital to lobby for a Senate climate and energy bill. The group is also spreading its message through the internet and in-person outreach, as well as through partnerships with national security organizations and other nonprofits.

The Operation Free website uses military terminology to try to engage support. "Mission: Secure America with Renewable Energy," declares the site, asking volunteers to “enlist” in the cause and “deploy in support of Operation Free.” Each page prominently features a photo of a hand holding a gun with an oil fire burning in the distance.

Kevin Jones, an Iraq veteran, student at the University of Missouri, and vice president of the Mizzou Student Veterans Association, said he would see oil and fuel trucks in Iraq "lined up, one right after another." "It's disheartening to know that we're so dependent on a source like that," said Jones. "There are brand new, renewable sources available right here."

Operation Free is supported by the the National Security Initiative, VoteVets.org, VetPAC, and the Truman National Security Project.

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The American Petroleum Institute has launched a website to promote its anti–climate bill astroturfing efforts.

Site visitors can sign an e-petition to tell their lawmakers, "I call on Congress to reject climate change policies that could raise energy costs and eliminate American jobs." The site also provides resources to help you "share your story" about why acting against climate change will destroy America, apple pie, and puppies.

No kidding about the puppies. In a video currently featured on the site's homepage, set to maudlin music, Texans talk about how the Waxman-Markey climate bill would wreak havoc in their lives, including one future veterinarian who argues that if energy prices rise and people have less disposable income, "it would affect how much money they spend on their pets, or even if they would have a pet." Does Congress hate puppies?!

There's also a toolkit to help people organize, and a campaign presence on social networks like Facebook and Twitter.

To its credit, the site doesn't hide its backers -- all 114 supporting organizations are listed, including many state and national trade groups representing the oil, gas, coal, and agribusiness industries, as well as major conservative organizations. A partial list:

Agribusiness Council of Indiana
American Conservative Union
American Farm Bureau Federation
Americans for Tax Reform
American Highway Users Alliance
American Trucking Associations
Associated Food and Petroleum Dealers
FreedomWorks
Illinois Coal Association
Independent Petroleum Association of America
National Association of Manufacturers
National Black Chamber of Commerce
National Federation of Independent Business
National Petrochemical and Refiners Association
National Taxpayers Union
Ohio Coal Association
Pennsylvania Coal Association
TruckNation
U.S. Chamber of Commerce

Does that sound "grassroots" to you?

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ConocoPhillips is now actively campaigning against the House climate and energy bill -- even though it's a member of the U.S. Climate Action Partnership, an influential enviro-business coalition that played a key role in shaping the legislation.

The company changed its tune shortly after the House passed the bill. On the ConocoPhillips website, visitors are urged to "Act now for energy. Make your voice heard!" An action page tells people to contact their senators and express opposition to the bill, arguing, "Federal climate change legislation is needed; however, Waxman-Markey fell short."

The shift is notable since ConocoPhillips is a marquee member of USCAP, which brought together green groups like the Environmental Defense Fund and the Natural Resources Defense Council and major companies like Duke Energy, BP, and General Electric around a climate-bill blueprint. Red Cavaney, senior vice president for government and public affairs for ConocoPhillips, even testified before the Energy and Commerce Committee in support of climate action in April.

But ConocoPhillips is also a member of the American Petroleum Institute, which has been orchestrating astroturfing against the climate bill. While Shell, another company that belongs to both USCAP and API, has announced that it will not support the astroturf efforts, ConocoPhillips has remained silent on the matter.

On its action page, ConocoPhillips repeats familiar criticisms of climate legislation:

ConocoPhillips claims that the bill does not do enough to protect domestic oil refiners, despite the fact that it gives them 2 percent of pollution-permit value under a cap-and-trade system. And, predictably, the company argues that the bill should do more to keep the price of oil low for consumers. It also wants the bill to do more to encourage the development of natural gas in the United States, "which is nature's cleanest fossil fuel." ConocoPhillips just happens to be one of the country's largest producers of natural gas.

"Don't attempt to pick winners or losers among energy technologies," the company argues. "Legislative proposals have a tendency to pick 'winning' energy technologies too early, before they are fully proven at scale. We should allow technological innovation and the market an opportunity to perfect and select the best energy sources."

Looks like membership in USCAP doesn't mean much anymore.

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News broke on Friday that the American Petroleum Institute is urging member companies to recruit their employees, retirees, vendors, and contractors to attend "Energy Citizen" events across the country over the August congressional recess. Today, we have some updates to the story:

It's not just energy interests backing the astroturf efforts; major conservative and anti-tax groups are jumping in. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the National Association of Manufacturers are both part of the coalition, and API tells TPMMuckraker that its campaign is funded by a variety of corporate and conservative groups -- including 60 Plus, FreedomWorks, the American Conservative Union, National Taxpayers Union, and Americans for Tax Reform.

The groups' astroturf campaign focuses on 21 states that have "a significant industry presence" or "assets on the ground." American Petroleum Institute President Jack Gerard wrote in a memo [PDF] that the intent is to put a "human face on the impacts of unsound energy policy" and urge senators to "avoid the mistakes embodied in the House climate bill" that was passed in June.

The memo was supposed to be kept on the down low; Gerard urged recipients to "Please treat this information as sensitive ... we don't want critics to know our game plan." But now that the memo has leaked, API spokesperson Bill Bush wants to make it seem like no big deal, telling TPMMuckraker, "I don't think anyone's hiding the ball about this .... I don't think anyone's trying to suggest that this doesn't have anything to do with the oil and gas industry."

No one's surprised to hear that oil giants are trying to gin up the appearance of "grassroots" opposition. API is not the first industry group caught astroturfing this summer. But the leaked document should be of concern to some big energy companies that are members of both API and the United States Climate Action Partnership, the industry-enviro partnership that played a significant role in shaping the House climate and energy bill. BP, ConocoPhillips, General Electric, and Shell are members of both organizations.

The Washington Post reports that spokespeople for BP and Shell said their companies don't plan to participate in the "Energy Citizen" rallies. And TPM got this statement from Shell on its involvement with API:

Greenpeace issued a letter to Gerard, asking API to reveal which of its member groups are funding the rallies. Thus far, API has not responded.

The memo lists "tentative venues" for "Energy Citizens" rallies:

Houston, Texas
Perry, Ga.
Detroit, Mich.
Roswell, N.M.
Greensboro, N.C.
Farmington, N.M.
Ohio (venue being finalized)
Greeley, Colo.
Nashville, Tenn.
Indiana (venue being finalized)
Bismarck, N.D.
Tampa, Fla.
Sioux Falls, S.D.
Greenville, S.C.
Anchorage, Alaska
Joliet, Ill.
Charleston, W.Va.
Fairfax, Va.
Philadelphia, Pa.
Lincoln, Neb.
Missouri TBD
Arkansas TBD

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Courtesy Daquella manera via FlickrAstroturfing – the corporate practice of funding initiatives that mimic "grassroots" support for an issue – has been getting a lot of attention these days, after it came to light that a pro-coal group was ultimately behind forged letters to Congress on the climate bill. But the practice is neither new nor rare, and we can expect to see similar actions over the next weeks as representatives return to their home districts for August recess.

Grist reported yesterday that the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity, the group whose money ultimately funded the forged letters, has planned a $1 million ad and "volunteer" blitz over the August congressional recess aimed at Senate Democrats in coal-dependent states. The group plans to organize 225,000 "volunteers" in what its calling "America’s Power Army," to attend town hall meetings, fairs and other functions attended by members of Congress. ACCCE's paid staff will work to round up volunteers, providing them with "information or T-shirts" and encouraging them to ask questions of the legislators.

The group is also leading a "road trip in search of a better climate solution" over recess, which you can follow on Twitter. The tour is stopping in the states of various fence-sitting Democrats. Via Twitter, ACCCE staffers offer such insight as, "Team Ohio love Dougs Claaaic burgers and Affordable Energy" and "Leroy, who works at a local steel company thinks affordable clean coal is the future."

ACCCE spokesman Joe Lucas maintains that "this is the purest form of grassroots .... It’s facilitating constituents to talk one-on-one with members of Congress." Except, ACCCE has the pockets of Big Coal backing it, with its members including giants like Southern Company, Peabody Energy Corp, and Arch Coal.

ACCCE officials also said that despite the forged letters fiasco (which has prompted a congressional investigation and a campaign urging the Department of Justice to investigate whether wire fraud was committed), they intend to work with Hawthorn Group on this new project. Hawthorn, if you haven't been following the play-by-play, is the ACCCE contractor that in turn subcontracted with Bonner & Associates, the group that sent the forged letters. "We're not going to throw the baby out with the bath water here," said Lucas.

ACCCE is also subcontracting astroturf work to the Lincoln Strategy Group, a firm with a not-so-great record on voter fraud, reports ThinkProgress.

This type of campaign is nothing new for ACCCE. I ran into them while covering the presidential primaries last year. Back then, ACCCE was handing out coal shirts, hats, and pens to people as they waited in line to attend candidate events, to create the appearance of widespread support for their cause. I also encountered coal-powered street teams at the Democratic and Republican national conventions last summer, where they were handing out maps, buttons, and boxes of breath mints stamped with the ACCCE logo. The group dropped somewhere between $35 million and $45 million on advertising last year, so putting in $1 million over August recess is small potatoes, really.

But coal isn't the only dirty-energy industry orchestrating fake "grassroots" activity around the country over recess. The oil and gas business is getting in on the action, via astroturf surrogates at FreedomWorks, a conservative action group backed by oil and gas industry giant Koch Industries. The groups have also been heavily involved in organizing the so-called Tea Party Protests around the country.

On Wednesday, FreedomWorks issued an "August Action Recess Packet" that will be distributed at events around the country. The packet provides talking points to bring up at events with legislators. Among them:

The packs also include invitations that people can pass along to events with their legislators. Media Matters has more on the action pack, which somehow fails to mention that many of FreedomWorks fossil-fuels backers stand to lose under the climate bill.

FreedomWorks is also chaired by former Republican House Majority Leader Dick Armey, who now works for the lobbying firm DLA Piper, which has lobbied on behalf of a number of energy industry clients. Armey himself recently suggested that it is "pretentious" to believe humanity's reliance on fossil fuels might be warming the planet.

Another astroturf group trying to drum up opposition to the climate bill over recess is Americans for Prosperity. The group has been leading a "Hot Air Tour" to combat what it calls "global warming alarmism." The tour includes an actual balloon claiming that the climate bill will create "lost jobs, higher taxes, less freedom."

Americans for Prosperity is also funded largely by Koch Industries. It also received funding from ExxonMobil, back when the organizations was known as Citizens for a Sound Economy Foundation, before changing its name in 2003.  Tim Phillips, the group's leader, tried to deny their relationship to Exxon on the Rachel Maddow Show on Thursday, in a segment detailing how AFP and other astroturf groups are using a variety of tactics create the impression that most Americans are opposed to action on health care and energy.

Not to be forgotten, Newt Gingrich's American Solutions for Winning the Future (of "Drill Here, Drill Now" fame) is also jumping into the astroturf game, running an anti-climate bill petition on its website and  providing "tools" for the recess. His group is heavily funded by Peabody, American Electric Power, and other oil and gas producers. Gingrich has also signed on as an official cosponsor of the tea-baggers movement.

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A tar-sands facility: oil doesn't get any dirtier than this.At ForestEthics, persuading the world's largest corporations to treat the Earth ethically is our bread and butter. And it often starts with a letter.

Last week, we mailed letters to more than 100 Fortune 500 companies, warning that their continued consumption of fuels from Canada’s tar sands—the world’s dirtiest oil—puts their brands at risk.

As ForestEthics Executive Director Todd Paglia documented in a vivid slideshow for Grist last year, the tar sands manage to combine multiple local and global environmental hazards into a single industrial project—in fact, the largest industrial project in the world. In the parlance of addiction, the tar sands are proof that we’re getting pretty close to rock bottom. It’s a giant step backward for a world that is ready to break its addiction to oil.

Tar-sands oil production generates three to five times the greenhouse-gas emissions of conventional oil production. Communities downstream of tar-sands projects are facing elevated levels of cancer. Tar-sands production creates toxic lakes so vast they can be seen from outer space. Production of tar-sands oil destroys fresh drinking water, pollutes the air, and razes North America’s Great Boreal Forests. Tar-sands sludge, extracted primarily in the province of Alberta, Canada, cannot be made clean by technological solutions.

And the tar-sands problem is coming to America.  An increasing percentage of U.S. transportation fuels--consumed in massive quantities to ship American products and power American cars--are derived from Canadian tar-sands oil. This means that despite what you may have heard, a lot of America's favorite products—from cans of soda to bars of soap to books purchased online—have a dirtier carbon footprint than they've ever had before.

The tar-sands industry is proposing new pipelines and refineries that would expand U.S. capacity for converting their tarry sludge into fuel. If these plans move forward, America will have moved Alberta's toxic local impacts to our towns and cities. At the precise moment America has concluded that our economy must be cleaner, tar-sands oil threatens to make it dirtier.

In last week’s letter, we offered a hand in helping companies rely more on cleaner fuels and less on dirty tar-sands fuels, while also notifying them that a public campaign could be launched against any company that does not act ethically in response to the tar sands’ devastating environmental and health impacts. The choice is theirs to make.

Both the sincere offer of help and the legitimate threat of public action are critical, and this "carrot/stick" approach marks a return to the strategies that made ForestEthics’ reputation. As ForestEthics has found over the years, the old adage "the customer is always right" can be a powerful tool for change.

And America’s Fortune 500 companies are some of the most powerful customers in the world.  Many of these companies did not know they were customers of Canada’s tar sands until they received our letter.  Now that they know, they can either burnish their brands by helping to lead us into a clean energy future, or they can 'tar'-nish their brands by passively accepting Big Oil’s latest plan for keeping us addicted to fossil fuels.

A version of this post was originally published at ForestEthics.org.

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If Big Coal or Big Oil can pay to generate fake grassroots opposition to climate and energy legislation, couldn’t green groups flip the tables and do the same?

Grist got to thinking about what a pro-climate astroturfing campaign would look like…

Got other ideas for pro-climate bill astroturfing? Drop ‘em in the comments section below.

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Illustration by Tom Twigg/GristThis is an actual thing: Larry Craig, former punchline of Idaho, has opened a Washington consulting firm to work as an energy lobbyist.

New West Strategies LLC offers “strategic advice, guidance, and advocacy” from Craig, the senator was arrested in 2007 in a sting operation against men cruising for sex at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport. He’s assisted by former chief of staff Michael O. Ware, a guy who obviously knows how to hitch a ride on a rising star.

The firm touts its affiliation with National Environmental Strategies, a lobbying firm whose clients include the American Gas Association and American Petroleum Institute (API), trade groups for the natural gas and oil industries. API’s members include ExxonMobil, which continues to fund climate change denial projects, despite a public promise to do otherwise.

So which is the real rock bottom—serving as a pawn of energy interests in the U.S. Senate, or jumping over the fence to become one of the special interest lobbyists who tell the pawns which way to move?

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The UK's Guardian reports:

BP has shut down its alternative energy headquarters in London, accepted the resignation of its clean energy boss and imposed budget cuts in moves likely to be seen by environmental critics as further signs of the oil group moving "back to petroleum".

Sad, but not terribly original or surprising (see "Shell shocker: Once ‘green' oil company guts renewables effort").

But Tony Hayward, the group's chief executive, said BP remained as committed as ever to exploring new energy sources and the non-oil division would benefit from the extra focus of being brought back in house....

"It saves money and brings it closer to home ... you could almost see it as a reinforcement [of our commitment to the business]," he said.

Paging Dr. Cal Lightman!

Seriously, they gut the program and claim it is "reinforcement" of their commitment.  Perhaps BP stands for "Beyond Prevarication" or "Beyond Pinocchio."

In the business world, "money talks, bullsh!t walks" - so let's follow the money (as it departs the BP clean energy biz):

BP Alternative Energy was given its own headquarters in County Hall opposite the Houses of Parliament two years ago and its managing director, Vivienne Cox, oversaw a small division of 80 staff concentrating on wind and solar power.

But the 49-year-old Cox -- BP's most senior female executive, who previously ran renewables as part of a larger gas and power division now dismantled by Hayward -- is standing down tomorrow.

This comes alongside huge cuts in the alternative energy budget - from $1.4bn (£850m) last year to between $500m and $1bn this year....

What is the next "reinforcement" for the staff - cement galoshes?

In April the company closed a range of solar power manufacturing plants in Spain and the US with the loss of 620 jobs and Hayward has publicly questioned whether solar would ever become competitive with fossil fuels, something that goes against the current thinking inside the renewables sector.

Hayward has also moved BP into more controversial oil areas, such as Canada's tar sands, creating an impression that he has given up on the objectives of his predecessor, Lord Browne, to take the company "Beyond Petroleum".

Note to Guardian:  "Creating an impression that he has given up"?  How about just "giving up"?

Yes, well, given that conventional oil production is peaking, if you abandon the clean energy alternatives then you have no choice but to get into the real dirty climate-destroying stuff (see "BP proves Beyond Petroleum was greenwashing, joins "biggest global warming crime ever seen" " and "Investors warn Shell and BP over tar sands greenwashing").  That would be betting your company's future on destroying your children's future.

Note to BP:  The world - joined by Canada - is eventually going to ban production and use of oil from the tar sands once we become truly desperate to stave off 1000 ppm and 5-7°C warming. My guess is that happens no later than 2030.

BP, R.I.P. You have written your own epitaph.

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The oil, gas, and electricity sectors spent tens of millions more to lobby Congress in the first quarter of 2009 than their renewable-energy counterparts. Big whoop, right? You could have guessed that.

But the disparity between their spending -- at a time when Congress is seriously considering far-reaching climate and energy legislation -- is striking.

According to the latest lobbying data compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics, the oil and gas industry spent nearly $44.6 million lobbying Congress in just the first three months of this year, and ranked second only to the health care and pharmaceutical industries in total spending. Electric utilities spent $34.4 million, and businesses in the energy and natural resources sector as a whole spent $102.7 million.

To find out how much clean-energy businesses spent, you have to search down into the "miscellaneous energy" category, which includes wind, solar, biofuels, hydro, and other industries -- and even then their combined spending only totaled $14.4 million. The American Wind Energy Association was the biggest renewable spender in that category, at $1.2 million. No other organization or company in the category topped $1 million.

Environmental groups have spent even less -- just $4.7 million so far in 2009. The biggest spender among green groups was the Environmental Defense Action Fund, which laid out $300,000.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, a staunch opponent of climate action, tops the list of individual spenders on all issues, at $15.5 million. Also on that list: ExxonMobil at $9.3 million, Chevron at $6.8 million, ConocoPhillips at $6 million, and General Electric at $4.8 million.

Of course, it would be wrong to assume that all of these big-energy spenders are lobbying against a climate bill. ConocoPhillips and GE, for example, are both members of the U.S. Climate Action Partnership, and ConocoPhillips' senior vice president testified in support of the House climate and energy bill last month. But it does give you a sense of just how much renewable-energy groups and enviros are being outspent on the Hill.

Energy and environment both ranked among the 10 issues that have generated the most lobbying so far this year. And as the climate debate drags on this Congress, energy is likely to remain a top focus for big spenders.

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