Is any piece of nonsense from right-wing opponents of clean energy policy too silly, too outrageous, to get its day in the national press spotlight? It would seem not.

Last week, CBS conservo-blogger Declan McCullagh breathlessly reported: "Obama Admin: Cap And Trade Could Cost Families $1,761 A Year." That figure spread like wildfire through right-wing blogs, then jumped to Glenn Beck, and eventually reached The Washington Post. Now Republican lawmakers are repeating it.

The number is completely and utterly misleading. At least in reference to current policy options, it's a lie. But now it's out there, forever part of conservative mythology and forever a "controversy" in the eyes of the establishment media. Is there any way it could have been stopped? Is there any way the next lie can be stopped?

A quick look behind the story:

Last week, the Competitive Enterprise Institute released (with great fanfare) a document procured from the Treasury Dept via FOIA request. In it, Treasury estimated the total revenue that could be raised by auctioning 100% of the pollution allowances under a cap-and-trade system. The department did no original analysis, it simply reviewed other studies and came up with a range, with $200 billion per year at the high end. (An earlier CBO analysis [PDF] put the high end at $300 billion.) This was done in preparation for the release of Obama's 2009 budget, which incorporated auction revenue. The budget included a conservative estimate of that revenue -- $79 billion a year in 2012.

You may be wondering, so what? Why is this a news story? Obama's proposal would have auctioned 100% of the allowances, yes, but Obama's proposal isn't on the table. ACES begins with just 15% auctions (ramping up to 70% by 2030). Anyway, Obama's program would have returned 85% of auction revenue directly to consumers via payroll taxes, and the 15% remaining wouldn't have been flushed down the toilet; it would have been spent to kickstart clean energy industries. CBO analysis showed that families in the bottom and middle of the income spectrum would come out ahead under the proposal. Similarly, the Waxman-Markey bill passed out of the House also returns most of the allowance value to consumers -- a brand new CBO analysis [PDF] shows that it would cost the average family $160, not $1,761, a year.

The Treasury Department's Alan Krueger said, "Treasury's analysis is consistent with public analyses by the EIA, EPA, and CBO, and the reporting and blogging on this issue ignores the fact that the revenue raised from emission permits would be returned to consumers under both administration and legislative proposals."

In summary, the Treasury analysis looked at revenue raised entirely in isolation from revenue invested or returned to consumers. CEI's spin was transparently, grotesquely misleading. The Treasury document reveals nothing new and casts absolutely no light on current legislative proposals.

This all has been ably chronicled and debunked by others. See: Wonk Room, Media Matters, Pete Altman, and PolitiFact.

What struck me about it is how much it reveals about the way the press works. CEI hack Chris Horner, who filed the FOIA request, pushed it to McCullagh, from whence it spread to other conservative outlets, notably Glenn Beck's show. At that point, "people are talking about it," so it goes to Politico, and eventually The Washington Post. Now, as it happens, Steven Mufson's Post piece on the issue is fairly good, in the usual he-said, she-said sort of way. If you read with your MSM decoder goggles on, you can tell Mufson knows it's a pile of sh*t.

But that hardly makes up for dozens of articles and politicians trumpeting a $1,761 yearly tax; repetition of a fact, even in the context of debunking it, reinforces it. As Politico's Lisa Lerer put it, in a sentence that exquisitely summarizes the attitude of the political press and the state of public discourse, "those types of numbers -- even if they are inaccurate -- could increase doubts already being raised by moderate Democrats about the climate bill."

In other words, the accuracy of what's being fed into the media bloodstream by Horner and his ilk is irrelevant. Lerer not only can't be bothered to get to the bottom of it; she states explicitly that the effect on public discussion will be the same regardless. She knows the media will never decisively call bullsh*t on something like this. She knows the charge will spread, even if only as a "controversy." The poison's been injected, now it will do its damage.

It's hard to know at what point in the media chain one should ascribe responsibility for this state of affairs. Worse, it's difficult to see what could be different next time. No amount of refutation, however fast and decisive (and response from enviros was pretty good on this one), stops the spread; the media just reports what "critics say." The incentives are all wrong. What's stopping Horner et al from feeding an endless stream of lies, exaggerations, misleading numbers, and general hysteria into the discussion? Nothing. There's no firewall. Our civic immune system is broken.

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CEI to sue RealClimate blogger over moderation policy

The new coal industry front group "FACES" has yet to come forward with a list of their members. Well, thanks to a few new-media gumshoes, including Appalachian Voices' Jamie Goodman and our friends at DeSmogBlog, we've learned that not only is FACES hosted by a K-Street firm called Adfero, but all of the FACES of coal are actually ... iStockphotos. They couldn't even get real photos of their supporters.

Exhibit A

Exhibit B

Exhibit C

Hmmm, I think I've seen these faces before. (Thanks Jed!)

Update I: Our crack team discovered a few more stockphotos overnight. They are posted here.

Update II: It seems the "Adfero" link, which was working last night, has been hidden and made private. Hopefully someone got a screenshot before it was closed.

Update III: DeSmogBlog has a screenshot showing that Adfero hosts the FACES site. Check it out.

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Vinod Khosla Nonesense

Ask Umbra on ditching dirty things

More fake letters opposing climate legislation have come to light, with this latest batch being falsely attributed to senior-citizen organizations.

As we've reported previously, forged letters were sent to three U.S. representatives from Bonner and Associates, a Washington, D.C.-based group that specializes in astroturfing. Bonner was subcontracted by the PR firm Hawthorn Group to do work on behalf of the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity, a coal-industry group that wanted to stop passage of the Waxman-Markey climate and energy bill in the House.

Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) on Tuesday released copies of five letters that hadn't been seen publicly before, including one we hadn't heard about previously, upping the total number of confirmed fakes to 13. Markey chairs the House Select Committee for Energy Independence and Climate Change, which is leading an investigation into the scandal.

The newly discovered letter [PDF] was sent to Rep. Tom Perriello (D-Va.) under the name of Senior Center Inc. in Charlottesville, Va.  Perriello -- who received a total of nine forged letters, including some purportedly coming from minority groups in his district -- voted for the climate bill that passed the House on June 26.

Pennsylvania Democratic Reps. Kathy Dahlkemper and Chris Carney, who voted against the bill, also received forged letters claiming to be from senior groups. Markey has released copies of all the fake letters.

The letters written under the names of senior-citizen organizations are very similar. Here's the text of one sent to Dahlkemper [PDF] claiming to be from the Slippery Rock Senior Center:

Markey's investigation into the forged letters continues. According to a press release from his committee, "Dozens of letters still remain that must be verified as genuine or false -- all told, 58 letters were sent to the three members of Congress."

"We've seen fear-mongering with our nation's senior citizens with health care, and now we're seeing fraud-mongering with senior citizens on clean energy," said Markey in a statement. "Lately, democratic debate has been deceptively debased by fake facts and harsh rhetoric. We must return to an honest discussion of the issues, and ensure that this sort of campaign does not further poison the well of trustworthy debate."

Progressive Media, a joint project of the Center for American Progress Action Fund and Media Matters Action Network, released a video on Tuesday about the forged-letter scandal:

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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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Prologue to Copenhagen

Vinod Khosla Nonesense

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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In shocking news, water is still wet, the sky is still blue, and the National Association of Manufacturers is still predicting economic catastrophe if the United States acts against climate change.

NAM, in partnership with the American Council for Capital Formation, released a new study on Wednesday of the climate and energy bill that the House passed in June, better known as Waxman-Markey. They predict that the "anti-energy, anti-growth, and anti-jobs bill" will "destroy growth."

"Higher energy costs are bad for manufacturers and the 12 million Americans who work in the manufacturing sector," said Jay Timmons, executive vice president of NAM, in a call with reporters. "After all, manufacturing uses a third of all the electricity generated in the United States."

Their report predicts that, under the Waxman-Markey bill, the U.S. would lose between 1.8 million and 2.4 million jobs by 2030. The bill would increase costs for each household between $118 to $250 by 2020, and $730 to $1,248 by 2030. And it would cost the economy up to $3.1 trillion dollars over the period of 2012 to 2030, with annual gross domestic product dropping between $419 billion and $571 billion by 2030.

The study also includes state-specific data for 15 industrial and fossil-fuel-dependent states -- many of which happen to be represented by senators who are considered swing votes on a climate bill this year, including Arkansas, Indiana, Michigan, Missouri, Pennsylvania, and Ohio. The state numbers were similarly grim, predicting the loss of up to 97,500 jobs in Pennsylvania and up to 59,260 in Indiana.

NAM plans to use the figures to "educate policy makers" over the next few months, said Timmons. "We want to make sure those members of the Senate that represent states that benefit from a strong manufacturing base have a full understanding of the impacts of this bill," said Timmons.

Scary, eh? Problem is, the NAM/ACCF numbers don't gibe with the analyses of Waxman-Markey done by government agencies. The Energy Information Administration says that the bill would increase household costs just $83 per year, or less than 23 cents per day. The Environmental Protection Agency put the cost slightly higher, at between $88 and $140 per household per year, and the Congressional Budget Office estimated about $175 a year by 2020 -- but both would make the bill cheaper than a postage stamp per day.

The NAM/ACCF report relies on some assumptions that skew the numbers. For instance, it claims to use data from the EIA, but cherry-picks its figures. The NAM study predicts that just 10 to 25 gigawatts of new nuclear power would be developed under the bill. But the EIA estimates that 11 additional gigawatts of nuclear power would come online by 2030 without a cap on carbon, and up to 135 gigawatts under the Waxman-Markey bill.

There are also some dubious assumptions about offsets. While the Waxman-Markey bill allows for up to 2 billion tons of offsets -- half domestic, half international -- the NAM study assumes that 95 percent of those offsets would be domestic. Domestic offsets are far more expensive than international offsets.

Margo Thorning, senior vice president and chief economist for ACCF, indicated on the groups' press call today that they believed the nuclear projections were "quite generous," and that they "tried to be very transparent about what the assumptions were that were underlying these results."

Still, it's hard to tell what assumptions were plugged into their study. In a footnote in the executive summary [PDF], Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC), the group commissioned to conduct the study, makes clear that the "input assumptions, opinions and recommendations in this report are those of ACCF and NAM, and do not necessarily represent the views of SAIC."

NAM has been an outspoken opponent of climate change legislation, and has lobbied heavily against action for many years. The association sponsored a similar study last year of the Lieberman-Warner Climate Security Act; it was also skewed by cherry-picked data.

Environmental groups are already pouncing on the NAM numbers. Even before the official release, Environmental Defense Fund issued a statement arguing that NAM's study is largely based on "make-believe."

"NAM's numbers are about as trustworthy as the forged letters sent by their allies to members of Congress, which faked opposition to the ACES bill from local community groups," said EDF national media director Tony Kreindler, referring to the scandal that erupted earlier this month over fake letters sent on behalf of coal interests.

Conservative anti-climate-action forces are already latching on to the report. And NAM is co-sponsoring anti-climate-bill rallies in 20 states over the next month, where you can be sure these new numbers will be a hot topic.

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The American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity claims to be shocked, shocked that forged anti-climate-bill letters were sent to members of Congress by one of its subcontractors, saying it was "an isolated incident." But it seems ACCCE also engaged in some fishy behavior last year during debate over a Senate climate bill.

Grist contributor Sue Sturgis of the Institute for Southern Studies reported in May 2008 that a representative for ACCCE, then known as Americans for Balanced Energy Choices (ABEC), was caught misrepresenting the group in a phone call that aimed to drum up opposition to the Lieberman-Warner Climate Security Act. In a call to an activist at the North Carolina Waste Awareness and Reduction Network, an ABEC representative lied about the fact that the group represents and lobbies on behalf of the electric utility industry.

Shortly thereafter, ACCCE senior communications director Steve Gates issued a statement attributing the misrepresentation of their group to "one new staff member -- who is no longer working on this project." Gates said the staffer "decided to 'wing it' when asked some questions that were off her script. This staff person clearly should have answered 'Yes' when asked if ABEC was related to the utility industry."

Sound familiar?

We may learn more as the House Select Committee for Energy Independence and Global Warming gets rolling with its investigation into the forged letters. The scandal began with the discovery of falsified letters to Rep. Tom Perriello (D-Va.), purportedly sent by Creciendo Junotos, a Hispanic advocacy group, and the local branch of the NAACP. On Tuesday, Perriello said that he also received fake letters on behalf of the Jefferson Area Board for Aging, a Charlottesville senior citizens agency, and the American Association of University Women. Reps. Kathy Dahlkemper (D-Penn.) and Chris Carney (D-Penn.) received forged letters too.

Meanwhile, ACCCE is kicking off a $1 million campaign to convince Senate Democrats in coal-dependent states to vote against a climate bill this fall. The group's efforts will include 225,000 "volunteers" -- dubbed "America's Power Army" -- who will "visit town hall meetings, fairs and other functions attended by members of Congress and ask questions about energy policy," reports Greenwire.

"This is the purest form of grassroots," said Joe Lucas, an ACCCE spokesman. "It's facilitating constituents to talk one-on-one with members of Congress."

With ACCCE's recent track record, we'll be eager to see what comes of its "voluntary" army.

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Prologue to Copenhagen

Vinod Khosla Nonesense

Updated reactions below

The Charlottesville, Va., Daily Progress broke the story of a D.C. lobbying firm forging letters in opposition to the House climate bill:

The letters came from the Washington lobby firm Bonner & Associates, which offers “Strategic Grassroots / Grasstops support to help you win." It hasn’t yet come to light who hired the firm to do this possibly illegal work. Another set of forged letters claimed to represent a local chapter of the NAACP.

Grist has copies of the fake Creciendo Juntos and NAACP letters [PDFs].

Perriello, a first-term Democrat from a swing district, has emerged as a strong voice on climate and environment issues since his election last fall. He voted in support of the House bill that inspired the letters, the American Clean Energy and Security Act.

No other members of Congress have reported receiving forged letters such as this, though there’s a good deal of speculation that Perriello wasn’t the only target. Let us know if you've heard more. It wouldn't hurt to urge your own representatives to review files for similar letters.

Updates

"The NAACP is appalled that an organization like Bonner and Associates would stoop to these depths to deceive Congress. In this case Bonner and Associates are exploiting the African-American Community to achieve their misdirected goal. These tactics illustrate that discriminatory tactics normally used to deceive voters are now being used to deceive the Congress,” stated Hilary O. Shelton, Director of the NAACP’s Washington Bureau and Senior Vice President for Advocacy.

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There once was a firm known as Bonner
Whose tactics were lacking in honor.
“Can’t get white letters read?
We’ll forge brown ones instead!”
Oh Bonner, you should be a goner.

Whose words these are I think I know.AFLCIO2008 via flickr

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Rep. Joe Barton (R-Texas) is concerned about the plight of marathon runners under a cap-and-trade plan. No, we're not making this up.

Barton, the ranking Republican on the Energy and Commerce Committee and a vocal climate skeptic, told conservative magazine Newsmax in an interview published on Monday that he is worried that regulating greenhouse-gas emissions under the Clean Air Act would lead to the regulation of everything under the sun -- including marathoners.

An excerpt:

Never mind that EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson has indicated she has no interest in regulating small sources -- the agency's regulations would target major industrial sources emitting at least 25,000 metric tons of carbon per year, as well as the transportation sector. And no, the "transportation sector" doesn't include runners.

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The New York Times has a great story about Chevron hiring a former CNN reporter to produce a "news" report to counter a 60 Minutes segment on the oil company's contamination of the Amazon rainforest in Ecuador.

On May 3, 60 Minutes ran a story on the $27 billion lawsuit against Chevron for environmental damage, featuring footage of the rainforest and interviews with the Ecuadorean judge handling the case and a Chevron manager. Chevron hired Gene Randall, a former CNN correspondent, to tell its own version of the story, featuring the Chevron manager and five professors who are consultants to the oil company, but no plaintiffs involved in the case.

The two videos are below. First, the 60 Minutes segment, and second, the Chevron video, where you can see the "journalistic integrity" of Chevron and Randall in all its glory:

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There's been lots of bashing of Rep. Mike Pence (R-Ind.) here on Grist lately -- see Kate here, Brad here -- and with good reason. The guy has a good chance of being the next Republican House leader and he is, to put it bluntly, dumb as a box of hair. Guy like this, it's hard to know if he's lying, exactly, because you can never really tell whether he understands the situation well enough to distinguish lies from truth. But he certainly says lots of incorrect things.

Anyway, though, this post isn't mainly about Pence. It's about Republicans and climate change and how both the media and the Dems should be approaching the subject.

Pence put in an absolutely astonishing appearance on Hardball this weekend:

Before I say anything about this, I also want to dredge up this interview with House Minority Leader John Boehner from a couple weeks ago. Watch:

Now, there's been lots of discussion and ridicule of both these clips, but most of it has focused on the scientific illiteracy. And yes, it's amazing that after all this time, after all these hearings, neither of these Republican leaders seem to have the faintest understanding of what the problem is even supposed to be. A "carcinogen"? WTF?

But to me the more significant aspect is that Stephanopoulos and Matthews have finally done something that, astonishingly, virtually no mainstream journalists have, which is press Republicans on what their solution to climate change is.

The public largely understands that this is a problem; they largely accept the science. They get nervous when specific solutions are discussed, which is why Republicans want to spend all their time talking about the Dems' "national energy tax." But they do believe that this is a problem that needs to be addressed.

And on that terrain, Republicans are completely a mess -- a familiar mess, trapped between their increasingly loopy base and the American mainstream. Their base is full of flat-earthers that don't believe the scientific consensus. Limbaugh, Beck, and the rest will be outraged if a Republican leader acknowledges that it's a real problem. On the other hand, the public and the establishment accept that it's a problem and are in the midst of debating solutions. So Republicans have to offer something. That's where the coal- and nuke-heavy "all of the above" nonsense comes in.

But the position is unsustainable. It crumbles with just a little pressure, as you can see from the above videos. Republican leaders want to say, simultaneously, that climate change isn't caused by CO2 and that the public should trust Republicans to reduce emissions. It's incoherent and grossly dishonest.

It's a serious indictment of the media that more journalists haven't pushed on this. And I don't know why Dems aren't pushing it. The lever is effective and easily available, and it moves debate onto far more favorable territory.

All they have to do when faced with Republican opposition is ask: what's your solution? The only response available to Republicans is to deny the science and look like troglodytes or accept it and suffer at the hands of their base.

In short, Republicans have no answer. They can't solve a problem they don't believe exists.

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Don't believe everything you hear ...Photo: baboonThe industry group American Energy Alliance is trying to stir up opposition to the House climate and energy bill with new radio ads targeting key swing voters on the House Energy and Commerce Committee.

The ads, aimed at nine Democrats and one Republican, call the bill "an energy tax that would be the largest tax hike in history."

They go on to repeat the thoroughly debunked claim that the bill would cost families $3,100 year.  That figure is a clear misinterpretation of an MIT study, as the author of the study has pointed out.  The EPA, on the other hand, estimates that the bill would cost average families $98 to $140 a year.

"This tax will further cripple our already struggling economy -- costing more American jobs," the ads say. "Higher taxes and more job losses -- what could Congress be thinking?"

The radio spots conclude by urging voters to call their representative and ask them to vote against the climate and energy bill. They started airing on Wednesday and are slated to run for two weeks in the legislators' home districts. The ads for each of the targeted reps are available online: John Barrow (D-Ga.), G.K. Butterfield (D-N.C.), Mike Doyle (D-Pa.), Charlie Gonzalez (D-Texas), Baron Hill (D-Ind.), Jim Matheson (D-Utah), Charlie Melancon (D-La.), Tim Murphy (R-Pa.), Mike Ross (D-Ark.), and Betty Sutton (D-Ohio).

According to SourceWatch, the American Energy Alliance is an industry group formed in 1993 to defeat the proposed BTU tax, through a partnership between the National Association of Manufacturers, the American Petroleum Institute, and other businesses and industry groups.

Yet AEA's website claims the group was founded in May 2008 as an "organization that engages in grassroots public policy advocacy and debate concerning energy and environmental policies."  The group is registered as a not-for-profit, but doesn't list any of its contributors on the funding page of its site. AEA also says it's an "independent affiliate" of the Institute for Energy Research, which does research and public-policy work on behalf of the oil, gas, coal, and electricity industries. Thomas J. Pyle is listed as the president of both AEA and IER.

Here's audio of the ad targeting Barrow of Georgia:

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Following up a bit on my previous post, let's make some more specific points.

Point number one:

Newt Gingrich is a douchebag and everyone hates him. Few figures in American politics (beyond Dick Cheney) are as discredited and unpopular as the bilious windbag Newt, whose renewed prominence as an "intellectual" on the right side of the aisle is the single best piece of evidence of irrevocable conservative decline. As Miles Grant reminded us last year:

If there's anyone who proves time may not necessarily heal all wounds, it's Newt. Nearly a decade after he resigned from the House with an approval rating of just 28 percent, a 2007 poll showed remarkable 54 percent of Americans still held an unfavorable opinion of Gingrich. Cheney was only slightly less popular, rated unfavorably by 57 percent of those polled.

It's true that he blatantly contradicted himself in his Congressional testimony last week. It's true that his "solution" to climate change is a transparently industry-beholden stew of corporate welfare. It's true that he lies like he breathes. But do progressives have to panic and hold strategy meetings every time he burps up more gas?

No. Everybody hates the guy. He's a spokesdouche you wouldn't wish on your worst enemy.

Point number two:

Congressional Republicans are douchebags and everyone hates them. You might think from their program of uncompromising, unreasoning obstruction that they have some secret master plan to regain seats in Congress (which, as you might have noticed, they keep losing), but as Matt Yglesias points out, it's not so. Even National Republican Senatorial Committee chair John Cornyn (TX) admits that it's all but a fait accompli that Democrats will reach 60 votes in the Senate in 2010.

That's because everyone likes Obama, and everyone hates Republicans. As Chris Bowers has documented in an ongoing series, they are less popular among the American public than Obama, Congressional Dems, marijuana legalization, Venezuela, China, and probably this new pig flu, though no one's polled that yet. They screwed up the country, they don't have credible solutions to any of its problems, and the only people who listen to their increasingly loopy rhetoric are part of the 30% remnant.

Point number three:

Marc Morano is a douchebag and most people don't even give enough of a crap about him to hate him. Once James Inhofe's Senate butt boy, which gave him a modicum of relevance and credibility, Morano is now the proprietor of an obscure Drudge-wannabe climate denial site. He is useful to the 30% and their Congressional representatives; he supplies their climate-related talking points. But those talking points are crazy, and everyone hates the people repeating them.

Morano scammed his way into an NYT profile, but only as a flat-earth clown. The only way he gets any ongoing press coverage outside the 30% is by baiting progressive bloggers and journalists, jumping into their comment sections and sending them email every time they so much as mention his name.

But the public at large, outside the ideological tribe? They don't know. They don't care. And if they knew, they'd hate him too, like other mouth-breathers preaching conspiracy theories.

The same can be said of the whole constellation of blogs and TV shows made by and for the 30%. There is simply no need to devote much attention to refuting the lies that pour forth from this revanchist remnant. Concern over climate change and support for action to address it is the mainstream position in America. Those writing and speaking in the mainstream ought to address themselves to the mainstream, helping to address its questions and concerns about the transition away from fossil fuels. (And there are plenty.)

Some time in the next hour, somebody will say something stupid on cable TV. Somebody will write an idiot op-ed. Somebody will be wrong on the internet. Let. It. Go.

Focus on wavering Dems and their constituents and their constituents' jobs. Focus on how energy/climate legislation will make the country cleaner, healthier, more equitable, and more prosperous. The Newts can't stop anybody, they can only distract and sap energy from those doing the work.

They are not Boogie men. They are douchebags, and everyone hates them.

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On ‘climategate’

One of the more, uh, interesting moments from Friday's climate hearings in the House was this exchange between Al Gore and Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), who suggested that Gore would profit from a cap-and-trade bill.

Here's the video, via TPM, and a transcription follows:

Blackburn: I think it's really important that no suspicion or shadow fall on the foremost advocates of climate-change legislation, so I wanted to give you the opportunity to kind of clear the air about your motives and maybe set the record straight for some of your former constituents. And I've got an article from Oct. 8 New York Times Magazine about a firm called Kleiner Perkins, a capital firm called Kleiner Perkins. Are you aware of that company?

Gore: Well, yes, I'm a partner at Kleiner Perkins.

Blackburn: So you're a partner in Kleiner Perkins. OK. Now, they have invested about a billion dollars in 40 companies that are going to benefit from cap-and-trade legislation, so is the legislation that we are discussing here today, is that something that you are gong to personally benefit from?

Gore: I believe that the transition to a green economy is good for our economy and good for all of us. And I have invested in it, but every penny that I have made, I have put right into a nonprofit, the Alliance for Climate Protection, to spread awareness of why we have to take on this challenge. And Congresswoman, if you're, if you believe that the reason I have been working on this issue for 30 years is because of greed, you don't know me.

Blackburn: No sir, I'm not making accusations. I'm asking questions that have been asked of me. And individual constituents who were asking a point of clarity. so I am asking you for that point of clarity ...

Gore: I understand exactly what you're doing, Congresswoman. Everybody here does.

Blackburn: Are you willing to divest yourself of any profit? Does all of it go to a not-for-profit that is an educational ... ?

Gore: Every penny that I have made has gone to it. Every penny from the movie, from the book, from any investments in renewable energy. I've been willing to put my money where my mouth is. Do you think there's something wrong with being active in business in this country?

Blackburn: I am simply asking for clarification of the relationship.

Gore: I'm proud of it. I'm proud of it.

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Another Washington Post staffer has joined the pile-on against columnist George Will's climate-change denial. Fellow columnist Eugene Robinson lambasted Will on the Rachel Maddow Show on MSNBC Wednesday night, and also called out the editors who let him get away with it.

"What George Will did was cherry-pick a sentence in a report, you know, be very persnickety in the way he parsed his sentences, and end up making it sound as if the report had said the exact opposite of what it actually said," said Robinson. "He was persnickety enough that his editors, who also happen to be my editors, felt he didn’t quite cross the line. I thought he did."

Robinson joins two reporters at the Post who explicitly cited Will's factual errors earlier this week. And last week political cartoonist Tom Tooles also poked fun at Will.

Related Links:

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“Many , including us,  find deniers’ claims irresponsible.”

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[SEE UPDATE BELOW]

Today, Washington Post reporters Juliet Eilperin and Mary Beth Sheridan have a piece on the alarming decline of Arctic sea ice. In and of itself the story isn't that surprising: scientists have known for a while that the ice is declining; new data just confirms that it's happening faster than originally estimated. That's consistent with all sorts of new observational data on the effects of climate change, which across the board seem to be exceeding scientists' most pessimistic predictions.

What jumped out at me is this bit, toward the bottom of the piece:

I can't think of another instance when a news story at a newspaper explicitly called out an op-ed writer in the same paper for lying, by name. It's pretty extraordinary. I can only imagine that something like this got passed up the editorial food chain, from science editor Nils Bruzelius to national news editor Kevin Merida, and perhaps beyond. (The Post will not talk on record about their editorial process; they "stand behind their reporting" and so forth.) [UPDATE: After I put this post up, science editor Nils Bruzelius gave me a call and was quite collegial and open about the story. It was actually him who had the idea to reference Will, since the, ahem, "data" Will had distributed got so much publicity and was on people's minds. He said he and the reporters agreed, it was a routine news judgment, nothing about it struck him as unusual, and as far as he knows no one above him questioned or was even aware of it. I don't know how much of that is feigned innocence -- I've certainly never heard of a similar case -- but it seems there was no big process inside WaPo behind this. Cheers to Bruzelius for the transparency.]

Hard to read it as anything but a rebuke from the news team to Post editor Fred Hiatt and his editorial page's "multi-layer editing process," which allowed Will to lie and mislead on climate change three times just in the last few months, even after being corrected, publicly, by multiple sources.

Along the same lines, see this new piece on the Post's weather blog, by Andrew Freeman: "Will Misleads Readers on Climate Science - Again."

In response to the Will controversy, numerous people have made the point that people who work for the Post -- the ones who aren't full of shit -- have a responsibility to speak out about their employer's willingness to mislead readers.

It appears some of them are trying.

Related Links:

“Many , including us,  find deniers’ claims irresponsible.”

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On ‘climategate’

I'll get more into the specifics of the Waxman/Markey bill in a bit, but first let's address something lots of people have been asking me about these past few days: how to respond to Republican attacks that Dem energy/climate legislation constitutes an "energy tax" that will cost every American family 178 katrillion dollars every time they flip a light switch or pet a puppy?

Thing is, it's not that hard to respond to this substantively, but it's incredibly tricky to respond to it with a 5-second cable-news soundbite.

The substantive response:

The cap, in isolation, will raise energy costs, but the cap is not passed in isolation. Dems plan to pass the cap in conjunction with several other programs that will have the effect of reducing or erasing the economic impact on most families. If Dem plans are passed, the vast majority of lower-income and middle-class families will come out even or ahead.

It's important to keep distinct:

The idea is to raise the first while lowering the second, for a net neutral or positive effect on the third.

Three things in particular to remember:

Now, how can all that be captured in a soundbite on Hardball?

Send your ideas to droberts at grist dot org.

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Approaching Copenhagen with a Portfolio of Domestic Commitments

So Republicans have been going around saying that Obama's cap-and-trade program will cost every American household $3,128 a year.

Wait, did I say cap-and-trade program? I mean "light switch tax." Because you'll pay a tax every time you turn on your light! Get it?! And so comes the latest wet burp from the rotting corpse of the Gingrich Revolution: a "party of ideas" whose ideas are confined entirely to gimmicky neologisms for policies they oppose and to which they offer no alternatives.

Anyway, this farcical number is drawn from a 2007 MIT report called "Assessment of U.S. Cap-and-Trade Proposals" (PDF). Is it an accurate representation of the report's conclusions? PolitiFact researcher Alexander Lane called one of the report's authors and asked.

What did the report actually say the impact on households would be?

That is, if you're doing the math, a fortieth of what Republicans claimed.

Now, it feels a little silly to discuss this in a rational way when we're talking about a House caucus whose members' disregard for the truth borders on the sociopathic. But it's worth adding that the MIT report -- which isn't even about Obama's proposal -- doesn't take into account the payroll tax rebate that Obama's proposal includes. It doesn't take into account energy efficiency initiatives that would lower energy bills. It doesn't take into account industries boosted or jobs created.

Even without that stuff accounted for, the impact on families is tiny. To make it seem otherwise Republicans just have to -- knowingly, and with a truly self-parodic degree of chutzpah -- lie.

The only way they can defeat this thing is to lie, outrageously and repeatedly. We'll see if the media lets them get away with it. (Speaking of which, kudos to Politifact.)

Related Links:

Annie Leonard misses the mark in her new video, “The Story of Cap-and-Trade”

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