Top Oil Industry Lobbyist: State Department Will Issue Keystone XL Environmental Approval This Week

Posted by Brad Johnson Tue, 28 Jan 2014 19:11:00 GMT

A key hurdle for the controversial Keystone XL transnational tar-sands pipeline will be removed by the Obama administration this week, the nation’s top oil lobbyist predicts.

American Petroleum Institute (API) president and CEO Jack Gerard, citing “sources within the administration,” told reporters that the State Department will issue its final environmental impact statement in favor of TransCanada’s pipeline “as early as Thursday,” two days after President Barack Obama’s State of the Union address. Reuters correspondent Jeff Mason writes:

The American Petroleum Institute, the oil industry’s top lobbying group and a big Keystone backer, said it expects the State Department’s report to come out as early as Thursday.

“It’s our expectation it will be released next week,” the group’s chief executive, Jack Gerard, said last week during an interview, citing sources within the administration.

“We’re expecting to hear the same conclusion that we’ve heard four times before: no significant impact on the environment,” Gerard said.

The draft State Department supplemental environmental impact statement (SEIS) was written by ERM Group, an oil-industry consultant with membership in API and business ties to TransCanada. That draft statement found that “impacts could potentially be substantial,” including impacts to wetlands, streams, and endangered species; and that spills could threaten groundwater and surface water. However, the report also concluded that “there would be no significant impacts to most resources along the proposed Project route assuming” TransCanada follows all laws and recommended procedures.

The “no significant impacts to most resources” language has been mistakenly reported as “no significant impact on the environment.”

The draft SEIS assessed the greenhouse pollution impact of the tar-sands pipeline by measuring it against a business-as-usual scenario, a common practice that is however incompatible with President Obama and the State Department’s commitments to international climate targets. The pipeline’s carbon footprint alone — not taking into account the economic and political realities of how Keystone XL approval would unlock further tar-sands development — is in fact quite significant. The lifetime footprint is at least six gigatons of carbon-dioxide equivalent, the same as 40 coal-fired power plants.

“We as a nation must have the foresight and courage to make the investments necessary to safeguard the most sacred trust we keep for our children and grandchildren,” Kerry said in his first speech as Secretary of State. “So let’s commit ourselves to doing the smart thing and the right thing and truly commit to tackling this challenge.”

“Today scientists tell us—the best we have, the best minds we have, the John Holdrens, the Jim Hansens, and everybody else tell us-we have a 10-year window here to try get this right and even that before catastrophic climate change takes hold,” Kerry said in 2009. “Now ladies and gentlemen, this is our memo. And the question is whether or not we’re going to act on this in time.”

A finding of “no significant impact on the environment” by Kerry would call into question his seriousness on climate policy when he had the power to act.

Google's Republican Lobbyists and Representatives

Posted by Brad Johnson Fri, 24 Jan 2014 08:22:00 GMT

Niki Fenwick
Google ex-McCain PR representative Niki Christoff
An article in the Wall Street Journal about Google’s rapid rightward shift goes beyond the hire of former Republican Rep. Susan Molinari (R-N.Y.) as their chief lobbyist:
Starting in 2010, when the antitrust case first started appearing on the horizon, Google started hiring Republican lobbyists and communications staff.

To head up its Washington office, Google in 2012 hired former Republican congresswoman Susan Molinari. Niki Christoff, a veteran of Sen. John McCain’s presidential campaign, was moved to Washington last year to head up Google’s communications in the capital.

Before that, Google hired Pablo Chavez, a former general counsel for Mr. McCain, who recently left for LinkedIn; Seth Webb, a former staffer for the Republican Speaker of the House; and Jill Hazelbaker, who also worked for a string of Republican candidates.

Today, Google’s in-house lobbyists are evenly split between Republicans and Democrats, says a person familiar with the situation.

Its spending on lobbying rose from around $1.5 million in 2007 to $14 million in 2013.

Jill Hazelbaker, Google’s head of corporate communications from 2010 to 2013, was the subject of a 2011 profile in Business Insider which explained her meteoric rise as a top member of the 2008 John McCain campaign. Hazelbaker’s early Internet politics credentials came from trolling Democrats under assumed names as a member of the Tom Kean Jr. senatorial campaign in New Jersey in 2006. In 2013, she moved to the United Kingdom to head Google’s European lobbying efforts. Her Twitter account, @jillhazelbaker, is protected.

Seth Webb was hired by Google from his Republican House staff position in 2009, when their DC operation was still primarily Democratic leaning technocrats.

Nicole “Niki” Christoff (Fenwick) was a policy liaison for the 2008 John McCain campaign, starting at McCain’s Straight Talk America in March 2006. She was previously an associate policy director at the Republican polling shop Luntz Research Companies, and worked at Baker Botts LLP in Washington, DC as a trial attorney specializing in criminal defense. Christoff graduated from Harvard Law School in 2003 and Harvard College in 2000. Her Twitter account, @nikichristoff, is protected.

The WSJ article did not mention Rachel Whetstone, Google’s senior vice president of communications and public policy since 2005, a Tory scion and one of the “100 most powerful women in Britain” in 2013. Her husband Steve Hilton was the “Rasputin-like” chief strategy advisor to prime minister David Cameron.

The WSJ reporters Thomas Catan, Brody Mullins, and Gautam Nagesh also note that Google’s contributions have shifted from majority Democratic to majority Republican:
In the 2008 election cycle, Google’s political-action committee, funded by employee donations, supported Democrats, 58% to 42%, according to data from the Center for Responsive Politics. In the 2012 cycle, Republicans took a slight lead, and in the current election cycle, donations to the parties are running about even.

Jeff Bezos' Washington Post Hires Volokh Conspiracy Theorists

Posted by Brad Johnson Wed, 22 Jan 2014 06:42:00 GMT

Jeff Bezos visits the Washington PostThe Volokh Conspiracy, a blog of climate conspiracy theorists, is now part of the Washington Post.

When Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos took over the Washington Post, some climate activists hoped he would close down the Post’s editorial support for climate-science deniers such as George Will and strengthen the influential paper’s focus on the climate threat.

But it was not to be.

In the first major move since the acquisition, Bezos has replaced liberal “wunderkind” blogger Ezra Klein with the corporate-right lawyer blog Volokh Conspiracy, founded by Eugene Volokh in 2002.

The Volokh Conspiracy bloggers are aptly named, as they have promoted conspiracy theories about anthropogenic climate change and the scientists who study it.

“As these stories make clear, several of the scientists whose e-mail and other documents were disclosed engaged in both unethical and illegal conduct.”
Jonathan H. Adler, former Competitive Enterprise Institute environmental director and Heartland Institute contributor, 1/30/10
“JunkScience.com, run by the Cato Institute’s prolific Steven Milloy, is a year-round antidote to the unscientific panics incited by big government and the scientists who love it.”
Dave Kopel, Independence Institute, 12/6/04
“The recent Climategate scandal underlines the dangers of like-minded small groups falsifying evidence and excluding opposing views.”
Ilya Somin, Cato Institute Adjunct Scholar, 12/21/09
“Whatever the exact state of climate science, the marriage of the authority of science and the authority of the United Nations plainly corrupted a non-negligible number of the climate scientists. Not, let us be clear, that it took very much to sway scientists who were offered what appeared to them to direct global economic policy and win Nobel prizes.”
Kenneth Anderson, Hoover Institution Visiting Fellow, 2012
“All of their examples of people supposedly ‘reinventing’ the climate change debate were people who were convinced that we needed to do something now to stop or reverse global warming, which is pretty much what that side of the debate has wanted all along. . . . We may well be causing climate change, but it’s not clear there’s anything we as individuals or we as a country are really equipped to do about it.”
Will Baude, 6/22/13
“Hoffer is correct that we now have enough data to know that most prior climate models are wrong.”
Jim Lindgren, 1/3/14
“Remember, people are usually at least somewhat circumspect in writing emails to professional colleagues around the world. Thus, is it likely that the corruption in this subfield of climatology is LESS serious or MORE serious than the scientists would disclose to their colleagues in their own emails?”
Jim Lindgren, 12/8/09
“While the wider world is just beginning to realize that the subfield of paleoclimatology is in shambles (and has been for the last decade), scientists in related disciplines are increasingly fighting back against the shoddy work and orthodoxy that was foisted on them.”
Jim Lindgren, 12/7/09
“The other moment in the debate that struck me as quite strange was Biden’s comment that he is certain that all global warming is manmade and that manmade global warming is what is melting the polar icecap . . .

Palin’s answer was much more nuanced and consistent with science (not to mention being absolutely correct about what to do it about it as a policy matter, focus on the impacts and the mix of policies to respond to climate change) . . .

It is obvious that there are cyclical temperature changes on the planet (in addition to other natural variances, such as sun spots, cloud cover, etc.). We have had ice ages and tropicl [sic] periods. I have tried to find some nuance or qualification in Biden’s statement that he understands the difference between ‘all’ and ‘most’ or the possible role of natural causes, but I don’t see it. He seems to just be wrong about his understanding of what the science actually says on this point.”

Todd Zywicki, Competitive Enterprise Institute Director, Institute for Humane Studies Director and Charles G Koch Alumni Award Recipient, Goldwater Institute Senior Fellow, Mercatus Center Senior Scholar, Property and Environment Research Center Fellow, 9/28/08

Commentary: Obama Does Not Believe Global Warming a Civil-War or World-War-II Scale Crisis

Posted by Brad Johnson Tue, 21 Jan 2014 05:34:00 GMT

Barack ObamaPresident Barack Obama evidently does not believe that fossil-fueled global warming is a nation-threatening crisis, despite repeated scientific warnings that a full-scale mobilization must be enacted now to avert global catastrophe. At the top of his list for accomplishments before the end of his term, instead of a redirection of the national and global economy towards rapid decarbonization, is the goal of beginning “the process of rebuilding the middle class and the ladders into the middle class.”

In response to The New Yorker’s David Remnick’s question of “what he felt he must get done before leaving office,” Obama said:
I think we are fortunate at the moment that we do not face a crisis of the scale and scope that Lincoln or F.D.R. faced.

Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Delano Roosevelt were president at the start of the Civil War and World War II, respectively.

Obama’s presidency has been marked by a backing away from a sense of urgency about the climate crisis. “Obviously there’s great urgency in dealing with a threat to the entire planet,” Obama said as a candidate in 2007. In an October 2007 speech, he called global warming “the planet’s greatest threat,” “the issue that will determine the very future of life on this Earth,” “a fact that threatens our very existence,” and “the most urgent challenge of this era.”

“Global warming is not a someday problem, it is now,” he said. He pledged “to phase out a carbon-based economy that’s causing our changing climate.” “As President, I will lead this commitment,” he promised.

Six and half years later, global carbon pollution has continued to rise rapidly, fueled in no small part by Obama’s “all of the above” support for increased oil drilling, fracking, and coal mining.

After years of near-to-total silence on the ravages of a polluted climate to the nation, Obama started his second term with a new promise for action.

“As a President, as a father, and as an American, I’m here to say we need to act,” he said in June 2013.

It looks he doesn’t actually feel the urgency of his own words.

Podesta Rebukes Environmentalists For Criticizing Obama's "All of the Above" Support For Fossil-Fuel Extraction

Posted by Brad Johnson Fri, 17 Jan 2014 20:10:00 GMT

Obama’s new top climate adviser rebuked environmental leaders who challenged the president to dump his “all of the above” energy strategy as incompatible with needed climate action. In a letter obtained by the Washington Post’s Juliet Eilperin, John Podesta questioned why the climate advocates criticized the president for his support of increased fossil-fuel extraction.

Making reference to Obama’s “bold Climate Action Plan” announced in June 2013, Podesta cited “significant decreases in U.S. greenhouse gas emissions” despite “opposition to key components of the plan” from Republicans in the House and Senate. Podesta noted that the plan “commits to additional steps to cut the emissions of carbon pollution, prepare the United States for the impacts of climate change, and lead international efforts to combat global climate change,” claiming that the “breadth of the plan makes it impossible to detail those steps in this letter.”

Podesta’s only reference to President Obama’s “all of the above” energy strategy of increased fossil-fuel extraction came in his criticism of the environmentalists:

Given this context, I was surprised that you chose to send your January 16 letter to President Obama. The President has been leading the transition,[sic] to low-carbon energy sources, and understands the need to consider a balanced approach to all forms of energy development, including oil and gas production.

Podesta did not reply to the environmentalists’ mention of the Keystone XL tar-sands pipeline, which he has previously criticized. Upon taking the White House job, Podesta said he would not weigh in on the decision of whether the construction of the pipeline would be in the national interest, a determination to be made by the State Department and President Obama.

Under Podesta’s direction, the Center for American Progress offered divergent views on Obama’s “all of the above” policy:
  • Center for American Progress Director of Climate Strategy Daniel Weiss testified in 2012 and in 2013 in support of Obama’s “all of the above” strategy.
  • Center for American Progress Senior Fellow Joseph Romm, editor of Climate Progress, bluntly said in 2012 that the “all-of-the-above energy strategy” is what defines Obama’s “failed presidency.” He later excoriated Obama’s “big wet kiss to oil and gas.”

The text of the letter, typos included, is below:

THE WHITE HOUSE
WASHINGTON

January 17, 2014

TO:

Wm. Robert Irvin, American Rivers, President and CEO
Robert Wendelgass, Clean Water Action, President
Jamie Rappaport Clark, Defenders of Wildlife, President and CEO
Trip Van Noppen, Earthjustice, President
Maura Cowley, Energy Action Coalition, Executive Director
Margie Alt, Environment America, Executive Director
Fred Krupp, Environmental Defense Fund, President
Eric Pica, Friends of the Earth, President
Gene Karpinski, League of Conservation Voters, President
David Yarnold, National Audubon Society, President and CEO
Larry J. Schweiger, National Wildlife Federation, President & CEO
John Echohawk, Native American Rights Fund, Executive Director
Frances Beinecke, Natural Resources Defense Council, President
Andrew Sharpless, Oceana, Chief Executive Officer
Catherine Thomasson, MD, Physicians for Social Responsibility, Executive Director
John Seager, Population Connection, President
Michael Brune, Sierra Club, Executive Director
Sandy Newman, Voices for Progress, President

I am writing in response to your January 16 letter to President Obama regarding climate change. President Obama understands that climate change poses a significant threat to our environment, to public health and to our economy. He believes it is imperative that we act to address these threats, and that doing so provides an opportunity for the United States to lead in the development and deployment of clean energy technologies needed to reduce emissions. For these reasons, the President has taken steps to address the climate change challenge throughout the last five years, including a issuing a bold Climate Action Plan in June of 2013.

The Climate Action Plan builds on major progress during the President’s first term, including: historic fuel economy and greenhouse gas emissions standards for light-duty vehicles that will cut 6 billion tons of carbon dioxide pollution, cut oil consumption by 12 billion barrels of oil, and save consumer $1.7 trillion over the lifetime of the program; energy efficiency standards for appliances that will cut pollution and save consumers and businesses hundreds of billions of dollars in the coming decades; historic support for renewable energy that has helped to drive down technology costs and more than doubled generation of electricity from wind and solar. These steps by the Obama Administration have contributed to significant decreases in U.S. greenhouse gas emissions; 2012 emissions of carbon dioxide were at their lowest level the lowest [sic] in nearly twenty years.

The Climate Action Plan outlined by President Obama in a historic speech at Georgetown in June of 2013 builds on these measures, and commits to additional steps to cut the emissions of carbon pollution, prepare the United States for the impacts of climate change, and lead international efforts to combat global climate change. The breadth of the plan makes it impossible to detail those steps in this letter, but key commitments to continue to reduce U.S. greenhouse gas emissions include establishing the first-ever carbon pollution standards for power plants, a multi-sector strategy to reduce methane emissions, action to limit the use of HFCs and promote the use of more climate-friendly alternatives, additional DOE energy efficiency standards, and additional fuel economy and greenhouse gas emissions standards for heavy duty vehicles.

We have made significant progress in implementing the plan in the last seven months, and I attach for your review a recent report that details this work. However, significant work lies ahead in meeting the commitments outlined in the Climate Action Plan. In addition, opposition to key components of the plan remains. Last week, the White House had to fight off anti-environmental Appropriations riders, including ones that would have prevented the EPA from implementing regulations to reduce carbon pollution from existing power plants under section 111(d) of the Clean Air Act, and would have prevented the Administration from moving forward with Tier 3 vehicle and fuel standards. On the day your letter arrived, the Senate Minority Leader filed a Congressional Review Act resolution to overturn rules to regulate CO2 emissions from new power plants.

Given this context, I was surprised that you chose to send your January 16 letter to President Obama. The President has been leading the transition,[sic] to low-carbon energy sources, and understands the need to consider a balanced approach to all forms of energy development, including oil and gas production.

With respect to meeting the threats posed by a rapidly changing climate, implementation of the Climate Action Plan must and will remain the focus of our efforts. In the meantime, we will continue to welcome your advice, based on your very long experience on how to convince the American public of the need and opportunity to transform dirty energy systems to ones that are cleaner and more efficient.

Sincerely,

John D. Podesta

Rep. David Schweikert (R-Ariz.), New Climate Research Subcommittee Chair, Thinks Climate Science 'Arrogant'

Posted by Brad Johnson Fri, 17 Jan 2014 07:35:00 GMT

Arizona Congressman David Schweikert of the Sixth District rejects the scientific fact of anthropogenic global warming. Rep.Schweikert (R-Ariz.) is the incoming chair of the House Science Committee’s subcommittee that oversees climate change research, The Hill reports. Schweikert is replacing fellow science denier Rep. Chris Stewart (R-Utah) as the chairman of the Subcommittee on Environment. Stewart left the science committee post in December for a slot on the House Appropriations Committee.

In a 2010 interview uncovered by Hill Heat, then-candidate Schweikert claimed the science of climate change is actually a conspiracy concocted by the “arrogant” “Al Gores of the world,” the “control freaks, the people who want to control my life, want to control my lifestyle.”

“I don’t see the data. You know, I think I have a reasonably good statistics background. And I have not sat there with pages and pages of data. But when you think about the complexity of a worldwide system and the amount of data you’d have to capture, and how you adjust for a sunspot, and how you adjust for a hurricane and I think it’s incredibly arrogant for the Al Gores of the world to stand up and say the world is coming to an end. Because as I kid I remember on the flip side when they were warning me we were going to go into an ice age. . . . I wish people would make up their mind. It’s the control freaks, the people who want to control my life, want to control my lifestyle.”

In the interview, Schweikert also implausibly claimed, “as I kid I remember on the flip side when they were warning me we were going to go into an ice age.”

In reality, the carbon-dioxide greenhouse effect is a physical fact known since the 1800s. During the 1970s, scientific research on the global climate was advancing and popular coverage reflected the variety of scientific opinions about the consequences of man-made pollution on the climate, before the influence of greenhouse pollution became unmistakable by the 1980s. The only scientifically plausible systematic explanation for the rapid warming of the planetary climate since 1950 is industrial greenhouse pollution.

He has also described climate science as “folklore.”

“Understanding what part of climate change is part of a natural cycle and what part has human components is the first step.” Schweikert told the Arizona Republic during his failed 2008 candidacy. “Our elected officials must be careful to react to facts and not folklore.”

During a debate with his 2012 primary against Ben Quayle, Schweikert affirmed he does not believe in man-made global warming, the Phoenix New Times reported. Schweikert has also described the effect of greenhouse limits on coal-fired plants as having “negligible environmental benefit.”

“I’ve learned in Congress it’s not necessarily Republicans and Democrats, conservatives and liberals. It’s those that do math and those that don’t,” Schweikert said in a March, 2013 interview. “You need to make policy on facts.”

Transcript:
Q: Since you want to reduce the tax burden, I assume you’re against cap-and-trade?

A: Oh yeah.

Q: Which some call cap-and-tax?

A: Oh yeah.

Q: As a related question, do you think global warming is a hoax, or do you think that man is capable of doing anything about climate change at all?

A: I’m not going to say whether . . . well . . . I don’t see the data. You know, I think I have a reasonably good statistics background. And I have not sat there with pages and pages of data. But when you think about the complexity of a worldwide system and the amount of data you’d have to capture, and then how dpyou adjust for a sunspot, and how do you adjust for a hurricane this and that, and I think it’s incredibly arrogant for the Al Gores of the world to stand up and say the world is coming to an end. Because as I kid I remember the flip side where they were warning me we were going to go into an ice age.

Q: In the 1970s there were pictures of protesters carrying those signs.

A: I wish people would make up their mind. It’s the control freaks, the people who want to control my life, want to control my lifestyle. And I’m a guy, I drive a hybrid. But I drive a hybrid because I think gas prices were going to go up. I did it from economic self-interest, not because I wanted to save the planet.

Q: Yeah, I always get a kick out of thinking, gosh, they’re so worried about global warming, what if we go into another global ice age and we hadn’t protected ourselves from that!

A: It’s . . . you want to protect and love your environment. But I’ll make the argument the person that owns their private property is going to love and protect it much greater than a bureaucrat hundreds of miles away who will manage and protect that same piece of real estate.

Q: And of course you’re talking about the problem of the commons.

A: Exactly! You understand the basic economic theories. The ability to say, look, we all want a common goal. The air, we want that clean. We want the best land use. We want this and that. Then maximize the private ownership. Because a private owner will cherish and love those resources much more than a bureaucrat ever will.

Enviro Coalition Letter Calls on Obama to Drop 'All of the Above' Strategy for 'Carbon-Reducing Clean Energy' Strategy

Posted by Brad Johnson Fri, 17 Jan 2014 04:49:00 GMT

In a letter sent to President Barack Obama on Thursday, the leaders of the nation’s top environmental organizations aggressively criticized his “all of the above” energy strategy. The 16 groups, ranging from environmental justice organizations such as the Native American Rights Fund to the corporate-friendly Environmental Defense Fund and the progressive advocacy group Voices for Progress, praised the president’s “goal of cutting carbon pollution” but sharply rebuked the White House’s support for expanded fossil-fuel extraction:
An “all of the above” strategy is a compromise that future generations can’t afford. It fails to prioritize clean energy and solutions that have already begun to replace fossil fuels, revitalize American industry, and save Americans money. It increases environmental injustice while it locks in the extraction of fossil fuels that will inevitably lead to a catastrophic climate future. It threatens our health, our homes, our most sensitive public lands, our oceans and our most precious wild places. Such a policy accelerates development of fuel sources that can negate the important progress you’ve already made on lowering U.S. carbon pollution, and it undermines U.S. credibility in the international community.

The groups made special note of Obama’s announcement in June that the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline would be judged for the “net effects” of its “impact on climate.” The Keystone XL pipeline is incompatible with the 2°ree;C warming limit to which Obama has committed the United States, but the administration may attempt to use a different, high-emissions scenario as the baseline against which to judge the pipeline’s “net effects.”

The environmentalists concluded with the recommendation that the White House’s “all of the above” strategy be replaced with a “carbon-reducing clean energy” strategy:
We believe that a climate impact lens should be applied to all decisions regarding new fossil fuel development, and urge that a “carbon-reducing clean energy” strategy rather than an “all of the above” strategy become the operative paradigm for your administration’s energy decisions.

The full text of the letter is below.

American Rivers * Clean Water Action * Defenders of Wildlife * Earthjustice *
Energy Action Coalition * Environment America * Environmental Defense Fund *
Friends of the Earth * League of Conservation Voters * National Audubon Society *
National Wildlife Federation * Native American Rights Fund *
Natural Resources Defense Council * Oceana * Physicians for Social Responsibility *
Population Connection * Sierra Club * Voices for Progress

January 16, 2014

President Barack Obama
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue
Washington, D. C. 20500

Dear Mr. President,

We applaud the actions you have taken to reduce economy-wide carbon pollution and your commitment last June “to take bold action to reduce carbon pollution” and “lead the world in a coordinated assault on climate change.” We look forward to continuing to work with you to achieve these goals.

In that speech, you referenced that in the past you had put forward an “all of the above” energy strategy, yet noted that we cannot just drill our way out of our energy and climate challenge. We believe that continued reliance on an “all of the above” energy strategy would be fundamentally at odds with your goal of cutting carbon pollution and would undermine our nation’s capacity to respond to the threat of climate disruption. With record-high atmospheric carbon concentrations and the rising threat of extreme heat, drought, wildfires and super storms, America’s energy policies must reduce our dependence on fossil fuels, not simply reduce our dependence on foreign oil.

We understand that the U.S. cannot immediately end its use of fossil fuels and we also appreciate the advantages of being more energy independent. But an “all of the above” approach that places virtually no limits on whether, when, where or how fossil fuels are extracted ignores the impacts of carbon-intense fuels and is wrong for America’s future. America requires an ambitious energy vision that reduces consumption of these fuels in order to meet the scale of the climate crisis.

An “all of the above” strategy is a compromise that future generations can’t afford. It fails to prioritize clean energy and solutions that have already begun to replace fossil fuels, revitalize American industry, and save Americans money. It increases environmental injustice while it locks in the extraction of fossil fuels that will inevitably lead to a catastrophic climate future. It threatens our health, our homes, our most sensitive public lands, our oceans and our most precious wild places. Such a policy accelerates development of fuel sources that can negate the important progress you’ve already made on lowering U.S. carbon pollution, and it undermines U.S. credibility in the international community.

Mr. President, we were very heartened by your commitment that the climate impacts of the proposed Keystone XL pipeline would be “absolutely critical” to the decision and that it would be contrary to the “national interest” to approve a project that would “significantly exacerbate the problem of carbon pollution.” We believe that a climate impact lens should be applied to all decisions regarding new fossil fuel development, and urge that a “carbon-reducing clean energy” strategy rather than an “all of the above” strategy become the operative paradigm for your administration’s energy decisions.

In the coming months your administration will be making key decisions regarding fossil fuel development — including the Keystone XL pipeline, fracking on public lands, and drilling in the Arctic ocean — that will either set us on a path to achieve the clean energy future we all envision or will significantly exacerbate the problem of carbon pollution. We urge you to make climate impacts and emission increases critical considerations in each of these decisions.

Mr. President, we applaud you for your commitment to tackle the climate crisis and to build an economy powered by energy that is clean, safe, secure, and sustainable.

Sincerely,

Wm. Robert Irvin
President and CEO
American Rivers

Robert Wendelgass
President
Clean Water Action

Jamie Rappaport Clark
President and CEO
Defenders of Wildlife

Trip Van Noppen
President
Earthjustice

Maura Cowley
Executive Director
Energy Action Coalition

Margie Alt
Executive Director
Environment America

Fred Krupp
President
Environmental Defense Fund

Eric Pica
President
Friends of the Earth

John Seager
President
Population Connection
Gene Karpinski
President
League of Conservation Voters

David Yarnold
President and CEO
National Audubon Society

Larry J. Schweiger
President & CEO
National Wildlife Federation

John Echohawk
Executive Director
Native American Rights Fund

Frances Beinecke
President
Natural Resources Defense Council

Andrew Sharpless
Chief Executive Officer
Oceana

Catherine Thomasson, MD
Executive Director
Physicians for Social Responsibility

Michael Brune
Executive Director
Sierra Club

Sandy Newman
President
Voices for Progress

Koch Brothers Support Disaster Relief Effort for W. Va. Chemical Spill from Koch Industries Distributor

Posted by Brad Johnson Mon, 13 Jan 2014 02:13:00 GMT

AFP staff deliver water to victims of coal industryIn the wake of a coal-industry chemical spill that contaminated the water supply of over 300,000 West Virginians, a Koch Industries political operation stepped in. The spill into Elk River of 4-methylcyclohexanemethanol (MCHM), a coal washing agent manufactured by Eastman Chemical, came from the facilities of Freedom Industries. Freedom Industries, a closely held private company, distributes coal-mining chemicals including those made by Koch Industries subsidiary Georgia-Pacific Chemicals.

Americans for Prosperity, the group that serves as the organizing wing for the Koch brothers’ extensive political efforts, alerted its national list soon after the coal-industry disaster crippled West Virginia. In an email with the electronic signature of AFP President Tim Phillips, describes the “disaster” caused by the Koch Industries chemical distributor as one that had “no warnings”:
A few days ago, there was a terrible incident in West Virginia, which has left more than 300,000 of our fellow citizens without safe, useable water. The water in the nine affected counties isn’t even safe after boiling! Currently there isn’t a timeline for when the water will be safe again. . . .

There were no warnings for this disaster. There was no time to prepare once the emergency struck.

The efforts of AFP staff to distribute “clean water and supplies into West Virginia to help with relief efforts” has been promoted on conservative media.

“It is so exciting to serve our fellow West Virginians at this crucial time of need,” explained Wendy McCuskey, the newly minted West Virginia state director of Americans for Prosperity Foundation, in a press release. “We are so happy to be able to meet their need for clean water and ease this very difficult time for West Virginia families.”

The message from AFP President Phillips raise a central question: Why where there “no warnings for this disaster” and “no time to prepare”?

“Few chemicals are actually regulated by safe-drinking-water or other water-quality rules,” the Charleston Gazette’s Ken Ward Jr. wrote, “and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has tested only about 200 of the 84,000 chemicals in the agency’s inventory.” In addition, the Freedom Industries facility has benefited from West Virginia’s notoriously lax oversight of the coal industry.

Koch Industries and its subsidiaries have a long record of opposing U.S. Environmental Protection Agency efforts to tighten water quality standards for stream-dumping and to update the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) Chemical Substance Inventory.

At Slate, reporter Dave Weigel sardonically noted the Koch group’s charitable role, writing “No one who gives away free water can be evil.”

From: Tim Phillips – Americans for Prosperity
Date: Sat, Jan 11, 2014 at 4:57 PM
Subject: West Virginians need your help

I need your help.

A few days ago, there was a terrible incident in West Virginia, which has left more than 300,000 of our fellow citizens without safe, useable water. The water in the nine affected counties isn’t even safe after boiling! Currently there isn’t a timeline for when the water will be safe again.

There are thousands of suffering families, young mothers, and elderly folks who need your help. Fortunately, Americans have a great history of coming together during times of emergency to help those in need. This is one of those times. AFP Foundation, our sister organization, has already sent additional staff loaded with clean water and supplies into West Virginia to help with relief efforts, and hope you’ll help us bring aid to those in need.

Here are some ways you can help:
  • Donate to our friends at the American Red Cross.
  • Send supplies, such as water, baby wipes, and hand sanitizer to:
    113 Lakeview Drive, Charleston, WV 25313

Many of our state chapters have begun putting together relief kits to send to West Virginia. Please contact your state director, or email us at [email protected] and we’ll get you in touch with the best person. There were no warnings for this disaster. There was no time to prepare once the emergency struck. Experts suggest that the best way to prepare is with a 72-hour kit that includes water, food, and toiletries. As much as we hope it doesn’t, an unexpected emergency could happen anywhere, so please take the time today to set aside enough supplies for you and your family for at least 72 hours. For more information on how you can prepare you and your family for emergencies, go here.

Thank you for all you do to help your fellow Americans. I know the citizens of West Virginia will appreciate your assistance.

Sincerely,

TimPhillipssig

AFP President Tim Phillips

P.S. Send an email to [email protected], and we’ll let you know what supplies are needed in West Virginia.