Hill Heat: Following Google's Lead, Facebook Plans to Cut Ties to ALECScience Policy Legislation Actiontag:www.hillheat.com,2005:TypoTypo2014-11-18T15:53:18-05:00Brad Johnsonurn:uuid:9de18d3d-1e40-4a6e-be42-67d3f27cf70b2014-09-24T00:36:00-04:002014-11-18T15:53:18-05:00Following Google's Lead, Facebook Plans to Cut Ties to ALEC<div style='float:right;width:40%;margin-left:10px;font-size:x-small'><img src='/files/bill_weihl.jpg' alt='Bill Weihl' style='width:100%' /><br /> Facebook green czar Bill Weihl discusses his company at a Greenpeace event</div>A day after Google <span class="caps">CEO</span> Eric Schmidt <a href='http://www.hillheat.com/articles/2014/09/23/google-drops-american-legislative-exchange-council-over-climate-denial-theyre-literally-lying'>announced</a> his company had dropped the “liars” at the American Legislative Exchange Council, it appears social media juggernaut Facebook is next. The <i>San Francisco Chronicle</i> received an <a href='http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Facebook-to-cut-ties-with-conservative-policy-5776055.php'>email</a> from an unnamed representative announcing Facebook’s unhappiness with <span class="caps">ALEC</span> on “some key issues.”
<blockquote>We re-evaluate our memberships on an annual basis and are in that process now. While we have tried to work within <span class="caps">ALEC</span> to bring that organization closer to our view on some key issues, it seems unlikely that we will make sufficient progress so we are not likely to renew our membership in 2015.</blockquote>
<p>The representative seems to have been referring a key incident at <span class="caps">ALEC</span>’s annual meeting in Dallas this July. <a href='http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/sep/24/facebook-abandons-rightwing-lobby-group-alec'>Michael Terrell</a>, Google’s senior policy counsel for energy and sustainability, made a presentation on behalf of then-members Google, Yahoo, Facebook, and eBay promoting clean energy development. The tech companies are major electricity consumers, because of their need for massive data farms, and have worked to power their installations with renewable energy. Chris Taylor, a state lawmaker attending the presentation, <a href='http://www.progressive.org/news/2014/07/187799/my-alec-diary-day-1'>wrote</a> that the lobbyists for Peabody Energy, Edison Electric, and the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity in attendance were unswayed.</p>
<p>Google and Facebook are both participants in Greenpeace’s Cool IT effort to decarbonize the data farms. When I pressed the companies’ green energy executives at a Greenpeace event in November of last year as the manager of the #DontFundEvil campaign <a href='http://grist.org/article/google-and-facebook-green-guys-baffled-why-their-companies-are-in-alec/'>why they had <span class="caps">ALEC</span> membership</a>, they were unable to provide an answer.</p>
<p>The experience of the tech giants is a replay of what happened when <a href='http://www.eenews.net/stories/1059975552'>renewable trade associations</a> were part of the fossil-driven lobby group in 2012. The American Wind Energy Association and Solar Energy Industries Association were outvoted in a series of decisions that led to <span class="caps">ALEC</span> pushing anti-renewable legislation. Chastened by the result, <span class="caps">AWEA</span> and <span class="caps">SEIA</span> left <span class="caps">ALEC</span> when their one-year membership came up for renewal.</p>
<p>It seems that none of these companies bothered to look who is on <a href='http://www.alec.org/about-alec/private-enterprise-advisory-council/'><span class="caps">ALEC</span>’s corporate board</a> — lobbyists for fossil-fuel companies Koch Industries, Exxon Mobil, Peabody Energy, and Future Energy Holdings. One would think they could have Googled it.</p><div style='float:right;width:40%;margin-left:10px;font-size:x-small'><img src='/files/bill_weihl.jpg' alt='Bill Weihl' style='width:100%' /><br /> Facebook green czar Bill Weihl discusses his company at a Greenpeace event</div>A day after Google <span class="caps">CEO</span> Eric Schmidt <a href='http://www.hillheat.com/articles/2014/09/23/google-drops-american-legislative-exchange-council-over-climate-denial-theyre-literally-lying'>announced</a> his company had dropped the “liars” at the American Legislative Exchange Council, it appears social media juggernaut Facebook is next. The <i>San Francisco Chronicle</i> received an <a href='http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Facebook-to-cut-ties-with-conservative-policy-5776055.php'>email</a> from an unnamed representative announcing Facebook’s unhappiness with <span class="caps">ALEC</span> on “some key issues.”
<blockquote>We re-evaluate our memberships on an annual basis and are in that process now. While we have tried to work within <span class="caps">ALEC</span> to bring that organization closer to our view on some key issues, it seems unlikely that we will make sufficient progress so we are not likely to renew our membership in 2015.</blockquote>
<p>The representative seems to have been referring a key incident at <span class="caps">ALEC</span>’s annual meeting in Dallas this July. <a href='http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/sep/24/facebook-abandons-rightwing-lobby-group-alec'>Michael Terrell</a>, Google’s senior policy counsel for energy and sustainability, made a presentation on behalf of then-members Google, Yahoo, Facebook, and eBay promoting clean energy development. The tech companies are major electricity consumers, because of their need for massive data farms, and have worked to power their installations with renewable energy. Chris Taylor, a state lawmaker attending the presentation, <a href='http://www.progressive.org/news/2014/07/187799/my-alec-diary-day-1'>wrote</a> that the lobbyists for Peabody Energy, Edison Electric, and the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity in attendance were unswayed.</p>
<p>Google and Facebook are both participants in Greenpeace’s Cool IT effort to decarbonize the data farms. When I pressed the companies’ green energy executives at a Greenpeace event in November of last year as the manager of the #DontFundEvil campaign <a href='http://grist.org/article/google-and-facebook-green-guys-baffled-why-their-companies-are-in-alec/'>why they had <span class="caps">ALEC</span> membership</a>, they were unable to provide an answer.</p>
<p>The experience of the tech giants is a replay of what happened when <a href='http://www.eenews.net/stories/1059975552'>renewable trade associations</a> were part of the fossil-driven lobby group in 2012. The American Wind Energy Association and Solar Energy Industries Association were outvoted in a series of decisions that led to <span class="caps">ALEC</span> pushing anti-renewable legislation. Chastened by the result, <span class="caps">AWEA</span> and <span class="caps">SEIA</span> left <span class="caps">ALEC</span> when their one-year membership came up for renewal.</p>
<p>It seems that none of these companies bothered to look who is on <a href='http://www.alec.org/about-alec/private-enterprise-advisory-council/'><span class="caps">ALEC</span>’s corporate board</a> — lobbyists for fossil-fuel companies Koch Industries, Exxon Mobil, Peabody Energy, and Future Energy Holdings. One would think they could have Googled it.</p>