Sierra Club Takes $25 Million from Natural Gas To Attack Coal

by Myron Ebell on February 4, 2012

in Features

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Bryan Walsh in Time Magazine broke the big story this week that the Sierra Club received over $25 million from the natural gas industry to serve as a corporate shill for the natural gas industry’s attacks on the coal industry.  Walsh wrote: “TIME has learned that between 2007 and 2010 the Sierra Club accepted over $25 million in donations from the gas industry, mostly from Aubrey McClendon, CEO of Chesapeake Energy—one of the biggest gas drilling companies in the U.S. and a firm heavily involved in fracking—to help fund the Club’s Beyond Coal campaign. Though the group ended its relationship with Chesapeake in 2010—and the Club says it turned its back on an additional $30 million in promised donations—the news raises concerns about influence industry may have had on the Sierra Club’s independence and its support of natural gas in the past.”

McClendon and Chesapeake Energy several years ago funded a multi-million dollar advertising campaign against the coal industry called “Face it, coal is filthy.”  Two months ago, it was revealed that McClendon and Chesapeake had given as much as $100 million to the American Lung Association, one of the most reprehensible of the environmental pressure groups, to fund the ALA’s “Fighting for air” disinformation campaign.

Jeryl Bier February 6, 2012 at 2:04 pm

It would be interesting to know if the Sierra Club has similar ties with any other energy industry players… like geothermal, for instance.

Don Koza February 10, 2012 at 8:07 pm

Follow the money!
A few years ago over many months, Chesapeake set up a phoney environmental group that took out full page ads in several newspapers in Texas to kill the TXU coal plant buildout. They depicted various family members, including a little girl, with coal smudges on their faces with the heading, “DO YOU WANT A DIRTY COAL PLANT IN YOUR BACK YARD?” Chesapeak’s name was nowhere on the ad. Chesapeake didn”t want the competition for fuel supply.

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