Politics

Paul Chesser, Climate Strategies Watch

A chemical engineer friend in Colorado, Ed Rademacher, Jr., who also has Montana ties, was so impressed with Chris Horner's Capital Research Center report on the Center for Climate Strategies that he sent it to several Montana legislators. He asked that the lawmakers "take a little time to investigate all of the pertinent facts before you take action on the recommendations generated as part of the Montana Climate Change Action Plan," which CCS created through the state's climate commission process. He received a response from State Rep. Sue Dickenson, who also served on Montana's Climate Change Advisory Committee, which I have pasted here — make sure you read the second paragraph:

Mr. Rademacher—I served on the advisory council and I know the Center for Climate Strategies and their personnel very well. They are highly regarded by more than 17 states and regional organizations for their expertise and ability to facilitate climate change discussions. The people I worked with were excellent and were not in any way trying to influence the decisions which the advisory council made. I need to remind you that the 56 (actually 54) recommendations which the council brought forward were decided on by consensus. That includes representatives from PPL, SME, Nance Petroleum, etc. After our recommendations were released, a few of these individuals, pressured by their companies I am sure, voiced reservations. Before that time they were active participants and there were several small last minute working groups which came up with compromises which better reflected the concerns of all. I suggest you look into the funding for the organization/ article which you cite; if they are similar to Beacon Hill, there are funded by oil, gas, and coal. It is difficult to see where their position would be impartial and based on fact alone.

I appreciate hearing from you but will respond with the comment I made at the last EQC meeting—Some people may still believe that the stork delivers babies. I will defend their right to hold whatever belief they feel is correct. But in a discussion or decisions made about human reproduction, the overwhelming science says babies do not come from storks. At some point, one has to discount the stork as a deliverer of babies, even if somewhere in some corner of our state, a few stork feathers are found near the bed of a woman who just delivered a baby. In the same way, the arguments of those who continue to deny climate change and man's impact on it need to be rejected as the overwhelming amount of science and scientific opinion show otherwise. The time is right to move forward. If those of us who fear adverse effects if we do not act immediately to reduce our CO2 emissions are wrong, we all still will be ahead when it comes to energy efficiencies, independence from fossil fuels, a whole new area of job creation, and enhanced sense of community. If we are right, then our planet is also saved in addition to all the above mentioned benefits.

Sincerely, Rep. Sue Dickenson

I nominate Rep. Dickenson as enviro-elitist of the week, as Ted Turner's chief competition.

Meanwhile, while I'm on the subject of Montana, Craig Sprout of Mtpolitics.net has begun a series of posts about CCS and the stork-deniers up there. Looks very promising.

Paul Chesser, Climate Strategies Watch

The Capital Research Center has just published its latest Organization Trends report, which focuses on the Center for Climate Strategies. Reviewers like me say it is "must reading," "compelling," and that they "couldn't put it down." Of course, I've had an intense interest in this group for at least a year, and it helps that our friend Chris Horner put the piece together. As CRC summarizes:

To use nightmare scenarios to forge national policies the activists have decided to circumvent the outgoing Bush administration – and more to the point, Congress – and get state governors to follow their advice. That’s where the Center for Climate Strategies (CCS) comes in. CCS persuades governors to appoint “study commissions” on global warming, then steers the policy process, rigging commission proceedings to produce a predetermined result: higher energy costs, diminished property and other individual rights, and more Big Government. These undemocratic maneuvers do an end-run around state legislators and should trouble advocates of open government.

Chris does a great job explaining comprehensively how CCS works, how they are funded, and what are the fruits of their efforts. Read it.

Paul Chesser, Climate Strategies Watch

USA Today has a predictably alarming story today by incurious press release rewriter Doyle Rice about the impending devastating effects on the health of Americans, based on "a new campaign announced by the American Public Health Association." I guess this has progressed so far that all that is required to capture the media's attention is for someone to announce a "campaign" (see previous Horner posts on Al Gore) — or in this case with APHA's own words, a "blueprint." The article has the disease and death forecast, while dutiful Doyle cites these experts:

In a telephone conference, report contributor Edward Maibach of George Mason University in Fairfax, Va., said, "Climate change is affecting our health now and will more in the future…."

 

"These are all problems we have today, but they will intensify with climate change," said blueprint lead author Jonathan Patz of the University of Wisconsin.

Maibach is apparently a favorite in the USA Today environmental reporters' Rolodexes, while Patz toils within his university's Nelson Institute Center for Sustainability and Global Environment, which "is supported by government research grants, corporate gifts, and private funds." Last year the Nelson Institute reported nearly $7.5 million in income, including $2.1 million from the state and $3.6 million in federal grants. Of that, $1.6 million fed into the CSAGE. That keeps those Madison profs happy.

Oh, and Patz is "a Lead Author on IPCC reports for 1995, 1998, 2001, and 2007, (and) shares in the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize awarded to the IPCC and Al Gore." Just tryin' to help ya finish your job, Doyle.

Paul Chesser, Climate Strategies Watch

Speaking at North Carolina State University yesterday, Chelsea Clinton misremembered (I'm giving her the benefit of the doubt) her father's role (thanks Iain) in declining to send the Kyoto Treaty to the Senate for ratification, as the Associated Press reports:

Clinton told about 250 people at N.C. State that her mother, New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, would work to repair the nation's reputation abroad.

"I think the world will breathe a sigh of relief when this president is gone," Clinton said, criticizing Bush for pulling out of various accordings (sic), including the Kyoto Protocol on global warming.

Of course if the AP reporter was on the ball, she would have corrected the record.

Paul Chesser, Climate Strategies Watch

As I reported 10 days ago, Kansas's Kathleen Sebelius is the most recent state executive to create a state global warming commission — called the Kansas Energy and Environmental Policy Advisory Group — and like most other states hired the Center for Climate Strategies to manage the thing. Unfortunately also like a few of the states (Iowa, Maryland, South Carolina), Kansas apparently has no contract with CCS to create its government-"sponsored" climate advisory policy. Instead CCS and the commission will have no accountability to taxpayers and instead will be beholden to those who fund it: global warming alarmists like the Energy Foundation, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, and the Sandler Family Supporting Foundation. In fact, the presence of Sandler money shows Kansas to be the first state in which clearly political leftist money is paying for what is supposed to be an "objective" policy development process.

Just a little while ago I called a couple of attorneys with the state to verify a few things. Dennis Highberger, with the Kansas Department of Health and Environment, told me that his agency has a contract with CCS to do its greenhouse gas emissions inventory, but no agreement to run the governor's commission. He referred me to Gov. Sebelius's office.

So then I called Sally Howard, her chief counsel, who informed me that the governor's office had no contract with CCS either. When I told her that KDHE said they had no contract and that it appears there is no contract with the state, she said she found that hard to believe. I told her that's the case with other states as well. What's the need for a contract when the state isn't paying anything, right?

Anyway, I did ask if the state budgeted anything for the commission — after all, at least a few bureaucrats are going to have to dedicate some time to this dog-and-pony show. She was unaware of any dedicated budget for the project, so if taxpayers want to know the amount of public employees' time devoted to the commission, they're out of luck.

Paul Chesser, Climate Strategies Watch

William just summarized it, but today Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius just executed the broken-legged horse: she vetoed the bill that would allow two coal-fired power plants to be built in the state. Legislators tried to create a new law that would have overridden a ruling by the Kansas Department of Health and Environment to deny air permits for the plants. The Senate has enough votes to override the veto, but the House does not, so lawmakers I spoke to earlier this week expect the veto to stand.

But what's of greater interest is that Sebelius, simultaneous with the veto, issued an executive order creating the Kansas Energy and Environmental Policy Advisory Group. This is another one of those state global warming commissions, and as I reported earlier this week, they have hired the Center for Climate Strategies to manage their policy development process. I've reported ad nauseum that CCS's work in dozens of states is funded mostly by global warming alarmists like the Rockefeller Brothers Fund and the Energy Foundation, but in Kansas there is a new multi-million dollar resource paying the bill: the Sandler Family Supporting Foundation.

Who else has Sandler supported? They were instrumental in joining George Soros to create the Center for American Progress and Democracy Alliance. Gave nice contributions to ACORN, Oceana, and Environmental Defense too. For the first time in watching the maneuvers of CCS, we've discovered a bond not only to the environmental left, but the explicitly political activist left as well.

UPDATE 3:05 p.m.:

From the last 3 tax returns (tax years 2003-2005) available on Guidestar, other contributions (cumulative for the period) of note made by the Sandler Family Supporting Foundation (the Sandlers owned Golden West Financial until they sold to Wachovia):

ACLU: $6.5 million

American Institute for Social Justice: $3.2 million

Center for American Progress: $6.7 million

Human Rights Watch: $7 million

Natural Resources Defense Council: $350,000

Sierra Club Foundation: $500,000

Media Matters of America: $100,000

Oceana: $2.5 million

People for the American Way Foundation: $150,000

Sojourners: $219,000

Pew Charitable Trusts: $250,000

Also included are a number of contributions for asthma research and Jewish support organizations.

Paul Chesser, Climate Strategies Watch

To date the attorneys, regulators and bureaucrats having the most fun and earning the most money from the global warming mytheria have been those involved in utilities and transportation, and frankly, the ones who deal with land use planning are a little miffed and feeling kind of left behind.

Well, their time is now. Coming along on May 5 & 6 is a “comprehensive conference” in Tarrytown, NY, titled, “Climate Change and Land Use: Global warming impacts on land use planning and project approvals,” described thusly:

California, Washington, Oregon and Massachusetts have all passed legislation seeking to regulate GHG emissions in private development and environmentally sensitive projects through their environmental review process. California has passed a landmark statute, AB 32, which requires local governments to consider global warming impacts as part of their planning processes. The settlement agreement between the state and San Bernardino County sheds some light on how the state plans to implement that policy. There is a growing list of other pioneering efforts by local governments that we will address.

For this first-of-its-kind conference, we have assembled experts from early adopter jurisdictions around the country, as well as leading New York land use professionals, to provide insights for the local governments attorneys, planners, consultants and developers. Hear about the factors that go into a successful regulatory program, the appropriate scope of local review in the Hudson River Valley and surrounding regions, and the best way for developers to respond to the concerns leading to these new regulations.

Attorneys, local governments attorneys, planners, engineers, consultants and developers are beckoned to attend and learn how the rent seeking is done.

Paul Chesser, Climate Strategies Watch

The close relationship between the advocacy-oriented Pennsylvania Environmental Council and the Center for Climate Strategies, which has managed global warming commissions (it claims as an “objective consultant”) for governors in several states, has been well established. Statements from their 2006 Form 990 tax return explains that PEC formed Enterprising Environmental Solutions, Inc. (where CCS is housed) to “carry out their non-regulatory agenda.” The tax return also explains, “EESI has its own board of directors and is controlled by PEC, since PEC is the only member of EESI.” Also, EESI/CCS exists to “advance, support and promote the purposes of the Pennsylvania Environmental Council….”

Now here’s the latest revelation uncovered in e-mail correspondence obtained from the Kansas Department of Health and Environment, which was sent by Kimberlea Konowitch, who is identified as the senior accountant for EESI/CCS. Her email address, like others who handle administrative work for EESI/CCS, is identified by a pecpa.org domain. But here’s the kicker, in your average legal disclaimer (“only intended for the recipient,” blah, blah…) that you find at the end of emails: “The Pennsylvania Environmental Council and any of its subsidiaries each reserve the right to monitor all e-mail communications through its networks.”

So now EESI/CCS is recognized as an official subsidiary of PEC. And the continued insistence by CCS executive director Tom Peterson that advocates for PEC don’t work on these state projects, and that EESI/CCS does not have an advocacy history, that they are objective, becomes more laughable each time he repeats it. CCS’s only reason for existing is to promote PEC’s agenda.

While we’re talking about Kansas: CCS has been hired by KDHE to do its greenhouse gas emissions inventory, which always precedes the creation of a climate commission in a state and then the hiring of CCS to run the process. In a document that justifies hiring CCS without going through a competitive bidding process, they are praised for having a “proven track record” and are described as “an objective facilitator and expert party.” That’s true if your greatest passion is reducing greenhouse gas emissions without concern for destroying the economy.
 

The Danish Energy Department paid a researcher to promote their climate policy strategy in debates with Bjørn Lomborg. Peter Laut billed about 500 hours of work to the Energy Department a year during the previous administration in Denmark. The other member of the Energy Department's climate advisory group was sued for libel after he accused a documentary film maker of being "paid for by the oil industry."

It is not unusual for scientists to be paid advisors to the government, but Laut wrote commentaries for the Minister of the Environment and promoted the government's climate policy in the media and in public debates. After a debate in Aalborg in 1999, he wrote in his invoice for the 80 hours of preparation time, that "the project was a succes, for once Lomborg was the one that looked like a fool." He presented himself as an engineering professor from The Technical University in Denmark during the debate and did not disclose his ties to the Energy department.