Paul Chesser, Heartland Institute Correspondent

Paul Chesser, Climate Strategies Watch

Through my scavenging of the Web I came across a homemade video (in somebody's kitchen?) of an interview with Tom Peterson (pictured), executive (self-employed) director of the Center for Climate Strategies. In the discussion he confirms much of what has already been reported about CCS and has a few new revelations:

How CCS was started (:29): "…by working with governors primarily and other state leaders who wanted to step up to the plate and find ways to begin reducing the greenhouse gas emissions, to tackle the problem from the bottom-up…"

As we've reported, CCS's strategy is to approach governors (and the process is usually that CCS lobbies them, not that governors go seeking them out, as documents have shown) with the premise that the "Bush Administration/Federal Government/EPA is not doing enough to address global warming so it's up to the states (the "laboratories for democracy," or in this case, the laboratories for economic destruction experimentation) to address this vital work,"…blah, blah, blah…. Because CCS pockets are loaded with Rockefeller Brothers Fund money, states don't have to pay much for these climate study commission scams that Peterson wants governors to set up in their states. So the governor thinks, "hey, no brainer — I pay nothing and I look like I'm doing something about global warming! Let's do it!" Further testimony to this truth is shown by the fact that even respected and supposedly conservative GOP Governors (and potential McCain running mates) Sanford (S.C.), Crist (Fla.), Pawlenty (Minn.), and Palin (Alaska) have bought into the idea.

CCS's goals (:42): …"so we've been supporting them in the formulation of comprehensive climate action plans and all the policies that are involved in reducing emissions from all the different economic sectors in the economy (from the chairman of the Department of Redundancy Department:"Did I mention that we want to take over the economy?"), and ultimately lead to national policy and we hope even international agreements…."

See? I told you so.

Do you think we'll have a national framework for climate change? (2:50): "…the Supreme Court made it fairly clear in saying emphatically that the answer is 'yes, in fact we already have that framework.' It's called the Clean Air Act. Greenhouse gases are in fact pollutants that need to be covered by the Clean Air Act, so it will be the responsibility of the next president and the next administration, if this president decides not to take up the task, to actually add greenhouse gas controls to the Clean Air Act…Certainly the Clean Air Act is a template that is here. By law, it is a template that must be used…."

Of course this is enviro-crapola. Peterson has proven himself to be a non-credible source who is all too happy to quash discussion of climate science, hide CCS's funding sources and agenda, exaggerate his credentials, and ignore economic impacts of CCS's proposals.

Paul Chesser, Climate Strategies Watch

Earlier this week Climate Strategies Watch showed, mostly with documents it posted from tax returns, how the Center for Climate Strategies has its origins in global warming alarmism advocacy (despite their claims to the contrary). Today we will look at the contractors they have running the many state climate commissions where CCS has set up shop.

Instead of hiring their own people, CCS uses staff from the Pennsylvania Environmental Council to handle administrative work and contracts out for their technical and facilitation service work for states. You can view their top five highest paid contractors in both FY2006 (PDF) and FY2007 (PDF) (these tax returns are for Enterprising Environmental Solutions, Inc., where CCS is housed).

So, who are these people? Well, it's best to start with the person identified as CCS's executive director, Thomas D. (Tom) Peterson, who received nearly $180,000 in each of the last two years from EESI/CCS. Peterson is at the forefront of this state-level effort despite not being a formal employee for CCS, as he owns all the domain names for current and potentially future climate commission Web sites. More on him in a future post.

E.H. Pechan & Associates

Consultants E.H. Pechan received $195,819 in FY2006 and $287,682 in FY2007. Pechan provides "climate change services" including emissions inventories for governments and businesses."For our clients," the company's Web site explains, "Pechan develops emission inventories (e.g., developing baselines), verifies inventory and reduction projects, develops data management systems, and assists with GHG mitigation plans." Pechan's client list reads like a "Who's-Who" of environmental alarmist groups: Environmental Defense, Natural Resources Defense Council, The Climate Trust, the Energy Foundation, and the Pacific Forest Trust.

You could say climate change is big business for E.H. Pechan, and several of the CCS-controlled state climate commissions can be included on that list of clients. Names of Pechan-employed consultants as state climate commission consultants include Steve Roe, Randy Strait, and Holly Lindquist.

Symbiotic Strategies

Symbiotic Strategies is Kenneth Colburn, an alarmist (see video) who received $104,230 from EESI/CCS in FY2006. He continues to work as a leader on behalf of CCS with state climate commissions, but apparently in FY2007 his level of compensation did not rise to the level of their top-five paid outside contractors.

Karl Hausker & Others

Karl Hausker, once a deputy director for CCS who was paid $91,900 in FY2006, is also an adjunct fellow with the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies, where some of his work focused on problems with global climate change. According to his bio, he led the EPA's programs on climate change and on trade and the environment between 1993 and 1995.

Dr. David Von Hippel, who assisted the North Carolina climate commission's Residential, Commercial and Industrial sub-study group, is also a senior associate with the Nautilus Institute, a public policy organization in San Francisco. The organization takes a clear posture on the dangerous repercussions from greenhouse gases: "Our planet now faces a looming climate catastrophe caused by human action," according to a 2003 Nautilus briefing paper titled, "Our Burning Path: Action or Denial on Global Warming?"

Von Hippel himself adopted a similar stance in a report for Nautilus. "Scientific consensus is that increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, prominently including carbon dioxide and methane emitted by fossil fuels combustion, will cause global climate to change in the next several decades, if such changes have not already occurred," he wrote. "The impacts of climate change will vary widely across the globe, but those countries with the largest, least affluent populations per unit land area will likely be among the most vulnerable."

Von Hippel is associated with other similarly focused organizations, including the Stockholm Environment Institute, where he is also identified as a senior associate. At least two other CCS subcontractors who have worked on state climate commissions are affiliated with the Stockholm Institute as well: advisors Bill Dougherty, Michael Lazarus, and Sivan Kartha.

Stockholm Environment Institute received $331,032 from CCS as an outside consultant in FY2007 (PDF).

William Schroeer is a CCS consultant employed by ICF International in Fairfax, Va. The company works with government and commercial enterprises in six fields: energy, environment, transportation, social programs, defense, and homeland security. Schoeer leads ICF's "smart growth" consulting work.

Terry Tamminen (pictured with a friend) was paid $225,000 by CCS in FY2007 as an outside consultant. He has served in California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenneggar's administration as an environmental adviser. He is the author of "Lives Per Gallon: The True Cost of Our Oil Addiction," explained in his bio as "a timely examination of our dependence on oil and a strategy to evolve to more sustainable energy sources."

Paul Chesser, Climate Strategies Watch

I've reported repeatedly how the Center for Climate Strategies, which has been hired in many states to manage greenhouse gas reduction commissions created by governors, claims they are objective consultants and have no environmental advocacy interests. However, the Form 990 tax returns for their parent organization (Enterprising Environmental Solutions, Inc.) tell a different story, as I've also reported.

Well, it's one thing to tell an audience something is so; it's even better when you can show them. This is long overdue, but at Climate Strategies Watch we've begun to post some of these documents (most obtained from public records requests) that prove in black-and-white some of what I've reported. Today I'll highlight from the Climate Strategies Watch Web site the clear statements from those tax returns that illustrate CCS's advocacy origins.

CCS was created by an explicit advocacy group, the Pennsylvania Environmental Council. As PEC's Web site explains (read under "Advocacy"), "PEC is a catalyst for legislative, regulatory and policy change by public and private decision-makers to advance solutions that are in the best environmental and economic interests of the Commonwealth (of Pennsylvania)."

PEC/EESI/CCS Relationship

According to both the fiscal year 2006 (see Statement 4)(PDF) and 2007 (see Statement 5)(PDF) IRS Form 990s for EESI/CCS, PEC "formed EESI to carry out their non-regulatory agenda. EESI has their own board of directors and is controlled by PEC, since PEC is the only member of EESI." Scrolling down in the same documents, Statement 5 for FY2006 and Statement 6 for FY2007 state, "Fees…paid to EESI to perform environmental projects/studies which correspond with EESI's mission to advance, support and promote the purposes of the Pennsylvania Environmental Council by seeking to implement innovative solutions to long-standing environmental problems." No advocacy? No agenda?

PEC/EESI/CCS Shared Board Membership

EESI Board Members for FY2006 (PDF); EESI Board Members for FY2007 (PDF) — and note the overlap with members of PEC's board of directors. Paul King (chairman for both organizations), Brian Hill (until recently, as of early 2008, president of PEC and Secretary/Treasurer for EESI), and Tom Rodriguez (director for both) and John Rogers (director for both in FY2006). In FY2006 PEC board members or officers consisted of 2/3 (4 of 6) of EESI/CCS's board. In FY2007 PEC board members or officers consisted of 3/5 (3 of 5) of EESI/CCS's board.

PEC/EESI/CCS Shared Employees

Note from the "Contact" page for EESI/CCS that, besides the Brian Hill relationship, the manager is identified as Scott Van De Mark, a PEC employee. The same page also states that EESI/CCS "is a supporting organization to the Pennsylvania Environmental Council."

Apparently EESI/CCS needs to find someone to do the work, since the employee salary/compensation lines on their last two tax returns (FY2006 and FY2007, PDFs) show they have no employees of their own.

More to come later this week, including the backgrounds and employment origins of many of CCS's consultants.

Paul Chesser, Climate Strategies Watch

Ever read a story and think, "I can't believe what I'm reading?" I had that experience this morning when I read this report in USA Today, with the headline 'Psychologists determine what it means to think 'green:'

Armed with new research into what makes some people environmentally conscious and others less so, the 148,000-member American Psychological Association is stepping up efforts to foster a broader sense of eco-sensitivity that the group believes will translate into more public action to protect the planet.

"We know how to change behavior and attitudes. That is what we do," says Yale University psychologist Alan Kazdin, association president. "We know what messages will work and what will not."

During a four-day meeting that begins today in Boston, an expected 16,000 attendees will hear presentations, including studies that explore how people experience the environment, their attitudes about climate change and what social barriers prevent conservation of resources….

From one research presentation:

News stories that provided a balanced view of climate change reduced people's beliefs that humans are at fault and also reduced the number of people who thought climate change would be bad, according to research by Stanford social psychologist Jon Krosnick.

His presentation will detail a decade of American attitudes about climate change. His new experiment, conducted in May, illustrates what he says is a public misperception about global warming. He says there is scientific consensus among experts that climate change is occurring, but the nationwide online poll of 2,600 adults asked whether they believe scientists agree or disagree about it.

By editing CNN and PBS news stories so that some saw a skeptic included in the report, others saw a story in which the skeptic was edited out and another group saw no video, Krosnick found that adding 45 seconds of a skeptic to one news story caused 11% of Americans to shift their opinions about the scientific consensus. Rather than 58% believing a perceived scientific agreement, inclusion of the skeptic caused the perceived amount of agreement to drop to 47%.

American Psychological Association leaders say they want to launch a national initiative specifically targeting behavior changes, including developing media messages that will help people reduce their carbon footprint and pay more attention to ways they can conserve. They want to work with other organizations and enlist congressional support to help fund the effort….

I don't think I really need to add any other commentary other than that now the "greening of education" doesn't stop at the grade school-through-college vehicles — it can be legitimately called an all-out propaganda effort that will include brainwashing by psychoanalysts.

Paul Chesser, Climate Strategies Watch

One of the proud proclamations the Center for Climate Strategies makes whenever they start managing a new climate commission for a state is that their "process is fully transparent." That can be challenged on a few different points, and none more so than the issue of how much they get paid to do their work (that is, advance their agenda) for each state and how much the alarmist foundations (like Rockefeller Brothers Fund and the Energy Foundation) are paying them.

Exhibit A is with the Kansas Energy and Environmental Policy Advisory Group (KEEP), created and populated by Gov. Kathleen Sebelius (pictured). If you read the "Process Memo" (PDF) posted at the KEEP site (which lays out the ground rules for the group and its process) you will notice that under the "Project Budget" section there is only this statement: "The estimated CCS budget for completion of startup and completion of the KEEP process covers the core facilitation process and quantification of approximately 50 policy recommendations. Changes in the number of meetings, number of policy options, or type of analysis may reduce or expand the level of budget support needed."

As you can see, no budget numbers there for the public to easily access (as is the case in all states where CCS works).

But take a look at this version (PDF) of the document that I obtained via a public records request from the governor's office. Voila — budget numbers (PDF single page) appear! And CCS will get nearly $554,000 out of the deal, thanks to their global warming alarmist sugar daddies.

So, will a curious Topeka press corps inquire about why there's such secrecy? Will they ask how much the enviro-foundations are each pitching in? Will KEEP leaders demand that CCS (who runs the KEEP Web site) live up to their promise of transparency? Stay tuned.

Paul Chesser, Climate Strategies Watch

A few of my John Locke Foundation colleagues have noticed an AP story about the final day of the annual meeting of the Southern Governor's Association, in which members "are working on a comprehensive plan to reduce the South's carbon footprint and create jobs." More:

"This is a real opportunity for us," Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine (pictured) said Monday during the closing day of the Southern Governors Association conference at the Greenbrier.…

Many of the region's universities, including the University of Kentucky and Duke University in North Carolina, are eager to assist with research, officials representing both institutions told the governors.

As my friend Jon Sanders wrote, "RENT SEEKERS!"

Meanwhile JLF vice president for research Roy Cordato addresses the John McCain/Elizabeth Dole approach on offshore drilling for oil, calling it "ignorant at best and dishonest at worst," saying also:

Combined with the position that they hold on global warming policy, that is, they favor a federally enforced cap on CO2 emissions, the implication is that they are in favor of finding new oil but against using it. The cap and trade program that they both favor would put a limit on the amount of oil that Americans are allowed to use, and then force us to ration that amount through a government devised and enforced trading scheme.  At the present time we have a government created scarcity of oil due to legal restrictions on  oil drilling and exploration. Dole and McCain would eliminate those restrictions but continue the government contrived scarcity by limiting the amount of oil we can use.

Roy adds that while Barack Obama's position is no better, he at least is consistent.

Paul Chesser, Climate Strategies Watch

It shouldn't be surprising given the nature of the URLs for various state climate commissions (www: mdclimatechange.us; ncclimatechange.us; scclimatechange.us; mnclimatechange.us; and so forth) that the ownership of those domain names for every state belongs to Thomas D. Peterson, individual (you can look it up). He is known to those of us who track these climate commissions as the executive director of the Center for Climate Strategies, where he is utilized as an independent consultant (just like all of CCS's experts, as they have no employees). The last couple of years he has earned six-figure salaries flying back-and-forth, up-and-down the country to various state climate commission meetings as they happen, doing his part to spread both his own CO2 emissions and his gospel message against them. Peterson even owns the domain names for states where there are not yet climate commissions, and also where the climateers have hired other consultants.

Despite Peterson's lack of an employer/employee relationship with CCS, the fact that he owns the domain names of the state climate commissions whose Web sites and technical documents bear the CCS name, demonstrates the degree of confidence and faith the nonprofit has in him. He ought to feel pretty good about that.