There is one day left this year to vote with the environment in mind. Don’t miss it! This week in CIB.
Campaign Watch: Big Energy Trying to Buy NC Elections
Oil, gas, and coal interests are piping a big flow of cash into North Carolina legislative and judicial contests this year, seeking to influence both what laws are made on energy and environmental policy and how they are interpreted and enforced.
Last week the online journal Facing South published an analysis of election spending that shows how money from Big Energy sources is finding its way into these campaigns. Contributing parties include the American Petroleum Institute (API), Duke Energy, Piedmont Natural Gas, and the oil-baron Koch Industries.
The Facing South article connects the dots to a coordinated effort to impact state energy and environmental policy in part by noting the NCLCV Legislative Scorecard records of contribution recipients. For example, API reported spending $351,000 in August to support the re-election campaigns of seven incumbent state legislators. All seven earned a 0% score on the latest NCLCV Legislative Scorecard. Read the full Facing South article here.
Campaign Watch: LCV Action Fund Endorses Adams
The national League of Conservation Voters (LCV) Action Fund last week announced its endorsement of Alma Adams for Congress from North Carolina’s 12th District. A 20-year veteran state legislator from Greensboro, Adams is seeking her first term in the US Congress.
LCV Action Fund President Gene Karpinski said of Adams, “She’s committed to investing in renewable energy and energy efficiency, which will decrease our nation’s dependence on fossil fuels, save money, and create jobs.”
Carrie Clark, NCLCV’s Executive Director, noted Adam’s experience as both a city council member and legislator, calling her an “environmental advocate who is deeply familiar with our communities. North Carolinians can trust she will protect the land and water that is so important to our way of life.”
Adams earned a 100% rating on the NCLCV Legislative Scorecard in 2013. During the 2014 session, she co-sponsored legislation that would loan funds for energy efficiency and renewable energy projects and would create incentives for customers to purchase Energy Star rated household products. Click here to read the full news release from LCV Action Fund.
LCV Action Fund announced its endorsement of Sen. Kay Hagan for re-election last May. The LCV Victory Fund, which undertakes independent expenditures, last week announced that its investment in North Carolina efforts related to the Kay Hagan vs. Thom Tillis race has reached $4.2 million.
Administrative Watch: Commission Delays Oil & Gas Rules Report
The NC Mining and Energy Commission (MEC) received such a heavy response of public comments on its proposed rules on fracking that it last week postponed scheduled meetings at which the report from public hearings was to be discussed. The MEC hearing officers involved needed more time to finish reviewing and evaluating the comments.
A total of 217,285 comments were received on the proposed rules. MEC is now scheduled to hear the report from the three MEC hearing officers at its November 6 meeting. Before taking up that report, the commission is expected toconsider a petition to monitor and regulate air emissions from oil and gas operations.
The Other Side: Advice to Oil Industry – Play Dirty
Dig up personal dirt on your opponents and attack them through secretive front groups created to channel corporate dollars, advised a featured speaker to energy company executives at a private conference last summer.
A veteran lobbyist and public relations professional, Richard Berman, said he had already received six-figure dollar amounts from some of the executives at the event. Berman told the meeting that to win its policy fights with environmentalists, the companies had to “exploit emotions like fear, greed and anger and turn them against the environmental groups.” He said he has done “detailed research on the personal histories” seeking embarrassing information about board members of the Sierra Club and Natural Resources Defense Council. Berman’s speech was not public, but it was recorded by an attendee of the event, who was offended by the advice and has released the recording to the media.
The conference was sponsored by an energy industry group called the Western Energy Alliance, which includes corporate members like Halliburton that are involved in natural gas exploration via hydraulic fracturing (fracking).
CIB observes that a variant of this dirty attack technique was prominently employed by a “dark money” group this spring in North Carolina in its misleading ad attacking a state Supreme Court Justice up for re-election in this year’s elections. Some of the groups and funding discussed in the “Campaign Watch” item above on Big Energy were involved.
Conservationists: Vote, Volunteer
Unlike the oil industry lobby, we’re not willing to tell our citizen environmental movement to “win dirty.” We are, however, prepared to tell citizens to fight hard to win for a clean environment. That starts by voting with the environment in mind: if you missed voting early, don’t miss voting on election day tomorrow. And if (as we hope) you’ve already voted, spend election day volunteering for a candidate who’ll legislate with public health and a clean environment in mind. If you’re not sure who that is, here is the advice from NCLCV’s Conservation PAC.
That’s our report for this week.
