Kansas State Rep. Dennis Hedke

Yet another thing the matter with Kansas: A legislator on the committee that recently introduced legislation that would force teachers to misinform students about the science of climate change has introduced a bill to prohibit use of public funds to promote sustainable development.

Amazingly, he claims to be unable to see how his ties to the oil and gas industry could present a conflict of interest, as the Topeka Capitol Journal reports:

Rep. Dennis Hedke, a Republican, brought the bill to the House Energy and Environment Committee of which he is chairman. He said Tuesday he saw no conflict of interest in the fact that he is a contract geophysicist whose client list includes 30 regional oil and gas companies.

“I can’t see why,” Hedke said. “I didn’t think about that. It really never crossed my mind. I’d probably just say no.”

The bill, HB 2366, prohibits public funds from being used “either directly or indirectly, to promote, support, mandate, require, order, incentivize, advocate, plan for, participate in or implement sustainable development” which it defines as “a mode of human development in which resource use aims to meet human needs while preserving the environment so that these needs can be met not only in the present, but also for generations to come, but not to include the idea, principle or practice of conservation or conservationism.”

According to Kansas Sierra Club spokesman Zack Pistora, the bill appears to be an extension of an anti-U.N. resolution driven by Agenda 21 conspiracy theories proposed by Rep. Hedke last year that was linked to the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) and Americans for Prosperity(AFP) — both of which reportedly have funding ties to Kansas the oil and gas billionaires, the Koch brothers.

The House Energy and Environment Committee of which Rep. Hedke is chairman will also be hearing a proposal to roll back Kansas’s renewable energy standards this week, despite their success at attracting new jobs and wind projects to the state. Both the proposal to roll back renewable energy standards and the bill that would force teachers to mislead students about the facts surrounding climate science also appear to have originated from ALEC.

Americans for Prosperity, the Tea Party organization founded and partly funded by the oil billionaire Koch Brothers, is leading the charge against federal renewable energy investments — even while vigorously defending permanent tax subsidies for the oil and gas industry.

So AFP’s mock Christmas card featuring the stingy, cranky Ebenezer Scrooge disparaging wind tax credits illustrates the organization’s stance perfectly:

While voters overwhelmingly back government support of renewable energy and a transition away from fossil fuels, Americans for Prosperity sits scowling in the dark, attempting to protect the fossil fuel industry’s subsidies under the guise of the “free market.”

AFP is known for its cheesy campaigns. This election season, the group sold drivers $1.84-per-gallon gas in key swing states in an attempt to convince voters that President Obama was responsible for the increase in the price of gasoline. Of course, presidents don’t set gas prices — and “apathetic voters” weren’t swayed by the campaign.

And over the summer, AFP bussed in conservatives to protest a gathering where children were flying kites in support of wind power. Yes, the group actually protested children flying kites.

This Christmas card is the very definition of Poe’s Law.

Groups promoting fossil fuels have spent more than four times more money on television ads than clean energy proponents, independent Democratic groups, and the Obama campaign combined this election season, according to a new analysis from the New York Times.

The analysis found that pro-fossil fuel groups have already spent $153 million on TV advertisements either pushing coal, oil and natural gas or attacking renewable energy during the presidential campaign. By comparison, groups supporting renewable energy have spent $41 million on ads.

The trend became clear early in the year, when Bloomberg reported that 81 percent of attack ads in April were focused on energy. Many of these ads, run by groups like the Koch-backed Americans for Prosperity and Karl Rove’s Crossroads GPS, were labeled “ridiculous” by fact checkers.

The latest tally shows just how dramatically messaging around energy issues has changed since the last presidential election cycle. The Times explains how this shift has impacted the messaging strategy of prominent groups working on climate and energy issues:

The lopsided nature of the energy messages this year contrasts sharply with 2008. Back then, global warming was a top public concern, and green ads greatly outnumbered those for fossil fuels, $152 million to $109 million, according to the analysis by The Times, which looked at 184 energy-related ads. In 2008, Chevron, one of the nation’s leading oil companies, trumpeted its investments in geothermal power, and Mr. McCain spent millions of dollars on ads featuring solar panels and wind farms as part of a solution to global warming.

The Times analysis shows that ads with energy themes have played an outsized role in the 2012 campaign season, with energy earning more frequent mentions than every other issue except jobs and the economy.

Energy first emerged as a major advertising topic during the last presidential election. Back then, one of the biggest spenders was the Alliance for Climate Protection, an environmental group backed by former Vice President Al Gore that spent an estimated $32 million on ads urging legislation to combat global warming.

This year, the alliance, now called the Climate Reality Project, is not buying television ads at all, focusing instead on social media, training and organizing. “Whatever we would spend, it would just be washed away in this sea of fossil fuel money,” said Maggie L. Fox, the group’s chief executive.

The Times offers a striking visual of far campaign ad spending on clean energy issues has dropped:

After the Citizens United Supreme Court case unleashed a tsunami of new money in politics, campaign spending from outside interest groups has increased 1,100 percent since the 2008 election. Last month, we took a closer look at the spending patterns of a variety of groups, many of which are focused on energy issues:

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Americans for Prosperity, a national political organization that claims to uphold libertarian values, is showing its true intentions: Protect government support of fossil fuel interests.

Founded and partly funded by the oil billionaire Koch Brothers, AFP has become a leading organizer of the Tea Party. The organization has thrown millions of dollars behind national ads attacking clean energy that fact checkers have called “ultimately ridiculous.” (Even more ridiculous, AFP recently bussed in protesters to picket a small event where kids were flying kites on the beach in support of wind power).

Given AFP’s ties to the oil industry and its blatant disdain for renewable energy, its latest campaign to end a key tax credit for wind shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone who follows the group. But what’s truly remarkable about AFP’s latest effort to kill wind tax credits is the mind-bending contradiction between its stance on renewable energy tax policy and fossil fuel tax policy.

Here’s an excerpt from a letter on the wind tax credit sent to members of Congress by AFP and a large group of other conservative organizations yesterday:

This special provision continues the deplorable practice of using the tax code to favor certain groups over others. Whenever the government protects a particular industry, as it has with wind energy production, the industry tends to remain dependent on it.

It is time to end special tax provisions that distort the energy market and increase energy prices. We urge you to let the wasteful wind PTC expire as planned at the end of the year.

So an organization trying to limit government spending and create a “free market” would surely support doing the same thing for the tens of billions of dollars in special tax incentives for the fossil fuel industry, right? Not a chance.

Here’s AFP’s official stance on tax policy for fossil fuel companies:

AFP opposes using the tax code to attack oil and natural gas producers that are simply using the same tax deductions that are broadly available to everyone else, just because these energy producers are politically unpopular.

Using the same tax deductions as everyone else? Not exactly. Yes, oil and gas companies take advantage of many of the same tax provisions offered to other industries. But as Seth Hanlon, Director of Fiscal Reform at the Center for American Progress recently pointed out, there many that apply specifically to fossil fuel producers:

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