By Tiffany Germain and Matt Kasper

As the Heartland Institute and the American Legislative Exchange Council, or ALEC, continue to target states’ renewable energy standard (RES) with their model legislation — the Electricity Freedom Act — conservative lawmakers are using other unethical tactics to weaken or repeal standards.

Currently, at least five states — Connecticut, Missouri, Montana, Oregon, and Washington — have introduced legislation that would include hydropower as part of the calculation utility companies use to comply with state RES standards. Many laws already allow small hydropower facilities to be counted. But alterations allowing the inclusion of larger or already existing hydropower generating facilities essentially lowers a state’s renewable energy target — allowing utility companies to avoid investing in new wind or solar facilities, or having to buy renewable energy credits from other companies with those facilities.

Including hydropower in renewable energy standards should not be detrimental to new renewable energy projects. When produced responsibly, hydropower benefits local communities by creating jobs and is an essential part of the solution to climate change. In fact, it is the leading renewable energy source used by utilities in the United States.

However, conservative state lawmakers are not interested in developing hydropower. Their goal is only to repeal the state renewable energy standards by any means necessary. If lawmakers were truly concerned about increasing hydropower in their state, then they should add hydropower as an eligible technology and increase the percentage of the renewable energy standard by the comparable amount.

Yet bills like SB 31 in Montana, sponsored by state senator Debby Barrett, would wipe the renewable energy standard out entirely by including existing hydropower facilities. According to the Independent Record, Montana has seen more than $1.6 billion of capital investment in renewable energy, the creation of 1,500 high-paying construction jobs, 100 permanent jobs, and 650 megawatts of newly installed renewable energy since the creation of their RES. This legislation passed the state Senate 32-18 on January 31, and has been transferred to the Republican controlled House where it is expected to pass. A similar bill was vetoed last year by former Governor Schweitzer. It is unclear if current Democratic Governor Steve Bullock would do the same.

The purpose of renewable energy standards is to encourage new renewable energy development in states. Washington state lawmakers understood that when the Energy Independence Act was passed in 2006, establishing a 15 percent standard by 2020. Since the state already receives the bulk of its power from hydroelectricity — currently 66 percent of total generation — the law sought to diversify Washington’s energy portfolio. SB 5431 not only weakens the standard, but also harms the businesses that made investments in renewable energy projects, believing the law would provide reassurance for investing.

In fact, capital investments to date in Washington’s wind, solar, geothermal, and biomass exceeded $7.9 billion, according to data released this month by the Renewable Northwest Project. With stable policies in place, the renewable energy industry can continue to develop and create local manufacturing jobs. But if policies such as state renewable energy standards are weakened or repealed, then the future of renewable industry businesses and capital investments in the state are at risk.

Business leaders throughout the nation have come out in support of renewable energy standards. Julie Gorte, Senior Vice President for Sustainable Investing at Pax World Investments, wrote in the Denver Post:

In every sector, investors and businesses look for policies that are long-term, that provide a strong signal to invest and that don’t generate uncertainty by changing frequently. In other words, investors prefer policies that are long, loud and clear… Other groups are trying to paint renewable energy policies as anti-business. Our firm manages more than $2 billion in assets, and that’s not what I hear from executives at the companies we invest in. Instead, they are finding opportunities in renewable energy, not burdens.

Read more

By Matt Kasper

Lawmakers in Kansas this week have started to hold hearings regarding the state’s existing renewable energy portfolio standard (RPS). Lawmakers in both the Senate and the House are aiming to roll back the states’ RPS.

The Senate Utilities committee voted to pass Senate Bill 82 out of committee and on to the full Senate yesterday. While the House Energy and Environment committee has HB 2241 scheduled for a final hearing on Thursday, February 21.

SB 82 would delay certain percentage targets of the RPS requirement which would mean instead of an RPS of 20 percent by 2020, it would be an RPS of 20 percent by 2024. The bill would also give authority to the Kansas Corporation Commission (KCC) allowing the commission to delay a utility’s RPS requirement if there was a “showing of good cause.”

HB 2241 would completely get rid of the 20 percent target by 2020, and change the law to a 15 percent requirement by 2018. The bill also states that:

Each megawatt of eligible capacity in Kansas installed after January 1, 2000, shall count as 1.10 megawatts for purposes of compliance.

This means that Kansas’ 2,712 megawatts of wind power, if installed after January 1, 2000, would now become 2,983 megawatts — resulting in an inflated percentage of wind energy power and an inflated total of renewable energy when applied to all eligible technologies.

Essentially, the bill aims to roll back the RPS twice.

Kansas enacted an RPS in May 2009 but was finalized in 2010. If this bill was enacted, Kansas would become the first state to have an RPS law weakened.

Read more

by Matt Kasper and Tom Kenworthy, Center for American Progress

States’ adoption of renewable energy standards—which require electric utility companies to produce a portion of their electricity from wind, solar, and other renewable sources—has considerably driven clean energy advances in recent years. Though Congress has failed to enact a nationwide standard, policymakers at the state level have enthusiastically filled the void, with 29 states and the District of Columbia adopting hard targets for renewable energy production and another eight states setting renewable energy goals. Standards place an obligation on electricity-supply companies to reach set targets, while renewable energy goals are voluntary for companies—although states might incentivize a utility for reaching a set goal.

Those mandates have brought a wide range of benefits, ranging from robust clean energy economies to lower carbon emissions and improved public health. Since the beginning of 2009, eight states—California, Colorado, Delaware, Hawaii, Kansas, Nevada, New Jersey, and New York—have increased their standards, while three states—Indiana, Oklahoma, and West Virginia—have established voluntary goals. Six other states—Colorado, Maine, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, and Washington state—have beaten back attempts to repeal their standards. Most of the states with renewable energy standards on the books are meeting or are close to meeting their interim targets.

Nonetheless, conservative attacks on state renewable energy standards are on the rise.

Two conservative organizations looking to repeal state renewable energy standard policies are the Heartland Institute and the American Legislative Exchange Council, or ALEC. These two organizations worked together to write model legislation—the Electricity Freedom Act—to roll back state standards. The policy, which ALEC’s board of directors adopted last October, argues that “a renewable energy mandate is essentially a tax on consumers of electricity that forces the use of renewable energy sources beyond what would be called for by real market forces and under conditions of real competition in generation resources.”

ALEC is known for helping advance corporate interests by writing and pushing for passage of conservative legislation at the state level. The organization has been a force in shaping conservative agendas, including voter identification laws and right-to-work policies. In the environmental sphere, ALEC has targeted states that regulate greenhouse gases and has promoted bills supporting hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking”; offshore drilling of oil and natural gas; and nuclear energy. Tax documents show that Koch Industries, ExxonMobil, and other energy companies pay membership fees in order to help write legislation repealing carbon-pollution reduction programs in states across the country.

The Heartland Institute is a think tank that promotes skepticism about climate change. Recently, the organization launched a billboard campaign that linked people who care about global warming to Unabomber Ted Kaczynski, murderer Charles Manson, and Cuban dictator Fidel Castro. One specific billboard featured a mug shot of Kaczynski with the words, “I still believe in Global Warming. Do you?” In a statement, the president of Heartland unapologetically called the billboard campaign an “experiment.”

With ALEC’s ability to successfully pass conservative legislation at the state level and the Heartland Institute’s intentions to attack policies that combat climate change, the threat that state renewable energy standard policies could be repealed needs to be taken seriously and aggressively contested. Read more

by Brad Johnson

The pharmaceutical giant Pfizer (PFE) has confirmed that it will no longer support the Heartland Institute, a political advocacy group that questions the science of climate change and tobacco smoking. Forecast the Facts, which is leading the campaign calling on corporations to drop Heartland, was informed of the decision by Pfizer’s Corporate Secretary Matthew Lepore. Pfizer was a major donor to Heartland, giving $45,000 in 2012 alone.

Pfizer’s decision means that there are no longer any pharmaceutical companies known to support the Heartland Institute.

Pfizer’s last contribution to Heartland was in 2012. Pfizer’s decision follows a groundswell of public outrage over the corporate support for the Heartland Institute’s toxic behavior, including a billboard campaign that equated believers in climate change with serial killers such as the Unabomber. Over 150,000 people have signed petitions to corporate leaders to drop Heartland. Pfizer is the 21st company to end its support for Joseph Bast’s organization, joining its competitors Amgen (AMGN), Eli Lilly (LLY), Bayer (BAYRY), and GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), as well as major companies like General Motors (GM), State Farm, and PepsiCo (PEP).

Records from tobacco industry lawsuits show that Pfizer had joined tobacco companies in supporting the Heartland Institute since at least 1994. Cigarette makers Altria (MO) and R.J. Reynolds (RAI) continue to fund the group.

Since Pfizer’s previously undisclosed funding of the Heartland Institute became public at the beginning of the year, Forecast the Facts has led increased public pressure on the pharmaceutical maker. At first, Pfizer defended its support for Heartland by claiming the company gets “significant benefits” from its association with the toxic front group.

In May, Forecast the Facts members flooded Pfizer’s phones and social media sites with calls for the company to pull their support. During Heartland’s climate change denial conference in Chicago, Forecast the Facts, SumOfUs.org and 350.org organized their members to “crowd-fund” bicycle-driven billboards featuring Pfizer that parodied the Heartland Institute’s Unabomber ads. Forecast the Facts also mobilized a rally and protest outside the conference against Pfizer’s support for the climate denial group.

In July, more than 2,000 health professionals demanded that Pfizer immediately end its support for the Heartland Institute. Citing Heartland’s longstanding relationship with major tobacco companies, as well as its fierce denial of climate science, the doctors, nurses, and other members of the public health community co-signed a letter to Pfizer CEO Ian Read, whose company has defended its financial support of the anti-science organization. The concerned members of the medical community were mobilized by Forecast the Facts and SumOfUs.org.

In August, Forecast the Facts distributed flyers at Pfizer’s New York City headquarters and at biomedical conferences in Boston, San Francisco, and Kansas City notifying Pfizer employees and customers of its support for the anti-science Heartland Institute. That month, additional pressure was placed on Pfizer by the Union of Concerned Scientists and a coalition of shareholder activists to abandon the front group.

For more information on the status of the Heartland’s corporate funding, go to http://www.dropdeniers.org.

Brad Johnson is the campaign manager of Forecast the Facts.

Oklahoma Republican Senator James Inhofe joins the Heartland Institute at the Capitol building this morning to unveil a new campaign to rein in the “rogue” Environmental Protection Agency.

Inhofe is best known for his tirades against established climate science; the fringe Heartland Institute is best known for its billboard campaign comparing people concerned about climate change to the Unabomber.

The Environmental Protection Agency is best known for protecting America’s air and water.

The two partners say they have collected 16,000 signatures from people calling on lawmakers to slash the EPA’s budget by 80 percent and stop it from regulating carbon dioxide, a heat-trapping gas responsible for warming the planet.

16,000 sounds like a lot of signatures. That is, until they’re compared to the four million comments from people who say they support the EPA.

Over the last two years, as the agency has finalized new regulations for mercury, air toxics, and global warming pollution, groups supportive of such measures have acquired record numbers of comments in favor of the rules.

Earlier this year, environmental and public health groups collected and delivered more than 3.2 million comments supporting EPA’s carbon pollution standard for power plants; in 2011, they collected more than 800,000 comments supporting EPA’s Mercury and Air Toxics Standard; and so far in 2012, groups have collected more than 420,000 comments supporting the EPA’s soot pollution standard.

Environmental organizations say the 3.2 million comments in support of EPA regulation of CO2 is the most of any federal rule, ever.

Once again: that’s more than four million comments in support of new EPA rules versus 16,000 signatures against them.

Considering the outcome of the election earlier this month, that disparity isn’t much of a surprise.

In the two months leading up to the November presidential election, groups specifically touting oil, coal, and gas spent more than $31 million on television ads. Throughout the whole campaign, pro-fossil fuel interests outspent environmental and clean energy interests 4-1.

However, in the end, environmental groups won nearly every single race they targeted, bringing in some key allies to the Senate and keeping President Obama in the White House.

One post-election poll from Zogby Analytics showed that 65 percent of voters say elected officials should act now to reduce carbon pollution. That poll also found that 44 percent of voters believe the government is doing too little to protect clean air, clean water, and other natural resources. Only 14 percent say the government is doing too much in this area.

The campaign to kill renewable energy, brought to you by the organization that gave you this billboard.

Six months after rolling out a disastrous billboard campaign that linked people who care about global warming to the Unabomber, the Heartland Institute is looking for another project to boost its profile.

And what better way for the organization to mend its tarnished image than to go after a policy that Americans overwhelmingly support?

The Heartland Institute, known for its campaigns to cast doubt about the science of climate change, is now teaming up with the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) to craft laws repealing state-level renewable energy targets. ALEC is best known as a “stealth business lobbyist” that helps corporate interests write and pass legislation friendly to their interests. This spring, the organization came under fire for its role in pushing Stand-Your-Ground laws that opponents blamed for the shooting death of Florida teenager Trayvon Martin. Both the Heartland Institute and ALEC lost major funders throughout the spring as a result of the separate controversies.

The campaign to dismantle these types of laws isn’t new. Last summer, Bloomberg News reported on tax documents showing that Koch Industries, Exxon Mobil and other energy companies paid membership fees to ALEC in order to help write legislation repealing carbon pollution reduction programs in states around country. But after getting beat on the issues in national elections earlier this month, these groups are doubling down on their efforts to kill clean energy on the state level.

The Washington Post reported this weekend on how the embattled Heartland Institute is joining the campaign:

The involvement of the Heartland Institute, which posted a billboard in May comparing those who believe in global warming to domestic terrorist Theodore J. Kaczynski, shows the breadth of conservatives’ efforts to undermine environmental initiatives on the state and federal level. In many cases, the groups involved accept money from oil, gas and coal companies that compete against renewable energy suppliers.

The Heartland Institute received $736,500 from Exxon Mobil between 1998 and 2006, according to the group’s spokesman Jim Lakely, and $25,000 in 2011 from foundations affiliated with Charles G. Koch and David H. Koch, whose firm Koch Industries has substantial oil and energy holdings. Lakely wrote in an e-mail that the Koch donation was “earmarked for our work on health care policy, not energy or environment policy.” He added the institute had received financial support from the Koch brothers before 2001, but did not specify how much.

James Taylor, the Heartland Institute’s senior fellow for environmental policy, said he was able to persuade most of ALEC’s state legislators and corporate members to push for a repeal of laws requiring more solar and wind power use on the basis of economics.

So far, 29 states have renewable energy targets in place. And with years of experience in these states, multiple analyses have shown that these laws have had virtually no impact on rate increases.

Heartland and ALEC are building their campaign around economic research from the Beacon Hill Institute, a free-market think tank that has received money from Koch-backed groups:

Read more

After Pfizer Contribution, Heartland Continues Attacks On Climate Science And Tobacco Risks

By Brad Johnson, campaign manager of Forecast the Facts

Despite rising pressure from scientists and doctors, top Pfizer executives defended their affiliation with the Heartland Institute, brushing aside concerns that the group mocks the risks of tobacco smoking and vilifies climate scientists.

In a call with activists on Wednesday, Pfizer Corporate Secretary Matthew Lepore explained that Pfizer gave Heartland Institute $45,000 for 2012 and is considering future donations for 2013 and beyond. In recent months, Heartland’s president Joe Bast has compared believers in climate science to the Unabomber and claimed that the public health community has a campaign to “demonize smokers” based on “junk science.”

Lepore also stated that Pfizer isn’t concerned by the decisions of its competitors, such as Eli Lilly, GlaxoSmithKline, and Bayer, to disassociate themselves with Heartland:

“We do things at Pfizer that are best for shareholders of Pfizer. What’s going to make us make our decision is where we make a determination that the benefits we receive from Heartland are no longer justified.”

The call with Pfizer executives was organized by Forecast the Facts on behalf of over 2000 members in the medical community, who have signed an open letter to Pfizer CEO Ian Read demanding that his company stop supporting Heartland.

Lepore defended the “benefits we receive from Heartland” after being reminded by representatives from the National Wildlife Federation and Americans for Nonsmokers Rights that climate change and tobacco addiction are global health threats. The executives were told that Heartland’s claim that the risks of climate change and tobacco disease are junk science is ethically and morally unacceptable. Pfizer’s funding lends credibility to an organization that remains a front group for tobacco companies such as Altria and Reynolds American and polluters such as Murray Energy and Koch Industries.

The executives on the call minimized the severity of the climate and tobacco threats, which cost millions of lives around the world every year. Pfizer’s funding is “specifically designated for health care issues,” Lepore said, including vaccine regulation, academic detailing, and personalized medicine. “We can’t be very knee jerk on every issue that is brought to our attention,” said Marc Scarduffa, Vice President, Government Relations & Public Affairs. Pfizer produces Chantix, a nicotine replacement therapy for tobacco addiction, and Spiriva, which treats tobacco-related pulmonary disease.

The Union of Concerned Scientists is asking people to contact the two medical doctors on Pfizer’s board of directors with the message that “they can help protect Americans’ health by cutting off funding for climate denial groups.”

The climate advocacy organization Forecast the Facts announced Thursday they will be handing out flyers at Pfizer’s headquarters in New York City to Pfizer employees asking them to sever ties with the Heartland Institute.

by Jocelyn Fong, via Media Matters

A recent Forbes column alleges that federal scientists are “doctoring” temperature data to fabricate a warming trend, after the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced that the last 12-month period was the warmest on record for the continental U.S.

But what the column paints as a nefarious conspiracy is actually just proper science — NOAA painstakingly applies peer-reviewed adjustments to account for errors and gaps in the raw data from thousands of temperature stations across the country. The resulting temperature record has been independently evaluated and corroborated.

The column is by James Taylor of the Heartland Institute, the libertarian group that recently made headlines with a short-lived billboard campaign tastelessly invoking the Unabomber. This is not the first time Taylor has used his platform at Forbes to  malign scientists and spread bad information about climate research.

At issue are the corrections NOAA uses to eliminate errors and known sources of bias from the raw weather station data (which Taylor likes to call “the real-world data”). Keep in mind that the U.S. represents just 2% of the Earth’s surface so the data we’re talking about are a small part of the evidence of global climate change.

The scientists (or as Taylor calls them, “bureaucrats”) know that the raw data have flaws — stations are moved, natural disasters knock stations offline, measuring instruments change — so NOAA performs quality control using methods that are published in peer-reviewed papers. Taylor concedes that “it is, of course, possible that certain factors can influence the real-world temperature readings such that a correction in real-world temperature data may be justified.” But when he doesn’t like the results, he concludes that the adjustments aren’t valid corrections but “doctored data.”

Against NOAA’s rigorous science, Taylor offers his “common sense,” which tells him that any corrections should, in fact, reduce warming:

Common sense indicates that if the real-world data need adjustment, the proper adjustment is to further reduce recent temperature readings. Yet the bureaucrats who oversee the data have instead doctored the data to show a false, long-term warming pattern.

How does Taylor, a lawyer, know what “the proper adjustment” is? He simply asserts that if there are factors biasing the data, “The most important such influence is the growth of towns and cities around temperature stations.” The urbanization would cause the raw data to show more warming than actually occurred and the adjustment should decrease that warming, according to Taylor. But a quick search on NOAA’s website shows Taylor is wrong. The most important bias is not urbanization, as Taylor assumed, but a change in observation times. NOAA explains:

The most important bias in the U.S. temperature record occurred with the systematic change in observing times from the afternoon, when it is warm, to morning, when it is cooler. This shift has resulted in a well documented increasing cool bias over the last several decades and is addressed by applying a correction to the data.

It may not be common sense, but if common sense were good enough, we wouldn’t need science.

NOAA’s David Easterling also said via email that “Urban warming is a very small part of the overall warming, which also has been documented in the peer reviewed literature.” Easterling added, “The conclusions of the column sound like pure speculation on the part of the writer.” Read more

By Brad Johnson, campaign manager for Forecast the Facts.

Nucor Corporation (NUE), the third largest U.S. steel manufacturer, is defending its support for the Heartland Institute’s climate denial efforts. In a letter to a private shareholder, Nucor chairman and CEO Daniel R. DiMicco embraced the anti-science advocacy group, describing the $502,000 in recent contributions earmarked for Heartland’s climate program as “entirely appropriate”:

Of course, the entire purpose of the Heartland Institute is to prevent people from finding solutions to climate change.

Nucor CEO Daniel DiMicco

In his letter, DiMicco blamed Forecast the Facts, the group mobilizing Americans against corporate support for Heartland, for ruining the organization’s reputation. His letter was written on May 3, just days before the Heartland Institute launched a billboard campaign equating everyone who believes in global warming to the Unabomber and Osama bin Laden. A letter from the shareholder to Nucor about the Unabomber billboard has not yet received a reply. Greenpeace has launched a petition to DiMicco calling on him to end his support for the Heartland Institute.

DiMicco’s annual compensation is more than $8 million a year. He is also on the board of Duke Energy, a major electric utility that supports action on climate change.

Who are the “world’s leading scientists and economists” claimed by Heartland and cited by DiMicco? Heartland president Joe Bast helpfully provided the list. Forecast the Facts has created this table of the supposed experts listed by Bast, alongside representative quotations revealing them to be ideological conspiracy theorists:

Read more

What a twin reversal of fortune. While the Heartland Institute has melted down because of its overreaction to climate scientist Peter Gleick’s release of their funding documents, Gleick himself has now been reinstated as president of the Pacific Institute following an independent investigation.

On May 21, the UK Guardian broke the news that an external investigation conducted for the Institute cleared Gleick of the charge of faking material in his elaborate effort to obtain internal Heartland strategy and finance documents.

Today, the Institute released this short statement from the Institute’s Board of Directors:

The Pacific Institute is pleased to welcome Dr. Peter Gleick back to his position as president of the Institute. An independent review conducted by outside counsel on behalf of the Institute has supported what Dr. Gleick has stated publicly regarding his interaction with the Heartland Institute. This independent investigation has further confirmed and the Pacific Institute is satisfied that none of its staff knew of or was involved in any way.

Dr. Gleick has apologized publicly for his actions, which are not condoned by the Pacific Institute and run counter to the Institute’s policies and standard of ethics over its 25-year history. The Board of Directors accepts Dr. Gleick’s apology for his lapse in judgment. We look forward to his continuing in the Pacific Institute’s ongoing and vital mission to advance environmental protection, economic development, and social equity.

“I am glad to be back and thank everyone for continuing their important work at the Pacific Institute during my absence,” said Dr. Gleick in a statement. “I am returning with a renewed focus and dedication to the science and research that remain at the core of the Pacific Institute’s mission.”

I immediately called up the media contact at the Institute provided with the statement, Nancy Ross. She said that that statement represents the full extent of everything the Institute plans to release on this matter. As of now, the Institute is not going to release the independent review.

The May Guardian story provided this background:

Gleick’s sting on Heartland brought unwelcome scrutiny to the organisation’s efforts to block action on climate change, and prompted a walk-out of corporate donors that has created uncertainty about its financial future.

Gleick, founder of the Pacific Institute and a well-regarded water expert, admitted and apologised for using deception to obtain internal Heartland documents last February.

He has been on leave from the institute pending an external investigation into the unauthorised release of the documents, although it is not entirely clear what the investigation entailed. That investigation is now complete, and the conclusions will be made public.

For those who don’t remember the history, I’d suggest Greg Laden’s post, “An important revelation regarding Heartland Gate.” See also my February post “Crossing the Line as Civilization Implodes.”

Anyone familiar with the facts of the matter cannot be surprised by the outside counsel’s finding. It does raise the question of who created the strategy memo. I’m not sure we will ever find out the answer to that question.

All we know for sure is that the senior leadership of Heartland 1) is capable of the most outrageous and offensive falsehoods and 2) has such catastrophically bad judgment that they continued to push those falsehoods for weeks after being widely denounced, even by their own (former) supporters:

• Heartland Institute Compares Climate Science Believers And Reporters To Mass ‘Murderers And Madmen’
• Heartland’s Board Backs Campaign To Smear Climate Science Believers, Even As Eleven Companies Drop Support