heartland institute
REVEALED: Donors Trust is the secret ATM machine for climate deniers
A new Greenpeace analysis released today shows that Donors Trust, a shadowy funding vehicle, has laundered $146 million in climate denial funding from 2002 to 2011. Yesterday’s article in the Guardian referenced part of the Greenpeace analysis. Today’s report is now up to date with the latest available funding from 2011.
In addition, a Center for Public Integrity report released yesterday illustrates the efforts of Donors Trust to set up conservative media megaphones in state capitals. Today, the Guardian reported that these ideological media outlets have been instrumental in anti-climate fights at the state level. These include state and regional attacks against wind power, solar power, and carbon pollution reduction programs.
As climate denial funding from traceable Big Oil sources like Exxon and the Koch brothers is declining, the anonymous money funneled through Donors Trust is skyrocketing.
This interesting coincidence is illustrated in a graph from the Greenpeace report:
The key findings of the Greenpeace analysis on Donors Trust:
- Donors Trust and its associated organization, Donors Capital Fund, have funded 102 climate-denial organizations since 2002.
- From 2002 to 2011, Donors Trust and Donors Capital Fund have provided $146 million to climate denial groups.
- In 2010, a dozen climate denial groups received between 30% to 70% of their funding from Donors Trust, including the Koch-founded Americans for Prosperity, as well as Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow (CFACT)
- Additional climate denial organizations that have received major funding in recent years by Donors Trust include the Heartland Institute, Competitive Enterprise Institute, Cato Institute and the James Partnership (Cornwall Alliance).
Wait, so what is Donors Trust, exactly? It’s a shadowy funding operation for anti-government extremists and climate deniers. The mission of Donors Trust is to provide ultra-conservative funders a way to support their controversial pet-causes without leaving fingerprints on the grants.
But don’t take our word for it – here’s an excerpt from the Donors Trust FAQ webpage:
Who is behind this untraceable money? It’s impossible to track all of the big-pockets hiding behind Donors Trust. One notable individual is Charles Koch, the secretive oil billionaire who was discovered to have funneled $8 million through Donors Trust from two of his foundations. And that’s only the amount that we can track – we don’t know the full extent of the Koch’s account with Donors Trust.
As posted yesterday on our blog and detailed in another great Guardian article, several climate denial organizations rely on Donors Trust for a large share of their budgets. The Heartland Institute, creator of the famously reviled “Unabomber billboard” and coordinators of the annual Denial-palooza conference, relies heavily on a single anonymous donor that sends money through Donors Trust. According to internal Heartland plans leaked to the public, this Anonymous Donor has been responsible for up to 60% of the organization’s annual revenue, with the majority of fund earmarked to “global warming programs.” Even though the leaked documents prove this money is specific for climate projects, the Donors Trust tax forms only disclose the funding’s purpose as “general operations.”
The deep dependence on Donors Trust by climate deniers goes far beyond the Heartland Institute. Marc Morano’s organization, the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow, has received between 40% and 46% of its budget through Donors Trust in recent years. Morano was named 2012 “Climate Misinformer of the Year,” often found as a talking head on Fox News or CNN denying that human activity is affecting the climate. In response to the President’s 2013 State of the Union address, Morano published a point by point rebuttal to the section on climate change.
CFACT is among over a dozen organizations that get 30% to 70% of their total budgets from Donors Trust and Donors Capital Fund. Other noteworthy groups include Americans for Prosperity Foundation, the Cornwall Alliance (James Partnership), and the State Policy Network.
Secret Climate Denial Finance: Koch and Others Hide tens of Millions through Donors Trust & Donors Capital Fund
For those familiar with the effort of ExxonMobil and the Koch brothers to bankroll a network of organizations denying basic climate science, a new article in the Guardian offers some revelatory information on the secret funding network that outweighs even top denier sugar daddies like Koch and Exxon. 
Donors Trust and Donors Capital Fund, based out of the DC suburb of Alexandria, VA, have sent $118 million to the 'climate denial machine' from 2002-2010, according to a Greenpeace analysis featured in the Guardian. The graph above, from the article, illustrates the significance of this money as compared to giants like Koch and Exxon.
Of course, the Koch brothers are part of the Donors Trust network, using the DONORS groups to hide their own giving to a variety of corporate front groups. Because of the obscurity provided by DONORS, we don't know exactly who is getting exactly how much of the Koch payments to Donors Trust and Donors Capital Fund.
An accompanying article by the Guardian shows how the DONORS groups provide large portions of organisations' entire budgets, such as the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow, which even among climate deniers is notably anti-scientific.
The support helped the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow (Cfact), expand from $600,000 to $3m annual operation. In 2010, Cfact received nearly half of its budget from those anonymous donors, the records show.
The group's most visible product is the website, Climate Depot, a contrarian news source run by Marc Morano. Climate Depot sees itself as the rapid reaction force of the anti-climate cause. On the morning after Obama's state of the union address, Morano put out a point by point rebuttal to the section on climate change.
CFACT is among over a dozen organizations that get 30%-70% of their total budgets from the two DONORS groups. As we reported on PolluterWatch last October using 2010 IRS tax filings:
- Americans For Prosperity Foundation got $7.6 million from DONORS groups in 2010, 43% of its budget. AFP Foundation is chaired by David Koch and has received millions in direct funding from Koch foundations since the Koch brothers founded it.
- Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow (CFACT) got $1.3 million from DONORS in 2010, 45% of its budget.
- Cornwall Alliance (through the James Partnership) got $339,500 from DONORS in 2010, 75% of its budget.
- Heartland Institute got $1.6 million from DONORS in 2010, 27% of it's budget, which came from Chicago billionaire Barre Seid (see p. 67).
- State Policy Network got 36% of its 2010 budget ($4.8 million) from DONORS. SPN members include just about every climate-denying organization and every conservative think tank in the country, including AFP and Heartland.
Koch is clearly embarrassed by the negative publicity (see press roundup below). Koch "Facts," the company's PR website that lashes back at unfavorable reporting on Koch, attempted to respond to the flood of press on the DONORS groups without mentioning them by name. Similarly, Donors Trust president Whitney Ball has done her best to keep Donors Trust and Koch from being synonymous. To be clear--they are not, but the Kochs and their operatives are key players in the Donors network, with people like Arthur Brooks of the American Enterprise Institute and Steven Hayward of the Pacific Research Institute helping oversee DONORS operations, including millions in funding to their own organizations.
Greenpeace has more coming on Donors Trust, Donors Capital Fund, Koch Industries and the ongoing misinformation pumping out of the climate denial machine. Stay tuned. Key articles on Donors Trust and Donors Capital Fund:
- John Mashey/DeSmogBlog report: Fakery 2: More Funny Finances, Free Of Tax
- The Guardian: Secret funding helped build vast network of climate denial think tanks
- The Guardian: How Donors Trust distributed millions to anti-climate groups
- Mother Jones: Donors Trust, The Right's Dark-Money ATM, Paid Out $30 Million in 2011
- Mother Jones: Exposed: The Dark-Money ATM of the Conservative Movement
- Center for Public Integrity: Donors use charity to push free-market policies in states
- International Business Times: Koch Family Uses Fund To Channel Millions To Anti-Climate Science Groups: Report
- U.K. Daily Mail: Revealed: Secretive funding organization 'providing millions to climate change counter-movement on behalf of fossil fuel industry'
- The Independent: Billionaires Secretly Fund Attacks on Climate Science
- PBS FRONTLINE: Climate of Doubt interview with Drexel University's Robert Brulle
ALEC is Pushing Climate Denial to Kids in Three More States
Science education is a problem in the United States. Studies consistently show the U.S. ranking poor in science education testing in industrialized countries.
Exxon, Koch Industries, Duke Energy and other profiteers of global warming inaction are not helping. Through the American Legislative Exchange Council, these companies are working to ensure that in certain states, children and young adults will be taught that certain myths are scientifically credible. Steve Horn at DeSmogBlog broke the ALEC connection:
January hasn't even ended, yet ALEC has already planted its "Environmental Literacy Improvement Act" - which mandates a "balanced" teaching of climate science in K-12 classrooms - in the state legislatures of Oklahoma, Colorado, and Arizona so far this year.
In the past five years since 2008, among the hottest years in U.S. history, ALEC has introduced its "Environmental Literacy Improvement Act" in 11 states, or over one-fifth of the statehouses nationwide. The bill has passed in four states, an undeniable form of "big government" this "free market" organization decries in its own literature.
Each of the three new bills were sponsored by paying ALEC-member legislators - the Arizona bill was exclusively co-sponsored by six ALEC politicians.
The three states considering ALEC's climate denial law are already struggling to teach quality science. While Colorado scores an "average" ranking among states in science education, both Arizona and Oklahoma score "far below average," according to a 2011 ranking by the Statistical Research Center at the American Institute of Physics.
Unfortunately, as this attack on science education is considered in Oklahoma, Colorado and Arizona, there at least four states that already passed the ALEC bill. From DeSmogBlog last March:
First it was Louisiana, back in 2009, then Texas in 2009, South Dakota in 2010 and now Tennessee has joined the club, bringing the total to four U.S. states that have mandated climate change denial in K-12 "science" education.
It's unfortunate that these students won't be told how much scientific literature concludes that human-induced global warming is occurring:
ALEC and the Heartland Institute: Selling Doubt to Students
The Heartland Institute and American Legislative Exchange Council have long been buddy-buddy on rejecting climate science. Heartland is driving much of ALEC's interference policies on climate change with support from other members of ALEC's Energy, Environment and Agriculture task force. An oil industry apologist with ties to both ALEC and Heartland named Sandy Liddy Bourne facilitated the creation of the "Environmental Literacy Improvement Act." DeSmogBlog refreshes our memories:
ALEC's Natural Resources Task Force, now known as its Energy, Environment and Agriculture Task Force, adopted this model at a time when the Task Force was headed by Sandy Liddy Bourne. Bourne, who served in this capacity from 1999-2004, would eventually ascend to the role of Director of Legislation and Policy for ALEC in 2004.
Upon leaving ALEC in 2006, Bourne become Heartland's Vice President for Policy Strategy. Today she serves as Executive Director of the American Energy Freedom Center, an outfit she co-heads with Arthur G. Randol. Randol is a longtime lobbyist and PR flack for ExxonMobil, a corporation which endowed the climate change denial machine for years.
Heartland's website still lists Bourne as one of its "experts," stating that "Under her leadership, 20 percent of ALEC model bills were enacted by one state or more, up from 11 percent."
ALEC and Heartland's focus on injecting fossil fuel public relations into science curriculum is picking up where another front group left off. A disbanded organization called the Environmental Literacy Council, set up by the Koch- and Exxon-funded George C. Marshall Institute, was established to be a resource for any teachers willing to misinform their students on climate science.
Unfortunately, Koch, Exxon and ALEC's other supporters seems less interested in maintaining a habitable planet for the upcoming generation and more interested in profiting from their ignorance.
Wind Group Dumps ALEC, Duke Energy Continues Contradicting Itself with ALEC Membership
Image: Checks & Balances Project - ALEC Attacks Clean Energy Standards: Ohio & Virginia
An article in Greenwire today revealed a few interesting things about the American Legislative Exchange Council's attacks on state clean energy laws through its "Electricity Freedom Act."
First, ALEC was recently abandoned by the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) due to ALEC's efforts to repeal state renewable portfolio standards--laws that ensure a growing percentage of electricity comes from clean energy. AWEA joins over 45 companies and organizations that have dropped ALEC due to its support for voter legislation, Stand Your Ground and other NRA gun laws, climate science denial, racial profiling laws, and other measures against the public interest.
Not only did AWEA leave ALEC, but they're warning other ALEC affiliates about their steadfast opposition to clean energy (which ALEC denies--see below):
Now, AWEA is warning state lawmakers not to be taken in by ALEC's message, one that [Peter] Kelley said is driven by fossil fuel companies. He pointed out that conservative think tank and climate skeptic Heartland Institute told The Washington Post last year that it had joined ALEC to write language to revise state renewable energy mandates in 29 states and the District of Columbia.
"We want to warn our former fellow members of ALEC about that misinformation because we won't be around to protect them," he said.
Greenwire notes contradictory statements from coal polluter Duke Energy, which betrayed its own past support for North Carolina's clean energy standard, the law that ALEC's Rep. Mike Hager is targeting:
Duke Energy, a member of ALEC and large player in North Carolina, is trying to sidestep the debate.
Duke spokesman Dave Scanzoni said the utility hasn't taken a formal position on the bill, and the decision to implement or repeal renewable portfolio standards should be "state specific."
"Though we're a member of ALEC, we don't always agree with every issue that the organization or any other organization of which we're a member takes," he said, adding that Duke is a member of a wide array of liberal and conservative groups.
But a spokesman for Duke told the Charlotte Business Journal last May that the utility indeed opposes Hager's bill and helped craft North Carolina's RPS. Duke also opposes ALEC's position to curb U.S. EPA's ability to regulate carbon emissions and coal ash storage and set standards for mercury emissions, the spokesman said.
But wait! Not only does Duke Energy still pay ALEC, but Duke is member to the "Electric Reliability Coordinating Council," A.K.A. coal lobbyists from Bracewell & Giuliani paid by Duke and others to block EPA rules on mercury pollution from power plants. Duke and Progress Energy ranked 12th and 22nd respectively of the top 25 mercury polluters in 2011 before they merged last year.
Meanwhile, Duke Energy lobbyists like Bill Tyndall have worked on blocking effective controls for coal ash, which contains neurotoxins, carcinogens and radioactive elements. Duke has a coal ash pollution monopoly in North Carolina, with tests confirming they are contaminating groundwater near their storage sites. Duke's opposition to coal ash regulations is also inherent in their membership with yet another front group, the American Coal Ash Association.
So maybe Duke Energy doesn't support ALEC's opposition to reducing mercury and coal ash pollution, they just support other groups willing to do those things for them.
Finally, ALEC's Todd Wynn is either dishonest or has a short memory.
In the Greenwire article, Todd Wynn was trying to make the point that ALEC legislators, not the corporate interests funding ALEC and driving its agenda, are taking the reins on repealing renewable energy. Greenwire quotes Wynn, emphasis added:
"Members are driving the debate. ... Our state legislators have taken up the torch on these issues," he said. "But ALEC itself isn't driving an energy mandate repeal campaign."
To that point, Todd Wynn fully contradicts himself--check out his own blog on the clean energy attacks, titled "ALEC to States: Repeal Renewable Energy Mandates."
It's also ridiculous for Wynn to assert that ALEC legislators have "taken up the torch" on repealing clean energy laws--ALEC's model was written by climate science deniers at the Heartland Institute, not state legislators.
Mr. Wynn's job is to keep this debate centered around debunked economic arguments that obscure the ideological corporate agenda he is paid to advance. As an operative of the Koch-funded State Policy Network, an aversion to reality is a necessary component of his resume. Wynn previously worked for a SPN member group called the Cascades Policy Institute promoting climate science denial.
Todd Wynn says that ALEC isn't against clean energy, just against government favoring one energy industry over another. Yet ALEC has done nothing to repeal subsidies to the oil and coal industries, or loan guarantees to the nuclear industry, or any other comparable measure to their attacks on clean energy. That's because ALEC's anti-environmental legislation is supported and even written by ExxonMobil, Koch Industries, Duke Energy, and other major polluters.
No wonder groups like AWEA and the Solar Energy Industries Association abandoned ALEC shortly after joining. ALEC's polluter agenda is already set, backed by dirty money, and not open for discussion.
The full article can be found in Greenwire, E&E Publishing: Wind, solar groups quit ALEC as conservative powerhouse targets clean-power programs
Duke Energy and ALEC Attack North Carolina Renewable Energy Portfolio Standard
NC Rep. Mike Hager: ALEC member and former Duke Energy employee.
Corporate polluters are taking aim this year at states with renewable energy laws, starting with an attack on North Carolina's clean energy economy by a corporate front group known as ALEC with support from Duke Energy, ExxonMobil, and Koch Industries. North Carolina state Representative Mike Hager says he is confident that he has the votes needed to weaken or undo his state's clean energy requirements during his second term. Rep. Hager is a former Duke Energy engineer and a member of the American Legislative Exchange Council, or ALEC. Duke and Progress Energy (now legally merged) have given Rep. Hager $14,500 for his last two election bids, outspent only by the NC Republican Party.
This is where ALEC makes things awkward for Duke Energy: the law that Rep. Mike Hager is targeting (2007 SB3) was created with input from Duke Energy, and Duke explicitly opposes ALEC's "Electricity Freedom Act," the model law to repeal state Renewable Energy Portfolio Standards (REPS). Duke Energy re-asserted its support for North Carolina's REPS law to the Charlotte Business Journal last April and Progress Energy publicly supported the law before merging with Duke.
Apparently, Duke forgot about supporting North Carolina's clean energy incentives somewhere along the way. Duke Energy remains a paying member of the American Legislative Exchange Council.
Duke Energy and outgoing CEO Jim Rogers have dismissed over 150,000 concerned citizens demanding that Duke leave ALEC due to its role in protecting polluters, suppressing voters, increasing gun violence and other serious threats to the public on behalf of ExxonMobil, the National Rifle Association, Reynolds tobacco and other corporate interests with a rich history of negligence and dishonesty.
ALEC: The Polluter's Voice
The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) creates model state laws rolling back protections on our health, our clean air and water, public safety, public education…public anything, really. State legislators that support a corporate ideology pay a small fee to become ALEC members, working alongside giant companies to create models bills that are then introduced in states across the country.
In contrast to Duke Energy's "Call to Action" supporting climate legislation and clean energy development, it has not abandoned ALEC's long record of denying climate science and blocking solutions to global warming. ALEC focuses this year on undoing state laws that increase production of clean energy like wind and solar power. 
ALEC's Electricity Freedom Act model bill was written by the Heartland Institute, a shill group made infamous for comparing those who recognize climate scientists to terrorists like Ted Kaczynski.
This dirty ambition is ALEC's self-stated priority on energy issues this year--repealing state laws that created Renewable Energy Portfolio Standards (REPS), including North Carolina's SB3. Todd Wynn, a corporate influence peddler who heads ALEC's Energy, Environment and Agriculture task force, named North Carolina as one of several states ALEC will focus its clean energy attacks, citing a debunked report from the Koch-funded Beacon Hill Institute of Suffolk University's economics department. Like ALEC, Beacon Hill is part of the Koch-funded State Policy Network. See the Morning Sentinel and a scathing Portland Press Herald editorial for important critiques of the Koch-funded Beacon Hill reports cited by Todd Wynn.
Actually...Clean Energy has Treated North Carolina's Economy Well!
We've known for decades that phasing out fossil fuels (coal, oil, gas) and ambitiously implementing clean energy not only slows our sprint toward irreversible, catastrophic climate change, but stimulates the economy and creates jobs that do not poison us. In North Carolina, SB3 has helped create the current 15,200 full-time equivalent clean energy jobs in NC, up 3% from the previous year, and generated $3.7 billion in economic activity in 2012 (North Carolina Sustainable Energy Association 2012 Industry Census).
While ALEC has touted a pile of Koch-funded reports written with the pre-determined conclusion that clean energy is ALWAYS too pricey, the Charlotte Business Journal reports that SB3 has a "negligible impact on customer bill increases" for Progress Energy Carolinas' customers, at about 41 cents per month.
If let be, North Carolina's Senate Bill 3 would ensure at least 3% of North Carolina's energy is from renewable sources this year, increasing to at least 12.5% by 2021. North Carolina appears to be one of the first states subjected to ALEC's dirty energy agenda this year.
What Next for the ALEC Attacks?
Expect similar ALEC attacks on clean energy laws in states around the country. According to its own documents, ALEC spent the last couple years monitoring states attempting to introduce state-level renewable energy portfolio standards in West Virginia, Vermont and Virginia as well as legislative attacks on REPS laws in New Hampshire and in Ohio (by Sen. Kris Jordan, an ALEC member). 
Now with rumors of war appearing in North Carolina, it appears that ALEC has morphed from the opportunistic observer to the coordinator of attacks on our states' clean energy laws.
For more on how the American Legislative Exchange Council is degrading public policies across the United States, see ALECExposed.org.
This piece was crossposted on Greenpeace blogs.
Climate-denying Indiana Regulator helps ALEC Coal Companies Delay EPA Climate Rules
Click here to see the contents of the ACCCE USB drive from ALEC's 2012 States & Nation Policy summit.
You're probably familiar with the old "fox in the hen house" story, but what about when a hen joins the fox den?
This is the case with the recent American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) meeting in Washington, DC. Leaked documents obtained by Greenpeace reveal that ALEC's anti-environmental jamboree was inundated with coal money and featured an Indiana regulator advising coal utilities on delaying US Environmental Protection Agency rules to control greenhouse gas emissions and hazardous air pollution.
At ALEC's coal-sponsored meeting, where state legislators and corporate representatives meet to create template state laws ranging from attacks on clean energy to privatization of public schools, Indiana's Commissioner of the Department of Environmental Management Tom Easterly laid out a plan to stall the US EPA global warming action in a power point clearly addressed to coal industry representatives at ALEC's meeting.
In a USB drive branded with the logo of the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity (ACCCE), a folder labeled "Easterly" contains a presentation titled "Easterly ALEC presentation 11 28 12" explaining current EPA air pollution rules and how Tom Easterly has worked to obstruct them. The power points is branded with the Indiana Department of Environmental Protection seal. In the latter presentation, Easterly ended his briefing to ALEC's dirty energy members with suggestions for delaying EPA regulation of greenhouse gas emissions at coal plants.
Easterly's presentation, which is posted on his Indiana Dept. of Environmental Mgmt commissioner webpage, even offered a template state resolution that would burden EPA with conducting a number of unnecessary cost benefit analyses (which the federal government has done through the Social Cost of Carbon analysis) in the process of controlling GHG emissions.
The template resolution Easterly presented to ALEC was created by the Environmental Council of States (ECOS), a group of state regulators that create template state resolutions similar to ALEC, often with overlapping agendas that benefit coal companies. ECOS has some questionable template state resolutions for an "Environmental" organization, including a resolution urging EPA not to classify coal ash as "hazardous." Although its less regulated than household trash, coal ash contains neurotoxins, carcinogens and radioactive elements and is stored in dangerous slurry "ponds" that can leak these dangerous toxins into our waterways.
Almost too predictably, ECOS' work is sponsored by the coal fronts like ACCCE and the Edison Electric Institute (EEI), both sponsors of the ALEC meeting where Easterly presented the ECOS model resolution. See clean air watchdog Frank O'Donnell's blog on ECOS for more.
Easterly's work, including his presentation to ALEC, is also promoted by the Midwest Ozone Group, a group whose members include ACCCE, American Electric Power and Duke Energy.
Commissioner Tom Easterly's suggestion of burdening EPA with tasks beyond its responsibility is concerning, as is his ongoing campaign to discredit the science of global warming--something he doesn't have the scientific qualifications to do. To this end, the Indiana regulator fits nicely into the coal industry's long history of denying problems they don't want to be held accountable for and delaying solutions to those problems. The same processes applied to acid rain, a problem the coal industry also denied for years--check out Greenpeace's collection of Coal Ads: Decades of Deception.
Climate Science Denial at Indiana's Department of Environmental Management
Even before Indiana's top enforcer of federal and state environmental regulations was advising coal companies on how to continuing polluting our air and water, it appears that denial of basic climate science is the state's official position on global warming--Indiana's 2011 "State of the Environment" report rehashes tired climate denier arguments such as global temperature records having "no appreciable change since about 1998." (see why this is a lie) and referencing the "medieval warm period" as false proof that current temperature anomalies are normal (they aren't, see Skeptical Science for a proper debunking). Similar arguments have apparently been presented by the Indiana government to ALEC since 2008--the ACCCE USB drive contains another Indiana power point created in 2008 full of junk climate "science." This level of scientific illiteracy is concerning, especially for the regulatory body responsible for overseeing pollution controls for the coal industry.
Remember, this isn't the Heartland Institute. It's the State of Indiana....working with the Heartland Institute, a member of ALEC's anti-environmental task force that has been central in coordinating campaigns to deny global warming. See Commissioner Easterly's full presentation to ALEC on climate "science."
ALEC States & Nation Policy Summit 2012: brought to you by King Coal
ALEC's brochure for last week's meeting shows a disproportionately large presence of coal sponsors. The brochure lists 14 sponsors, five of which are coal interests:
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American Electric Power (AEP): the second largest coal utility in the U.S. now that Duke Energy and Progress Energy have merged.
- Political spending since 2007: AEP has spent over $46.2 million on federal lobbying and $3.9 million on federal politicians and political committees.
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Peabody Energy: the world's largest private-sector coal mining company, known for its legacy of pollution and aggressive finance of climate change denial.
- Political spending since 2007: Peabody has spent over $37.9 million on federal lobbying and $690,769 on federal politicians and political committees.
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American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity (ACCCE): a coal public relations front whose members include AEP, Peabody and other ALEC-member coal interests. ACCCE's new president is Mike Duncan, former Republican National Committee chairman and founding chairman of Karl Rove's American Crossroads. ACCCE spent over $12 million on advertising during the 2012 election to promote the fantasy of "clean coal." ACCCE reportedly spent $40 million on TV and radio ads during the 2008 election and over $16 million around the 2010 election. ACCCE was caught up in a scandal when a subcontractor forged letters on behalf of senior and civil rights groups urging members of Congress to oppose national climate legislation. For more, see ACCCE on PolluterWatch.
- Political spending since 2007: ACCCE spent over $22.3 million on federal lobbying, $10 million of which was spent in 2008 alone.
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Edison Electric Institute (EEI): the primary trade association for electric utility companies, whose members include AEP, Duke Energy and numerous other members of ALEC's energy/environment task force.
- Political spending since 2007: EEI has spent over $63.7 million on federal lobbying and over $2.1 million on federal politicians and political committees.
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National Rural Electric Cooperative Association (NRECA): NRECA is the top dirty energy money contributor to federal politicians, above heavyweights like Koch Industries and ExxonMobil. Composed of over 900 rural coal interests, NRECA is known for its staunch opposition to climate change policy.
- Political spending since 2007: NRECA has spent over $23.9 million on federal lobbying and over $8.6 million on federal politicians and political committees.
$15.3 million: total federal politicians and committees spending from these groups since 2007
$194 million: total federal lobbying expenditures from these groups since 2007
The collective millions spent on federal lobbying and politicians went a long way for these five coal interest groups. Their lobbying goals included weakening 2009 climate legislation and working to interfere with US EPA rules to reduce coal pollution or greenhouse gases.
All five of these groups have recently lobbied to prevent US EPA from controlling greenhouse gas emissions under the Clean Air Act. These five interests only represent a slice of the coal interests spending money in politics, and just a few players among many in the coal, oil, gas and chemical industries that dump millions of dollars into public relations campaigns telling us that climate change is not a problem.
Report Highlights Failure of Media to Disclose Fossil Fuel Interests
Freshly released today: a report by the Checks & Balances Project examining how often top U.S. newspapers fail to attribute fossil fuel ties to organizations or people that appear news articles to promote fossil fuels, demonize clean energy or promote delay of climate change solutions. Tracking ten of the top fossil fuel front groups in 58 leading U.S. newspapers, the new report finds over 1,000 instances where ties to or funding from coal, oil and gas interests was not disclosed when including a shill group or quoting one of its "experts."
Only 6% of the time were fossil fuel ties disclosed when these top 58 newspapers reported on the ten fossil fuel front groups examined in the study. These groups wind up in the paper, on average, at least once every other day. In the five-year window the report uses, the ten front groups got at least $16 million from coal, oil and gas interests.
According to Checks & Balances:
These groups, and their proponents, have been quoted on average every other day for the past five years in 60 of the largest mainstream newspapers and publications. Despite having received millions of dollars from fossil fuel interests, such as ExxonMobil and Koch Industries, these groups’ financial ties to the fossil fuel industry are rarely mentioned.
Deniers are already taking notice--see Steven Milloy's complaints here. Steve Milloy has been a central climate denier, who was paid to shill for tobacco company Phillip Morris and oil giant Exxon before work for the Cato Institute (see below) and starting the climate denial website "JunkScience."
The ten groups that Checks & Balances examined are well-established fossil fuel apologists. Here is a roundup of watchdog sites with more information on each of these organizations' historic funding from and work for fossil fuel interests like ExxonMobil and Koch Industries (2006-2010 funding figures compiled in the Checks & Balances Project report):
American Enterprise Institute (AEI): $1.675 million from fossil fuel interests (2006-2010)
- Funding from the Koch brothers - Greenpeace
- Funding from ExxonMobil - ExxonSecrets (Greenpeace)
- More information: AEI on SourceWatch and DeSmogBlog
Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI): $88,279 from fossil fuel interests (2006-2010)
- Funding from the Koch brothers - Greenpeace
- Funding from ExxonMobil - ExxonSecrets (Greenpeace)
- More information: CEI on SourceWatch and DeSmogBlog
Cato Institute: $1.385 million from Koch/Exxon (2006-2010)
- Funding from the Koch brothers - Greenpeace (see also recent conflict between Cato and Charles Koch, one of Cato's co-founders)
- Funding from ExxonMobil - ExxonSecrets (Greenpeace)
- More information: Cato Institute on SourceWatch and DeSmogBlog
George C. Marshall Institute: $675,000 from fossil fuel interests (2006-2010)
- Funding from the Koch brothers - Greenpeace
- Funding from ExxonMobil - ExxonSecrets (Greenpeace)
- More information: Marshall Institute on SourceWatch and DeSmogBlog
Heartland Institute: $115,000 from Exxon (2006-2010, see also $25,000 grant from Charles Koch in 2011)
- Funding from the Koch brothers - Greenpeace
- Funding from ExxonMobil - ExxonSecrets (Greenpeace)
- More information: Heartland Institute on SourceWatch, DeSmogBlog and PolluterWatch
Heritage Foundation: $2.523 million from fossil fuel interests (2006-2010)
- Funding from the Koch brothers - Greenpeace
- Funding from ExxonMobil - ExxonSecrets (Greenpeace)
- More information: Heartland Institute on SourceWatch, and DeSmogBlog
Hudson Institute: $75,000 from fossil fuel interests (2006-2010)
- Funding from ExxonMobil - ExxonSecrets (Greenpeace)
- More information: Hudson Institute on SourceWatch and DeSmogBlog
Institute for Energy Research (IER): $310,000 from fossil fuel interests (2006-2010)
- Funding from the Koch brothers - Greenpeace
- Funding from ExxonMobil - ExxonSecrets (Greenpeace)
- More information: IER on SourceWatch and DeSmogBlog
Manhattan Institute: $1.38 million from fossil fuel interests (2006-2010)
- Funding from the Koch brothers - Greenpeace
- Funding from ExxonMobil - ExxonSecrets (Greenpeace)
- More information: Manhattan Institute on SourceWatch, DeSmogBlog and Media Matters
Mercatus Center: $8.06 million from fossil fuel interest (2006-2010)
- Funding from the Koch brothers - Greenpeace
- Funding from ExxonMobil - ExxonSecrets (Greenpeace)
- More information: Mercatus Center on SourceWatch and DeSmogBlog
EXPOSED: How Koch Bros Secretly Launder Donations to Dirty Front Groups
Earlier this year internal documents from the Heartland Institute, a major hub of climate change denial and right-wing extremism, were publicly leaked. The documents exposed the Heartland Institute's funders and strategies for attacking climate science, and led to a mass exodus of Heartland's corporate funders.
Today, a newly updated report based in large part on Heartland's internal documents has revealed two new insights into the way in which the anti-climate science movement has been supported and financed over the last decade.
- A billionaire named Barre Seid is the Heartland Institute's main sugar daddy. He is the "Anonymous Donor" listed in Heartland's fundraising plan who finances climate science denial operations to confuse children, the general public and policymakers over global warming. Seid has been the biggest booster behind Heartland's attacks on climate science, donating millions of dollars to keep the Heartland Institute's anti-science work afloat.
- The Koch brothers and other ultra-wealthy industrial ideologues are now hiding much of their donations to conservative political outlets through an obscure group of foundations that specialize in secrecy.
In total over $311 million has been put through twin organizations known as Donors Trust and Donors Capital Fund which share an address in Alexandria, Virginia. The people running these organizations are close to the Kochs and have numerous ties to the groups that the DONORS network funds, such as the Koch-founded Cato Institute, the Heritage Foundation, the Independent Women's Forum and the Manhattan Institute. The Kochs have a little-known foundation that only donates to these "DONORS" groups called the Knowledge & Progress Fund, according to the report detailing this network.
The report, written by a silicon Valley scientist turned public interest watchdog John Mashey, is titled "Fakexperts," and details how right-wing foundations associated with the Koch brothers, Richard Mellon Scaife, the Bradley family, and others have been using a secret finance network to support extremist right-wing groups. Most of these groups are associated with the State Policy Network, a band of corporate apologists who have made careers denying everything from the dangers of smoking cigarettes to the existence of climate change.
Some of the sketchy groups that have received big chunks of their 2010 budgets through Donors Trust and Donors Capital Fund, including top climate change science deniers:
- Americans For Prosperity Foundation got $7.6 million from DONORS groups in 2010, 43% of its budget. AFP Foundation is chaired by David Koch and has received millions in direct funding from Koch foundations since the Koch brothers founded it.
- Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow (CFACT) got $1.3 million from DONORS in 2010, 45% of its budget.
- Cornwall Alliance (through the James Partnership) got $339,500 from DONORS in 2010, 75% of its budget.
- Heartland Institute got $1.6 million from DONORS in 2010, 27% of it's budget, which came from Chicago billionaire Barre Seid (see p. 67).
- State Policy Network got 36% of its 2010 budget ($4.8 million) from DONORS. SPN members include just about every climate-denying organization and every conservative think tank in the country, including AFP and Heartland.
The twin DONORS organizations are advertised as a way for very wealthy people and corporations to remain hidden when "funding sensitive or controversial issues groups," which creates a lack of accountability that is troubling. DONORS also promises to only funnel money to groups with an extreme anti-environmental bend, so industrial billionaires need not worry about their money winding up here at Greenpeace, as Donor's Trust co-founder Whitney Ball explains:
"...if a donor names his child a successor advisor, and she wants to give to Greenpeace, we’re not going to be able to do that."
Expect to hear more about Donor's Trust and Donor's Capital Fund as we continue to track the dirty money of Koch Industries and their allies. For more, check out PBS FRONTLINE's recent dig on climate deniers in a special called Climate of Doubt, which includes descriptions of the DONORS groups from Drexel University's Robert Brulle.
Petroleum Broadcasting System's "Newshour" and the Merchants of Climate Doubt
Written by Steve Horn, crossposted from DeSmogBlog
There's an old German proverb that goes, "Whose bread I eat his song I sing."
Enter a recent spate of reportage by the Public Broadcasting System's (PBS) "Newshour." In a September 17 story titled, "Climate Change Skeptic Says Global Warming Crowd Oversells Its Message" (with a URL titled, "Why the Global Warming Crowd Oversells its Message") the Newshour "provided an unchecked platform for Anthony Watts, a virulent climate change denier funded by the Heartland Institute," as described by Forecast the Facts.
Forecast the Facts created a petition demanding that the "PBS ombudsman...immediately investigate how this segment came to be aired," stating that, "This is the kind of reporting we expect from Fox News, not PBS."
Very true, this is exactly the type of reporting we've come to expect out of Rupert Murdoch's Fox News, a cable "news" network that provides a voice for right-wing propagandists on all policy issues, including climate change denial. But perhaps expectations are too high for PBS' "Newshour" and we should've expected exactly what we got: a friendly platform for the climate change denying merchants of doubt.
What's at play here goes above and beyond a single bad story by "Newshour." Rather, it's a small piece and the result of an aggressive campaign that's been going on for nearly two decades to destroy public television in the public interest.
Based on the shift in how the "Newshour" has funded itself over the years, it's evident that the once-esteemed "MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour" streamed on the Public Broadcasting System has transformed PBS into what investigative reporter Greg Palast calls the "Petroleum Broadcasting System."
"Petroleum Broadcasting System" Sponsored by Chevron, Koch Industries, ExxonMobil, Et Al
In an October 2010 story, Palast pointed out that the "Newshour" is funded by Chevron in critiquing its softball coverage of the BP oil disaster. This led him to refer to PBS as the "Petroleum Broadcasting System."
Above and beyond funding from Chevron, "Newshour" also lists Burlington Northern Santa Fe (BNSF), owned by Warren Buffett under the auspices of Berkshire Hathaway, as a sponsor. As previously reported here on DeSmog, BNSF - the second largest freight rail company in the U.S. behind Union Pacific - is a major transporter of tar sands infrastucture to the Alberta tar sands. It's also a major mover of coal being sent to coastal terminals and exported to Asia.
BNSF also inked a deal in June 2012 with U.S. Silica Holdings Inc. to "build and run a major warehousing operation...to store sand destined for the Eagle Ford Shale." The Texas-based Eagle Ford Shale basin, like all shale basins, requires vast amounts of fracking sand (aka sillica sand) in order to tap into the gas located deep within the shale reservoir. This sand predominantly comes from western Wisconsin's "sand land," as we explained in a recent short documentary.
The San Antonio Business Journal explained the situation in-depth:
The proposed facility, scheduled to open in early 2013, will be constructed on 290 acres of land the railroad purchased late last year. It will be able to store up to 15,000 tons of sand used by drillers during the hydraulic fracturing process to release oil and gas from dense shale rock.
The Fort Worth-based railway will haul up to 40,000 tons of silica sand and other products per month to San Antonio from U.S. Silica operations in Ottawa, Ill., and Rochelle, Ill.
To top it off, Buffett himself has major personal investments in Big Oil, as we've written about on DeSmog. As of August 2011, he owned 29.1 million shares of stock in ConocoPhillips, 421,800 shares of stock in ExxonMobil, and 7.777 million shares of stock in General Electric, all three of which are involved in various aspects of the tar sands extraction industry and the shale gas extraction industry.
In sum, BNSF is cashing in big time from the shale gas boom, the tar sands boom, and the coal export boom.
Koch Industries - a major Heartland Institute funder and key behind its founding - has also funded PBS' "Nova" to the tune of $7 million. ExxonMobil has also provided funds to PBS' "Nova," "Nightly Business Report" and "Masterpiece Theatre." Both ExxonMobil and Koch Industries are among the top funders of the climate change denial machine.
The Plan: Cut Public Funding, Make PBS Rely on Fossil Fuel Industry Money
Looking at the situation more broadly, it's important to understand that PBS didn't always rely on fossil fuel industry largesse to keep itself afloat.
Rather, over the past two decades, PBS has been under attack by the Republican Party, with constant threats and a coordinated campaign to defund a network originally set up to be a public educational service via the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967.
As explained in a February 2011 ABC News story,
One of Newt Gingrich's first acts as speaker of the House in 1995 was to call for the elimination of federal funding for CPB, and for the privatization of public broadcasting. Neither attempt was successful, though it did keep the hot-button issue in the limelight for years.
During the early 2011 budget debates, ABC explained that "The House Republicans' budget would rescind any funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting -- which partially supports these two organizations -- for the remainder of the year, and zero out millions in funds after that."
President Barack Obama joined in on the attack on public television with his "bipartisan deficit commission" -- referred to as the "Catfood Commission" by FireDogLake -- calling for "eliminating funding for the CPB, estimating that it would save the government $500 million in 2015," ABC explained. His Republican Party opponent for the 2012 presidential race, Mitt Romney, has also called for the defunding of PBS.
Private funding of what was originally supposed to be a publicly-funded television station comes with its own agenda. This agenda departs from the mission set out by the 1967 Act, which deemed it "in the public interest to encourage the growth and development of public...television broadcasting, including the use of such media for instructional, educational, and cultural purposes" and said it "should be created...to afford maximum protection from extraneous interference and control."
The New York Times said it best in a May 2008 story: benevolent corporate underwriting of public television is "increasingly out of step with the...needs of corporations" as they don't "sponsor public television programs for purely philanthropic reasons."
Plenty of Money for PSYOPs Campaigns Abroad
Even PBS President Paula Kerger has internalized the message that the U.S. government is "broke," stating after the latest attempt to defund NPR by House Republicans, "While we understand the many difficult decisions appropriators must make and that the nation is facing challenging economic times, if enacted, such drastic cuts in federal funding could have a devastating effect on public television stations."
Far from being strapped for cash, though, the U.S. government has plenty of money to spend on overseas psychological operations (PSYOPs) campaigns around the world of the sort covered by DeSmog during the shale gas industry's PSYOPs revelation of November 2011.
Media scholar Bob McChesney explained this phenomenon in a March 2011 Democracy Now! appearance, during the middle of the previous round of PBS funding cuts debate in the U.S. House of Representatives:
You know, currently the United States spends roughly twice as much money bankrolling international broadcasting — Voice of America and the various Radio Martís and things like that — than it does paying for domestic public broadcasting and community broadcasting, roughly twice as much — $750 million, roughly, last year. And the idea of raising that and putting more propaganda out to sort of enhance the view of the United States vis-à-vis other nations of the world is entirely the wrong way to go.
That $750 million is more than the $500 President Obama said the U.S. could save by slashing publicly-funded media. In leiu of public funding, American citizens are being shafted with fossil fuel-funded disinformation here at home, while subsidizing it with their tax dollars abroad.
Unless we see big changes in funding for public television, it'll continue to be a standard operating procedure for outlets like PBS to transform into iterations of the newfangled "Petroleum Broadcasting System" - and to end where we began - play the game of "Whose bread I eat his song I sing."
Image Credit: Forecast the Facts
Science Denial and Andrea Saul – Romney 2012 Campaign Spokesperson
Mitt Romney press secretary Andrea Saul has attacked science through public relations campaigns with DCI Group and Tech Central Station, both financed by ExxonMobil.
INTRODUCTION:
“Gov. Romney does not think greenhouse gases are pollutants within the meaning of the Clean Air Act, and he does not believe that the EPA should be regulating them,” said Romney spokeswoman Andrea Saul. “CO2 is a naturally occurring gas. Humans emit it every time they exhale.” Politico, July 2011 .
"Romney went from believing that humans contribute to global warming, though he was uncertain how much, to saying he didn't know what contributes to global warming." Andrea Saul denied that Romney had "flip-flopped" on his climate stance, responding:
"This is ridiculous. Governor Romney's view on climate change has not changed. He believes it's occurring, and that human activity contributes to it, but he doesn't know to what extent. He opposes cap and trade, and he refused to sign such a plan when he was governor. Maybe the bigger threat is all the hot air coming from career politicians who are desperate to hold on to power."
ANDREA SAUL AND DCI GROUP
- Saul was hired March 2011 as a Romney campaign spokesperson. Today, she regularly appears in the media as the main messenger for the campaign.
- While employed with the PR firm DCI Group as an account executive between 2004-2007, Ms. Saul helped to orchestrate a multi-faceted, covert operation to undermine science, attack scientists and confuse the public and reporters.
- DCI was, at that time, contracted as lobbyists by Exxon and many other corporations. Exxon remains a DCI client today.
"Traffic to the penguin video, first posted on YouTube.com in May, got a boost from prominently placed sponsored links that appeared on the Google search engine when users typed in "Al Gore" or "Global Warming." The ads, which didn't indicate who had paid for them, were removed shortly after The Wall Street Journal contacted DCI Group on Tuesday."
- PART 1) Ms. Saul advanced the opinions of contrarian scientists and corporate-funded pundits on the Exxon-funded Tech Central Station, a purported news web site;
- PART 2) Ms. Saul sought to promote contrarian voices into the debate over hurricanes and climate change in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina;
- PART 3) Ms. Saul promoted the views of a scientist who had no training in climate change to undermine a study on climate change effects on the Antarctic ice sheet;
- PART 4) Ms. Saul led a public relations campaign to undermine scientific consensus on the science of climate change;
- PART 5) Ms. Saul pushed out press releases for a front group linked to Grover Norquist designed to undermine pending climate change legislation.
ADDITIONAL CONTENT:
(click links above to jump down to a section of the briefing)
1. Andrea Saul - Contact on Climate Change for Phony News Site, Tech Central Station
"Tech Central Station looks less like a think-tank-cum-magazine than a kind of lobbying practice. Which makes sense: Four of the five co-owners of TCS are also the co-owners of the DCI Group, the Washington public affairs firm founded by Republican operative Thomas J. Synhorst. TCS's fifth owner is Charles Francis, who is also a senior lobbyist at DCI and is listed on TCS's phone directory. And as it happens, three of TCS's sponsors--AT&T, General Motors, and PhRMA--have also retained DCI for their lobbying needs. (Both DCI's spokeswoman and TCS's chief executive officer declined to be interviewed for this article. However, after I requested comment, the Web site was changed. Where it formerly stated that 'Tech Central Station is published by Tech Central Station, L.L.C.,' it now reads 'Tech Central Station is published by DCI Group, L.L.C.')"Like its publishing arm, DCI's business is to influence elite opinion in Washington. But instead of publishing articles, DCI specializes in what's known as 'corporate-financed grass-roots organizing,' such as setting up front groups to agitate for a client's position, placing letters to the editor with key newspapers, and using phone banks to generate calls to politicians. TCS, for its part, includes a disclaimer on its site noting that 'the opinions expressed on these pages are solely those of the writers and not necessarily those of any corporation or other organization.' But it is startling how often the opinions of TCS's writers and sponsors converge."
2. DCI Tech Central Station - Campaign on Link Between Hurricanes and Climate Change
"There’s a lot of debate as to what’s been causing all of these hurricanes. Some scientists say it’s part of a naturally occurring cycle, while others have made the claim global warming is to blame."Dr. William Gray and Dr. James O’Brien, two of the nation’s top weather and oceans scientists, point to scientific data for the answer [...]."Gray and many of his colleagues believe it’s not global warming that’s creating these massive hurricanes, but the cycle of nature itself."
"Trends in human-influenced environmental changes are now evident in hurricane regions. These changes are expected to affect hurricane intensity and rainfall, but the effect on hurricane numbers remains unclear. The key scientific question is not whether there is a trend in hurricane numbers and tracks, but rather how hurricanes are changing."
"My results suggest that future warming may lead to an upward trend in tropical cyclone destructive potential, and—taking into account an increasing coastal population—a substantial increase in hurricane-related losses in the twenty-first century."
“Coming off one of the most devastating hurricane seasons in recent memory, many are quick to blame the strength and frequency of these storms on global warming. Leading climate scientists, however, say there is no link between increased storm activity and a massive change in global climate.”
- James J. O’Brien, director of the Center for Ocean-Atmospheric Prediction Studies, Florida State University – As an expert in oceanography and weather, Dr. O’Brien appeared to have little to no expertise in climate change according to his CV of published studies.
- Roy Spencer, Research Scientist at the University of Alabma – Spencer has long been a denier of anthropogenic global warming and has been affiliated with many contrarian groups including the George C. Marshall Institute.
- Patrick Michaels, Professor of Environmental Science at the University of Virginia – A denier of anthropogenic global warming, Dr. Michaels has maintained strong ties to several denialist and front groups for oil and gas interests including the Cato Institute and the Greening Earth Society.
- George Taylor, Manager of the Oregon Climate Service at the University of Oregon – With no training in climate change or hurricanes, Taylor’s job was “to help advise Oregon farmers, fishermen, skiers and motorists about likely weather conditions, both short- and long-term” (Jeff Wright, Eugene Register-Guard, Feb. 22, 2008).
- Anthony R. Lupo, Associate Professor of Atmospheric Science at the University of Missouri – A global warming denier and conservative activist, Lupo has been affiliated with numerous denialist organizations including the Science and Environmental Policy Project, the Heartland Institute, and the Marshall Institute (see also Dr. Lupo's resume).
3. Andrea Saul - Promoting the Views of a Non-expert Expert
"TCSDaily Science Roundtable member and Oregon state climatologist George Taylor, expressed his concern over the legitimacy of recent claims that the Antarctic ice sheet is melting. The Washington Post article titled 'Antarctic Ice Sheet Is Melting Rapidly' (www.washingtonpost.com/wp- dyn/content/article/2006/03/02/AR2006030201712.html) looked to Taylor to provide an expert view on the validity of a recent study published in Science magazine on global warming."
4. Andrea Saul - Led Campaign to Undermine Scientific Consensus on Climate Change Science
5. Andrea Saul - Work with Grover Norquist Front Group, United For Jobs
"Today United for Jobs (UFJ) warned that federal legislation to impose a so-called "windfall profits tax" on U.S. oil companies would have a severe economic impact on public employee trust funds. The Missouri Highway Patrol Retirement System, the Public School Employees' Retirement System of Missouri, the Missouri State Employees' Retirement System, and other public retirement funds could lose as much as $325 million per year in foregone gains, according to a recent study by the Investors Action Foundation (http://www.windfallprofitstax.org/)."
Leaked Document: DCI, Heartland Institute and Exxon plan attacks on Clean Air Act
- American Council for Capital Formation
- American Enterprise Institute
- American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC)
- Black Chamber of Commerce
- Cato Institute
- Center for Science and Policy
- Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI)
- CRA International
- Frontiers of Freedom
- George C. Marshall Institute
- Manhattan Institute
- National Taxpayers Union Foundation (NTUF)
- Phoenix Strategies
{cke_protected}
DCI Group former staff within Romney 2012 campaign:
“(announced Feb. 15, 2010) A vice president with DCI Group, May 2007-Feb. 2010. Communications director on Romney's presidential campaign, Jan. 2007-March 2008. A deputy communications director in charge of research for the RNC during the 2006 election cycle. Research director for the 2004 Bush/Cheney re-election campaign. Deputy research director at the RNC, 2003-04. White House Liaison at the U.S. Office of Personnel Management in the Bush Administration, and earlier an Associate Director in the White House Presidential Personnel Office. B.A. from Syracuse University, 1997; and an M.A. from The George Washington University, 1999.”
“announced March 3, 2011 as communications advisor to Free and Strong America PAC) Press Secretary for Carly Fiorina’s U.S. Senate race in California. Communications director for Gov. Charlie Crist during his recent U.S. Senate run but resigned in April 2010 upon his decision to switch party affiliation. Press secretary to U.S Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) during much of 2009. Director of media affairs for McCain-Palin, responsible for organizing all television, radio and surrogate activity. Director of media affairs at the Republican National Committee, 2007-08. Associate account executive at DCI Group, 2005-07. Graduate of Vanderbilt University, 2004. twitter”
“(June 2011) M.B.A. in finance, accounting from Rice University, 2011. A director at DCI Group, 2007-09. Deputy director of research on John McCain 2008 in 2007. Special assistant for strategic initiatives in the Office of Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, 2005-06. B.A. in English literature from The Johns Hopkins University, 2000.”
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